Race and poverty matters: Black and Latino linked fate, neighborhood effects, and political participation

ABSTRACT

We examine if and how race and contextual poverty, among other neighborhood effects, impact Black and Latino/a rates of political participation. To do so, we expand upon questions at the intersection of Cohen and Dawson’s [1993. “Neighborhood Poverty and African American Politics.” The American Political Science Review 87: 286–302.] highly-cited study of neighborhood poverty’s impact upon African American political participation and Dawson’s [1994. Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African American Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.] seminal study of Black linked fate. Our analysis of Black and Latino/a subsamples of the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Study (CMPS) data yields three principle findings. First, somewhat contrary to Cohen and Dawson [1993. “Neighborhood Poverty and African American Politics.” The American Political Science Review 87: 286–302.], we find contextual poverty has no statistically significant effect upon African American political participation; however, we find it significantly and negatively effects Latino/a political participation. This may speak to how contemporary forms of economic segregation impact Latino/a communities. Second, we find linked fate has positive and statistically significant effects upon Black and Latino/a political participation, which reinforces Dawson’s [1994. Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African American Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.] previous findings. And third, beyond the scope of the aforementioned works, we find that face-to-face neighbor interactions positively and significantly promote Black and Latino/a political participation. In conclusion, we discuss how, despite changing political and economic contexts, Dawson’s work remains relevant for understanding Black (and Latino/a) political participation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In unreported results we find that neither the variables of linked fate nor talks-to-neighbors explained African American voting in the 2016 presidential election, and only talks-to-neighbors was significantly related to an increased likelihood of Latino voting.