What makes the politics of resentment flourish in Wisconsin and Louisiana (original) (raw)
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Examining the politics of resentment in rural Wisconsin and Alberta
Rural Americans and Canadians are feeling politically alienated and angry in ways that go beyond ideological preference, age, or income level. This anger and discontent yields a politics of resentment. This paper argues that ethnographic case studies can provide scholars with deep insights into the politics of resentment in rural areas. Employing a method of listening in rural Wisconsin and Alberta will help us understand the sources of discontent and frustration in rural communities.
2018
JORDAN LOUIS KITCHENS. Fear and Loathing in the Heartland: Status Insufficiency, Resentment, and the Future of American Democracy (Under the direction of DR. JOSEPH DIPPONG) The current technological and economic transformations spurred by globalization are having detrimental effects on White rural communities' social status. The statuspower theory of social relations predicts that status insufficiency results in negative emotions. To remedy these negative emotions White rural residents are devaluing those they hold responsible for their current despair. To understand this phenomena more thoroughly, I utilize 2012 American National Election Survey (ANES) data to model geographic place of residence, racial resentment, and egalitarian attitudes. Results
The Dynamics of Racial Resentment across the 50 US States
Perspectives on Politics, 2019
Although many scholars who study the role of racial animus in Americans’ political attitudes and policy preferences do so to help us understand national-level politics, (racialized) policy is largely shaped at the state level. States are laboratories of policy innovation whose experiments can exacerbate or ameliorate racial inequality. In this article, we develop state-level scores of racial resentment. By using linear multilevel regression and poststratification weighting techniques and by linking nationally representative survey data with US Census data, we create time-varying, dynamic state-level estimates of racial resentment from 1988 to 2016. These measures enable us to explore the extent to which subnational levels of racial attitudes fluctuate over time and to provide a comparative analysis of state-level racial resentment scores across space and time. We find that states’ levels of racial animus change slowly, with some exhibiting increases over time while others do just th...
A Resentment of Disappointment for the Politics of Resentment
2020
Prejudicial beliefs are often associated with ignorance. Indeed, common views of prejudice hold that it is precisely in their ignorance that those with prejudicial beliefs perpetrate a wrong to the victim of the prejudicial belief. This view of prejudice neatly accounts for the prejudices of epistemically culpable epistemic agents. But what about cases where a prejudice is held by an epistemically exculpable epistemic agent? This paper presents an example of a deeply prejudiced belief about Indigenous Peoples, taken from a recent ethnography of rural Wisconsin, and argues that it is epistemically exculpable. If it is indeed epistemically exculpable, then we need to look beyond the individual when directing our blame for the prejudicial belief; we can only be disappointed in the circumstances that enable an epistemic agent to be epistemically exculpable for expressing such a belief
Race and White Rural Consciousness
Perspectives on Politics, 2021
The concept of rural consciousness has gained a significant amount of traction over the past several years, as evidenced by hundreds of citations and its inclusion within the most recent pilot of the ANES. However, many have questioned whether rural consciousness is appreciably different from racial prejudice. We assessed this issue by distributing a survey study to Wisconsinites living in rural and urban communities, and by examining the relationships between rural consciousness, racial resentment, and political attitudes in the ANES 2019 Pilot Study. The survey study revealed that participants living in rural parts of Wisconsinunlike those living in urban parts-tended to think of city dwellers as possessing more negative attributes. In addition, the survey study revealed that rural participants thought of Milwaukeeans, specifically, as possessing stereotypically Black attributes. Moreover, this tendency was starker among those who scored higher on a measure of rural consciousness, suggesting that rural consciousness is related to racial stereotyping. Finally, in an analysis of the ANES 2019 Pilot Study, we found that rural consciousness correlated with racial resentment, and that controlling for racial resentment dramatically reduced the extent to which rural consciousness could predict political preferences (e.g., approval for Donald Trump). Thus, while white rural consciousness may not be reducible to racism, racism certainly plays a central role.
Geographies of Organized Hate in America: A Regional Analysis
Annals of the American Association of Geographers , 2018
Hate in the United States today is narrowly understood but widely used as a politically charged term. Recently, political blame-placing on outsiders such as immigrants has bred a climate of hate and provided fuel for organizations that promote hostility toward others based on marginal group identification. This study investigates patterns of hate groups across space and their drivers with respect to socioeconomic and ideological variables for counties in the United States. Linear and spatial filtering with eigenvector (SFE) models are used to infer relationships between socioeconomic and ideological variables and the number of hate groups within U.S. counties. Additionally, geographically weighted regression (GWR) is used to identify spatial patterns of those relationships. We find that distinct regions of hate can be delineated with variations of hate group activity according to the independent and control variables employed.
2007
This study assesses whether racial and ethnic resentments still influence U.S. politics. Tests of hypotheses derived from minority threat theory and minority voting power stipulating quadratic relationships between minority presence and roll call votes for liberal legislation in the House of Representatives are conducted. In addition to these nonlinear associations, the political influence of the most menacing crime the public blames on underclass minorities is assessed as well. Fixed-effects estimates based on analyses of 1,152 state-years in the post-civil rights era indicate that the expected Ushaped relationships are present between minority population size and roll call votes for liberal legislation. Additional findings suggest that expansions in the murder rates produced decreased support for liberal policies. Statements by Republican campaign officials on how they deliberately used mass resentments against minorities to gain normally Democratic votes provide evidence about the intervening connections between the threat to white dominance posed by larger minority populations and reduced support for liberal legislation.
American Journal of Sociology, 2007
This study assesses whether racial and ethnic resentments still influence U.S. politics. Tests of hypotheses derived from minority threat theory and minority voting power stipulating quadratic relationships between minority presence and roll call votes for liberal legislation in the House of Representatives are conducted. In addition to these nonlinear associations, the political influence of the most menacing crime the public blames on underclass minorities is assessed as well. Fixed-effects estimates based on analyses of 1,152 state-years in the post-civil rights era indicate that the expected Ushaped relationships are present between minority population size and roll call votes for liberal legislation. Additional findings suggest that expansions in the murder rates produced decreased support for liberal policies. Statements by Republican campaign officials on how they deliberately used mass resentments against minorities to gain normally Democratic votes provide evidence about the intervening connections between the threat to white dominance posed by larger minority populations and reduced support for liberal legislation.