This study examines the factors that influence the use of declination powers by U.S. Attorney Offices (USAO) in Indian Country (IC) cases. The research aims to shed light on the tribal law enforcement factors that influence the actions of USAOs in IC cases. The study utilizes the “National Caseload Data” to identify crimes that occurred in IC and whether the USAO declined to prosecute a case. The findings suggest tribes with larger law enforcement forces and external funding to improve their criminal justice system have significantly lower rates of declination. The study also examines the effects of the Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA) on the rates of declination of IC cases. The findings suggest there are clear differences in these effects as a function of the passage of TLOA. Overall, this study contributes to the ongoing discourse on the challenges and opportunities in the criminal justice system in IC.

How do race, ethnicity, and gender shape a legislator’s approach to bill sponsorship and cosponsorship? This paper examines how institutional marginalization influences the legislative strategies of racial and gender minority representatives. Constrained by systemic barriers that limit their ability to sponsor legislation, minority legislators prioritize cosponsorship to achieve policy goals, build coalitions, and demonstrate responsiveness to their constituencies. Using the quasi-experimental context of the 2016 and 2018 U.S. congressional elections, I apply the synthetic difference-in-differences estimator and find that minority legislators sponsor fewer bills but cosponsor significantly more than their non-Hispanic White counterparts. Additionally, race-gendered effects reveal that women of color sponsor significantly less legislation than non-minority legislators and men of color. These patterns cannot be explained by factors like freshman status or primary election competitiveness. The findings highlight the strategic adaptations of minority legislators to navigate structural inequities and amplify their legislative influence. This study is the first to use a causal inference approach to explore the intersection of race, gender, and sponsorship and cosponsorship of congressional bills, contributing to a deeper understanding of legislative behavior among marginalized groups.

On January 6, 2021, the belief that voter fraud was to blame for Trump’s 2020 loss led thousands of people to storm the Capitol during election certification, aiming to occupy it by force to stop this process. While only thousands participated, millions more voiced their support for the insurrection, and this begs the question: What explains perceptions of voter fraud and support for the January 6 insurrection? Recent studies establish that White conservatives are more likely to believe that voter fraud is a rampant problem, linking these perceptions to state efforts to expand access to voting systems where racial minority groups stand to gain equality. Using a combination of pre-election, post-election, and post-insurrection survey data, we examine the link between White racial attitudes and perceptions of voter fraud and views toward the insurrection. We argue that White racial attitudes are pivotal in explaining the perceptions of voter fraud that led to the January 6 insurrection. We find that White Americans with a bias for their own racial in-group over racial out-groups are likelier to doubt the election results after Donald Trump was declared the loser, though not before. We find these same attitudes are statistically associated with sympathy for the insurrection and insurrectionists.

Different participatory mechanisms for the representation of Indigenous peoples have been proposed across states. Since their creation in 1867, the Māori electorates in the national Parliament have led to dedicated representation for Māori (Indigenous peoples of New Zealand). However, only half of Māori choose to vote on the Māori roll, the remainder choosing to vote on the General roll, illustrating that roll choice is not based simply on group representation. This survey aimed to ask Māori (N = 1,958) in their own words why they made their roll choice. Through a deductive codebook thematic analysis, a range of codes were constructed around the reasoning behind roll choice. Māori on the Māori roll made their choice because they valued Māori representation; as an expression of their identity; to support the electorates; as a strategic choice; or they had been influenced by others or through education. Those on the General roll felt their roll was the default or a more familiar option; the Māori roll had less of an impact; it was a strategic choice, or they appreciated greater candidate variety; or they valued the smaller geographic electorate size. Some felt Māori no longer needed separate representation or felt less connected to their identity as Māori. The results have implications for both Māori and Indigenous representation through dedicated representational mechanisms.

Widespread claims of voter fraud following the 2020 election were leveraged in an attempt to overturn the result. While many studies have focused on White Americans’ acceptance of these claims, few have examined the responses of Americans of color. This study explores how racial civic pride influences attitudes toward voter fraud claims among different racial groups. We turn to the 2020 CMPS and find that for Black, Latino, and Asian Americans, increased racial civic pride correlates with reduced belief in voter fraud. In contrast, White Americans with higher racial civic pride are more likely to believe such claims. This divergence is evident across all partisan groups. For non-White Americans, racial civic pride is tied to historical struggles for voting rights and racial justice, with voter fraud allegations threatening these values. Conversely, for White Americans, high racial civic pride is linked to preserving their dominance and status. Finally, we find that voter fraud beliefs are not without consequence: they diminish trust in electoral democracy, result in greater support for restrictive electoral policies, and increase support for future violence. Together, these results highlight the differential influence of race and racial civic pride on Americans’ democratic beliefs.

This paper asserts that critiques of political science for neglecting Indigenous politics highlight a critical gap that risks overlooking significant conceptual and practical innovations. It emphasizes how Indigenous autonomy claims challenge traditional notions of sovereignty. Scholars of Indigenous politics in Latin America, publishing in area studies journals, provide essential insights into these autonomy claims and contribute valuable perspectives to the discipline. We identify rigorous scholarly work in English language, peer-reviewed journals exploring Indigenous autonomy, conceptualizing it as a multifaceted notion that encompasses political visions, practices, and social movement agendas. Through a comprehensive meta-analysis of literature in Latin American area studies, we argue that this field offers four fundamental insights. First, Indigenous peoples deploy diverse strategies to assert their rights, positioning themselves as active citizens and political agents rather than passive groups. Second, the emergence of multicultural institutions that integrate individual and collective rights is fundamentally reshaping politics and citizenship, leading to innovative governance structures. Third, accumulation by dispossession remains a crucial driver of wealth creation, severely undermining Indigenous autonomy and degrading their environments. Finally, a renewed emphasis on Indigenous territorial autonomy decisively challenges conventional views of state sovereignty, as Indigenous peoples assert territorial and nonterritorial rights.

How closely related are modern anti-democratic beliefs among white Americans, and to what extent are these beliefs shaped by exclusionary racial attitudes? Using data from the Political Unrest Study, the Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape, and the Survey of the Performance of American Elections (SPAE), we find that support for voting restrictions, opposition to voting expansions, belief in widespread voter fraud, and support for overturning democratic election results load onto a single underlying dimension. While the prevalence of anti-democratic beliefs among white Americans has remained stable over the past decade, these beliefs have become increasingly interconnected. Furthermore, racial attitudes towards out-groups—including racial resentment, anti-immigrant sentiment, and white racial grievance—strongly correlate with anti-democratic beliefs, whereas in-group racial attitudes do not. Analysis of multiple waves of the American National Election Studies (ANES) reveals that racial resentment and white grievance now explain twice as much variation in anti-democratic beliefs as they did in 2012. Experimental evidence also demonstrates that white Americans react negatively to voting expansions when the racial implications of these reforms are made explicit. These findings underscore the growing alignment between anti-democratic beliefs and racial attitudes in contemporary U.S. politics.

What factors explain Latino support for conspiracy theories? Contemporary scholarship offers valuable insights on how psychological, social, and political factors shape support for conspiracy theories. At the same time, scholarly understanding of the dynamics that foster conspiracy beliefs among racial and ethnic minorities is much more limited. Utilizing survey responses from more than 1,000 Latinos, we theorize explicitly about the factors that explain their support for conspiracies. Consistent with the scholarship highlighting in-group diversity among Latinos, we reveal significant differences among Latinos in their propensity to harbor conspiracy beliefs. Some of the factors that influence their support for conspiratorial statements align with the broader literature, other results appear unique to Latino Americans. Religiosity, lack of trust in institutions, and conservative political ideology are associated with higher levels of conspiracy beliefs among Latinos. We also find that Latinos from later generations, those who consume Spanish media, and who disagree that Latinos face discrimination and White privilege exists are more likely to believe in certain conspiracy theories.

Prior research shows that the pro-Trump, anti-democratic January 6th insurrection (J6) led to a short-term reduction in Republican support for President Trump. However, it remains unclear why the anti-Trump backlash occurred among his electoral base. We theorize that white Republicans concerned about the declining status of Anglo whites in the American ethno-racial hierarchy were the least likely to backlash against Trump after J6. Leveraging an unexpected-event-during-survey design (UESD) and a large survey fielded shortly before and after J6, we find no difference in support for Trump due to J6 among white Republicans who strongly perceived anti-white discrimination (Study 1). We replicate this result with another UESD with a separate survey fielded during J6 (Study 2) and a difference-in-differences approach with additional panel surveys fielded around J6 (Study 3). Moreover, across four cross-sectional surveys, we find the negative relationship between J6 disapproval and Trump support post-J6 between 2021 and 2024 is attenuated among status-threatened white Republicans (Studies 4–7). Our evidence suggests racial status threat undercuts the ability of the white Republican mass public to hold co-partisan anti-democratic elites accountable for norm violations.

This paper explores whether attitudes toward ethnic nationalism among Black and Asian Americans influence attitudes toward the Black Lives Matter Movement. Acceptance of a nationalist ideology typically makes an individual animus towards outgroups. Moreover, ethnic/Black nationalism is known to flare in times of perceived intense oppression. Given current racial tensions in the United States, we are interested in examining factors that may help facilitate alliance-building between Black and Asian Americans—two nonwhite groups that exist on different planks of the U.S. racial hierarchy. We begin by recounting historical and contemporary instances of Afro-Asian solidarity and conflict. This is followed by a review of past theoretical articulation and empirical research on nationalist ideology within each community. We develop a set of group-specific indicators of ethnic nationalism for Black and Asian Americans from the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey. Our results show clear evidence that being sympathetic to ethnic nationalism can unite rather than divide the two racialized communities in their attitudes toward present-day projects such as the Black Lives Matter Movement.

The January 6th insurrection at the U.S. capital was an eye-opening moment for many Americans. With the 2024 election cycle in swing, members of the Democratic Party are using January 6th as a rallying call for the need to protect democracy. But were the events of January 6th viewed equally among liberals? We argue that the events of January 6th resonate for a particular demographic well-informed liberal White voters. We argue that liberal minority voters will feel the racial undertones of January 6th more than White liberals. Furthermore, we examine how voters of different races viewed the events of January 6th and how views on race relations impact their perceptions of January 6th. We find that White liberals are less angry about race relations in the aftermath of January 6th, and while they viewed January 6th as an insurrection and blamed Trump and Republicans in Congress for their role, they are less likely to say that racism and White Supremacy motivated the insurrectionists. This paper indicates that race plays a key role in political perceptions, even among those who hold similar political ideologies.

This paper investigates the increasing, but complex, support for reparations among Democratic elected officials—highlighting their tendency to endorse the concept while deferring discussion of policy details. This strategic ambiguity is common in policy discourse and can be embedded within policy design, such as legislative proposals to create commissions tasked with studying and recommending future actions on reparations. The effectiveness of these reparations commissions is uncertain. They could represent productive steps toward genuine reparations or simply serve to alleviate political pressure without any substantial policy changes. We explore these potential outcomes in three inter-related analyses: a compilation and comparison of all bills mentioning slavery reparations introduced at the federal and state level, the first nationally representative public opinion poll asking about support for reparations commissions, and a content analysis of legislative bill texts establishing reparations commissions. Our findings suggest that while reparations commissions offer an effective way for Democratic policymakers to manage conflicting constituency pressures in the short term, their potential to propel forward, rather than stall, the reparations debate hinges on their design and execution.

This paper examines the impact of demographic change on political perceptions, specifically attitudes toward the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Utilizing data from the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, we explore how changes in county-level nonwhite populations influence whether individuals label the event as a protest or an insurrection. Our findings reveal a curvilinear relationship: respondents in counties with moderate increases in nonwhite populations are more likely to view the event as an insurrection, while those in counties with substantial increases tend to see it as a protest. This pattern holds across racial groups but is primarily driven by respondents who did not vote for President Trump. The study shows the broader implications of demographic shifts on political stability and social cohesion, highlighting how changes in racial and ethnic composition shape interpretations of major political events. These insights are crucial for understanding voter behavior and political messaging in the 2024 presidential election.

Discrimination is widely studied, with extensive research measuring discrimination on the housing and labor markets. This study examines how local governments address this well-documented issue, by conducting content analysis on 45 policy documents and by performing semi-structured in-depth interviews with 24 alder(wo)men and diversity officers across nine Belgian cities. We introduce a temporal framework combining why, what, how, and when local anti-discrimination policy and actions are established. Such a framework is useful, as we do not approach policy as fixed, but pay attention to how actions evolve over time, even within one so-called anti-discrimination policy.This enables scholars and policymakers to identify decision-making patterns, predict changes over time, and understand contextual influences. Besides, unlike existing models rooted in integration or diversity policy, our framework captures the unique aspects of anti-discrimination policy, enabling a thorough understanding of the (non-)adoption of concrete anti-discrimination actions.

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio—the former Afro-Latino leader of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group—positioned himself as a prominent leader of the January 6 insurrection. Our current understanding of Latine politics, and ethnoracial politics more broadly, would call this a striking paradox. Tarrio’s views highlight that Latines’ view of their place in the ethnoracial hierarchy can vary. We argue that an understudied phenomenon, aspirational status, particularly on ethno-cultural and socioeconomic dimensions, can help us understand variation in Latines’ attitudes and behaviors. While some Latines may adopt a minoritized status and align themselves closer to ethnoracial minorities, others may align themselves closer to whites. We explore how these forms of aspirational status, as well as racial resentment, impact Latines’ political attitudes toward the January 6 insurrection. Using the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), we find that Latines who aspire to a higher ethno-cultural status that approximates whiteness, as well as those who aspire to a higher socioeconomic status and who distance themselves from Black Americans, are more likely to be supportive of the insurrection. This paper contributes to the overall understanding of the heterogeneity of Latine political attitudes and illustrates the role of status in shaping political attitudes among Latines.

Research on campaign finance suggests that Americans prefer candidates who are not funded by Political Action Committees (PACs). However, prior research has not examined how perceptions of a candidate who is PAC-funded vs. PAC-free might differ for racial minority and female candidates compared to White, male candidates. Using experimental vignettes, we test the causal impact of PAC funding, race, and gender on voter perceptions of the candidate. We find that refusing PAC funds, for example, is associated with appearing more ethical and more likely to work for voters’ interests over special interests, less corrupt, and more capable of winning elections. However, we show that race, more than gender, interacts with PAC funding to impact voter perceptions. We find that White female and male candidates benefit the most from PAC refusal. While Black female and male candidates receive little or no significant change in perceptions, Black PAC-funded candidates are perceived favorably compared to White PAC-funded candidates. Our results have implications for White and Black political candidates considering their funding strategies. Additionally, we contribute to existing literature by showing that refusing PAC funds status does not signal the same qualities for all candidates.

The January 6th insurrection and its aftermath of obfuscation and denial were ostensibly racialized events. Under the guise of election fraud, white supremacists, white nationalists, and paramilitary groups attempted to overthrow established democratic procedures to retain a president who stoked racial antagonisms and racial divisions. African Americans, like many American citizens, watched in fear, anxiety, and foreboding as the groups most committed to their repression violently attacked and ransacked the Capitol.

We examine the extent to which the January 6th insurrection and its aftermath of denial and obfuscation influence African Americans’ racial resentment. Our results show how the racialized January 6th events were connected to heightened African American racial resentment. The most compelling result confirms that African Americans’ racial resentment stems from beliefs about justice and fairness.

While the majority of 2021 Capitol insurrection participants were white men, the media prominently highlighted the involvement of male conservative activists of color. However, we still know little about the perspectives of men in the general public regarding this event in our nation’s history, particularly across racial/ethnic and other identity groups. This project examines the influence of racialized anger and racial efficacy on self-identified male views toward the 2021 Capitol insurrection across racial/ethnic groups. We utilize the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), which was the only national, post-election dataset to yield responses on the Capitol insurrection across a large number of identity groups like men of color. Using the CMPS, we hypothesize that the level of racialized anger and racial efficacy will impact attitudes toward the 2021 Capitol insurrection for men across racial groups comparing men of color and their white male counterparts. We find racial anger has a negative effect on political attitudes about the 2021 Capitol insurrection across all groups of men, while racial efficacy has varied effects on certain men of color groups in comparison to white men. This paper underscores the importance of intersectionality in the study of public opinion formation and the effect of political attitudes like racial efficacy and racialized anger on non-traditional political engagement.

Political self-efficacy, the civic duty to vote, and a homogeneous political atmosphere have been identified as important antecedents of turnout. However, little is known about how they explain voting behavior among minorities, who have an inherent motivation to protect their minority rights. In this article, I examine how belonging to a minority, political self-efficacy, the civic duty to vote, and a shared party identification are connected to intentions to vote. Analyzing nationally representative panel data in a structural equation model, I compare Swedish-speaking minority adolescents and Finnish-speaking majority adolescents—groups that mainly share similar background characteristics in all but language and their minority or majority status. According to the results, the significantly higher voting intentions found among the minority can partly be derived from their higher level of political self-efficacy. The unilingually Swedish-speaking adolescents also seem to benefit from their more pronounced and homogenous political atmosphere.