Person: Gay, Claudine
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Gay, Claudine
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Publication Americans' Belief in Linked Fate: Does the Measure Capture the Concept?(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2016) Gay, Claudine; Hochschild, Jennifer; White, ArielFor decades, scholars have attributed Black Americans' unified political and policy views, despite growing internal class and status differences, to a strong perception of linked fate. In recent years, the concept has been measured in other racial and ethnic groups and with regard to gender, but not applied to social statuses such as class or religion. Without broad comparisons across groups and different statuses, however, one cannot determine the appropriate empirical test or most distinctive correlates of this canonical construct. Using a new national survey, we examine Americans' views of linked fate by race or ethnicity, and also by gender, class, or religion. We find expressions of linked fate to be similar across racial or ethnic groups, robust to experimental manipulation, and as strong for class as for racial or ethnic identity. Intra-individual correlations on linked fate items are very high, while a sense of linked fate is rarely associated with political views or political participation. Expressions of linked fate are not always closely related to feelings of closeness to one's group or perceptions of discrimination against that group. We speculate on the broader meaning of responses to this standard item, and conclude that the enormously fruitful theory of racial linked fate is due for further conceptual development and empirical experimentation.Publication Knowledge Matters: Policy Cross-Pressures and Black Partisanship(Springer Verlag, 2014) Gay, ClaudineBlack Americans are a core Democratic constituency, despite holding views on social issues that put them in conflict with the party. Conventional wisdom attributes this partisan commitment to the salience of race and concerns about racial inequality. This paper considers whether the Democratic bias derives in part from low levels of political knowledge. Using data from the 2004 National Annenberg Election Study, this paper examines how political knowledge moderates the relationship between social issue cross-pressures and partisan attitudes among Black Americans. I demonstrate that the extent to which Democratic allegiance persists despite policy disagreements depends on whether blacks are sufficiently knowledgeable to act on their policy views, and not simply on the importance that blacks assign to their racial commitments. It is only among politically knowledgeable Black Americans that social issue cross-pressures are at all politically consequential; for them, Democratic partisanship is resilient but not immune to policy disagreements. For blacks with low levels of political knowledge, partisan support is unaffected by policy disagreements. This pattern is most pronounced among religiously active Black Evangelicals, for whom social issues are highly salient.Publication Moving to Opportunity: the Political Effects of a Housing Mobility Experiment(Sage Publications, 2012) Gay, ClaudineIn 1994, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development launched the Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Program (MTO), a lottery that offered poor families vouchers to move out of public housing into private apartments. Drawing on recently collected vote history data, this study reveals that MTO has had the unintended consequence of reducing voter turnout among participating adults. The low turnout may be due to the loss of social ties that accompanied mobility. The findings suggest that residential mobility, a popular tool in the fight against poverty, may strain poor Americans’ weak ties to the political system.Publication Seeing Difference: The Effect of Economic Disparity on Black Attitudes Toward Latinos(Blackwell Publishing, 2006) Gay, ClaudineRapid growth in the size of the Latino population has increased the ethnic diversity of urban neighborhoods, transforming the residential experiences of many black Americans. The competition for scarce resources is considered a central force in black-Latino relations and a source of anti-Latino sentiment among blacks. This article examines how the level and the distribution of economic resources within diverse areas affect black attitudes toward Latinos. Drawing on a multilevel dataset of individual racial attitudes and neighborhood characteristics, the analysis reveals that the relative economic status of racial groups is an important influence on black attitudes. In environments where Latinos are economically advantaged relative to their black neighbors, blacks are more likely to harbor negative stereotypes about Latinos, to be reluctant to extend to Latinos the same policy benefits they themselves enjoy, and to view black and Latino economic and political interests as incompatible. While the results suggest that diversity without conflict is possible, they make clear that the prospects for intergroup comity depend on some resolution of blacks' economic insecurities.Publication Legislating Without Constraints: The Effect of Minority Districting on Legislators' Responsiveness to Constituency Preferences(Cambridge University Press, 2007) Gay, ClaudineNumerous critics have charged that the practice of minority districting, by weakening the electoral incentives central to representative behavior, leads legislators to be less responsive to constituency opinion. Using data on referenda and initiative voting to estimate constituency preferences in each of California's 80 Assembly districts, I assess the correspondence between district opinion and roll call voting for legislators from majority-minority and majority-white districts. I show that constituency preferences can explain the voting decisions of legislators equally well across districts. Despite the low levels of competition and voter turnout found in majority-minority districts, legislators from these districts are no less responsive to the policy demands of their constituents.