Diversity in Democracy:
Minority Representation in the United States |
| Edited by Gary M. Segura and Shaun Bowler |
| 304 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 |
| 39 tables, 2 maps, 2 charts |
| Cloth ISBN 0-8139-2337-9 • $49.50 |
| Paper ISBN 978-0-8139-2338-3 • $22.50 |
| Race,
Ethnicity, and Politics |
| Paper edition available December 2006 |
 |
As the racial and ethnic minority population of the United States
grows past 30 percent, candidates cannot afford to ignore the
minority vote. The studies collected in Diversity in Democracy
show that political scientists, too, must fully recognize the
significance of minority-representation studies for our understanding
of the electoral process in general.
If anything has limited such inquiry in the past, it has been
the tendency for researchers to address only a single group or
problem, yielding little that can be applied to other contexts.
Diversity in Democracy avoids this limitation by examining several
aspects of representation, including both Latino and African American
perspectives, and a wide range of topics, ranging from the dynamics
of partisanship to various groups’ perceptions of the political
system. The result is a work that pulls together decades of disparate
work into a broad and cohesive overview of minority representation.
The most significant conclusion to emerge from this multifaceted
examination is the overwhelming importance of context. There is
no single strategic key, but taken together, these studies begin
to map the strategies, institutions, and contexts that enhance
or limit minority representation. In navigating the complexities
of minority politics, moreover, the book reveals much about American
representative democracy that pertains to all of us.
Contributors
Susan A. Banducci, Texas Tech University * Matt A. Barreto, University
of California, Irvine * Shaun Bowler, University of California,
Riverside * Todd Donovan, Western Washington University * Luis
Ricardo Fraga, Stanford University * F. Chris Garcia, University
of New Mexico * Elisabeth R. Gerber, University of Michigan *
Stacy B. Gordon, University of Nevada, Reno * Bernard Grofman,
University of California, Irvine * Zoltan L. Hajnal, University
of California, San Diego * Sarah Harsh, Fleishman Hillard * Rodney
E. Hero, University of Notre Dame * Martin Johnson, University
of California, Riverside * Jeffrey A. Karp, Texas Tech University
* Hugh Louch, Cambridge Systematics * Stephen P. Nicholson, Georgia
State University * Adrian D. Pantoja, Arizona State University
* Gary M. Segura, University of Iowa * Katherine Tate, University
of California, Irvine * Caroline J. Tolbert, Kent State University
* Carole J. Uhlaner, University of California, Irvine * Nathan
D. Woods, Welch Consulting
Gary M. Segura, whose work has appeared in
numerous periodicals, is Associate Professor of American Politics
at the University of Washington. Shaun Bowler is
Professor of Political Science at the University of California,
Riverside, and the coauthor, with Todd Donovan, of Reforming
the Republic: Democratic Institutions for the New America.
