This is a co-authored working paper done with Nicholas T. Davis (University of Alabama). It is forthcoming in Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics.
This paper was previously known as "White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy", hence the woi directory name. Part of the peer review process led to de-emphasizing identity and intolerance as foundation concepts leading to prejudice in order to just start with a discussion of prejudice in the American context. Think of the difference as more in focus than substance. I kinda wish I can go back and change the name of the directory, but it'd be a loss for users who have already starred/watched the repo.
Social prejudice constitutes an unwillingness to associate with individuals whose cultural or racial background differs from one's own group. Such prejudice is a particularly thorny problem in the context of democracy, which requires citizens to minimally respect such differences. In this manuscript, we assess the relationships between these attitudes and support for democratic institutions. Using World Values Survey data from 1995 to 2011, we find that prejudice toward cultural, ethnic, or racial 'others' reduces the value that white Americans assign to democracy. We also find white Americans who exhibit these attitudes are more likely to dismiss the value of separation of powers and are more likely to support army rule. These findings imply that exclusionary rhetoric targeted toward nonwhite groups is accompanied by lower baseline support for democracy. We close with a discussion of how our analyses inform the study of Americans' attitudes toward democracy.
- Mother Jones (July 11, 2018)
- NBC News (May 27, 2018)
- New York Times (May 24, 2018)
- Salon (Aug. 2, 2018)
- ThinkProgress (June 4, 2018)
- This Is Hell! (June 9, 2018)
- Vox (July 2, 2018)