Chapter Six begins by looking at how Americans of different racial and ethnic stripes think about politics and how these views have changed over time. This chapter looks not only at racial divisions in policy preferences but also at racial differences in public trust and confidence in institutions. Excerpts examine the echo chamber and skepticism over polling and the measurement of public opinion.

The outcomes that we should perhaps care most about are substantive representation and responsiveness, and in particular the extent to which policy matches the interests and preferences of different segments of the public. Here we systematically assess the link between individual preferences and aggregate policy outcomes and conclude that race, more than any other factor, determines who wins and who loses on policy. We also look at variation in responsiveness by time and across context to try to identify factors that lead to more equitable representation.

Our concluding chapter examines race, civil society, and social movements. What do political actors do when the chain of democratic accountability and responsiveness is broken? How do we understand the origins of protest movements and more radical forms of political participation? How do ordinary citizens in a diverse democracy contest and claim power for the people and effect change?

How can institutions be “racist?” What additional challenges are posed when bias is produced and reproduced by everyday institutional practices? This chapter traces the historical evolution of institutional discrimination from Reconstruction to the present, highlighting explicit legal and implicit policy-level discrimination in the Jim Crow era, the New Deal, and historical immigration policy. It also provides more in-depth analysis of the role of race in the present-day housing market, in the criminal justice system, and in election administration.

This framing chapter focuses on the nation’s founding and the salience of inequality and race that is baked into our founding documents. It also discusses the concept of democracy that prevailed at the time of the founding and why it represented a radical departure from the past influences of Anglo and French political thought. It introduces the concept of multiple political traditions within American democracy.

Here we first highlight the central role played by the vote and political participation in the democratic process. We then look at who votes and who participates in politics. The chapter underscores severe racial imbalances across most types of participation—both conventional and less conventional. It then seeks to explain these imbalances through a rigorous examination of factors like socioeconomic status, group identity and consciousness, institutions, and mobilization. We also look at the impact of uneven participation on outcomes in American democracy and introduce potential solutions for existing inequities.

Our next task is to delve more deeply into inputs into our system of government from public opinion to the media, parties, and elections. All of this, we hope, will inform us about the openness of our democracy and about the desires and actions of the public.

Chapters Ten through Fifteen ask: who wins office? What policies do they pursue? Whose voices are heard and whose are ignored? And ultimately how are these patterns of inclusion and exclusion reflected in core policy areas like criminal justice, voting rights, and social rights?

To what extent does race predict vote choice in the array of American elections? How does the impact of race compare with class, gender, age, and other demographic factors? And how has racially polarized voting changed in the face of the growing diversity of the American electorate? After demonstrating an increasingly close connection between race and the vote, this chapter seeks to explain the link between race and vote choice. Although we note that a series of nonracial factors account for some of the racial divide in the vote, research also clearly shows that racial considerations and increasing concerns about immigration greatly shape both sides of the vote. We also focus on the rise of nonpartisanship among the minority population and on the role that parties have played in the past and could play in the future in incorporating immigrants.

The chapter begins with a brief introduction to different conceptions of representation. It proceeds to focus on descriptive representation and the degree to which elected leaders in this nation have demographically mirrored the public over time. Despite enormous gains, it is clear that the halls of power remain overwhelmingly White. The text assesses the implications of the dearth of minorities in office for both policy and minority wellbeing. Next, we seek to understand the causes of the underrepresentation of minorities. We assess the role that institutions, financial resources, candidates, and, perhaps most importantly, White voters play in limiting minority representation.

This chapter covers the media, race, and politics. It begins by introducing the key concepts of priming, framing, and agenda-setting. It then offers a history of the use of race in electoral campaigns highlighting the difference between racially explicit and racially implicit frames on crime, welfare, and other policy areas. That history includes the progression from a Republican ‘Southern Strategy” focused primarily on race and African Americans to one increasingly focused on immigration and religion in recent years. The chapter then turns to different assessments of the impact of these campaigns. Excerpts cover media conglomeration and the debate over whether the media has a liberal bias and/or an anti-minority bias.