Political Ideology and Perceived Racial Discrimination Across Race Groups

• In Event: 30420 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 8: Racial Politics, Whitelash

Abstract

Perceived racial discrimination reflects and sustains systemic racism and predicts poor individual outcomes across a variety of domains. Due to close ties between race and politics in the US and the significance of ideology in shaping perception and meaning-making, political ideology may relate to perceived racial discrimination. Prior work has considered this association primarily among White Americans, but different patterns of racialization likely contribute to different associations across racial groups. Using data from a YouGov sample of 4000 US residents, equally divided among White, Asian, Hispanic, and Black groups and matched to the US population, we find White conservatives more likely and Asian conservatives less likely than their liberal counterparts to report perceived racial discrimination. We find no association between political ideology and perceived racial discrimination among Hispanic and Black participants. These findings illustrate the relevance of political ideology to perceived racial discrimination but demonstrate differences across the US racial hierarchy, laying a foundation for future work to consider how structural factors such as race may shape or limit the connection between ideological commitments and perceptions of racial discrimination.

Authors

• Virginia Leiter, Pennsylvania State University

• Eric Silver, Pennsylvania State University

• John Iceland, Penn State University