Empirical Claims Wiki > > Empirical Claims Mitchell-Walthour: Ashley Smith
Empirical Claims:
- Affirmative action policies are more likely to gain support from people who demonstrate a negro linked fate because there is an experience of racial discrimination that compels people to fight for equality.
- Keeping all independent variables constant and their means a respondent with a negro linked fate is 76 percent more likely to support affirmative action policies while one with no sense of negro linked fate was only 52 percent more likely to support affirmative action policies.
- Those with a negro linked fate were 95 percent more likely to support Afro-Brazilian nominations for president in contrast to those with no sense of a negro linked fate were only 79 percent more likely to support an Afro-Brazilian nomination.
- People who did not demonstrate a negro linked fate were not compelled to support affirmative action policies because there is an element of rational choice in which if people don’t experience discrimination, they don’t feel obliged to support affirmative action policies. As age increases support for affirmative action decreases because young people are more aware of structural discriminatory polices such as quotas.
- Negro linked fate was a better predictor of support for nominations and affirmative action than racial identifications. Discrimination is the focus of negro linked fate and when people experience discrimination their political behaviors change to fight against the structural inequalities. People who are attached to negros as a racial group are more likely to support policies that would help with under-representation because they want to help improve the communities that they feel connected with.
- Support for the nomination of negros increases as income increases. Someone with no family income is 84 percent more likely to support that the president should nominate negros to important positions while a respondent in the ten to twenty minimum salaries income bracket is 97 percent more likely to show support for that policy.
Ashley S., nice outline of the main empirical claims made in this book.
Everyone, as we read further on in the semester, it will be useful to return to these claims to assess them both in their own terms, and in comparison to other things that we read that cause us to look at them with fresh eyes.
Ashley, I really like the formatting of this post. I found it difficult to structure my empirical claims, and this formatting just makes much more sense. Did you find yourself agreeing with this author’s empirical claims? I think the “negro-linked fate” idea is fascinating- that the black identity and subsequent political support can stem from the shared “fate” of discrimination or the perceived shared fate.
Thank you, yes I agreed with the empirical claims it supported the authors ideas well. I think that this concept of negro linked fate transcends to the United States because there is an experience of shared discrimination that is sparking civil rights movements such as the Black Lives Matter Movement. The data supports the idea that people who experience a negro linked fate will support policies that will empower Afro-Brazilians.
This is a great breakdown on the empirical claims Ashley. From your list, what I found the most interesting is the second to last point about “people who are attached to negroes as a racial group are more likely to support policies that would help with under-representation because they want to help improve their communities.” That just goes to show that there are people who are acutely aware of the impact certain policies and politicians could have on reviving their community and elevating their people. Although some of their share a bond over the similar discrimination they have experienced, it is great to have analytical evidence that exemplifies their camaraderie.