TY - BOOK AU - White,Ismail K. AU - Laird,Chryl N. TI - Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior T2 - Princeton Studies in Political Behavior SN - 9780691199511 AV - E185.615 .W456 2020 U1 - 323.1196/073 23 PY - 2020///] CY - Princeton, NJ : PB - Princeton University Press, KW - African Americans KW - Politics and government KW - Group identity KW - Political aspects KW - United States KW - Party affiliation KW - POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Political Parties KW - bisacsh KW - African American Studies KW - Barack Obama KW - Black Visions KW - Cathy Cohen KW - Civil Rights Movement KW - Michael Dawson KW - The Boundaries of Blackness KW - black Democrats KW - black Republicans KW - black identity KW - black political behavior KW - black political decision making KW - black social networks KW - electoral strategy KW - enforcement of group norms KW - group identity KW - group norms KW - individual disposition KW - partisanship identification KW - party defection KW - party loyalty KW - political behavior KW - political ideology KW - race and ethnic politics KW - racialized social pressure KW - self-interest vs. group-interest KW - social constraint KW - switching party identification KW - voter turnout KW - voting behavior KW - voting patterns N1 - Frontmatter --; Contents --; Acknowledgments --; Introduction --; 1. Black Political Decision Making --; 2. Norms of Black Political Behavior --; 3. The Political Consequences of Black Social Networks --; 4. The Process of Racialized Social Constraint --; 5. Self-Interest versus Group Interest and "Racialized" Social Constraint --; 6. Institutional Constraints and the Enforcement of Racialized Social Pressure --; Conclusion --; Notes --; References --; Index; restricted access; Issued also in print N2 - A groundbreaking look at how group expectations unify black Americans in their support of the Democratic partyBlack Americans are by far the most unified racial group in American electoral politics, with 80 to 90 percent identifying as Democrats-a surprising figure given that nearly a third now also identify as ideologically conservative, up from less than 10 percent in the 1970s. Why has ideological change failed to push more black Americans into the Republican Party? Steadfast Democrats answers this question with a new, pathbreaking theory that foregrounds the specificity of the black American experience and illuminates social pressure as the key element of black Americans' unwavering support for the Democratic Party.Ismail White and Chryl Laird argue that the roots of black political unity were established through the adversities of slavery and segregation, when black Americans forged uniquely strong social bonds for survival and resistance. White and Laird explain how these tight communities have continued to produce and enforce political norms-including Democratic Party identification in the post-Civil Rights era. The social experience of race for black Americans is thus fundamental to their political choices. Black voters are uniquely influenced by the social expectations of other black Americans to prioritize the group's ongoing struggle for freedom and equality. When navigating the choice of supporting a political party, this social expectation translates to affiliation with the Democratic Party. Through fresh analysis of survey data and original experiments, White and Laird explore where and how black political norms are enforced, what this means for the future of black politics, and how this framework can be used to understand the electoral behavior of other communities.A surprising explanation for why black Americans continue in political lockstep, Steadfast Democrats sheds light on the motivations consolidating an influential portion of the American electoral population UR - https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691201962?locatt=mode:legacy UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780691201962 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/cover/covers/9780691201962.jpg ER -