Political Participation

Wednesday, February 7

Readings

  1. Barreto, Matt A. 2010. “Assessing the Role of Shared Ethnicity in Latino Political Behavior.” In Ethnic Cues: The Role of Shared Ethnicity in Latino Political Participation, 1-17. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. (Chapter 1:

Discussion Questions

  1. Why does Barreto (2010) argue that having a Latino candidate on the ballot may increase Latino turnout as well as support for that candidate?
  2. Think back to our discussion about Latino being a contested identity and Latinidad as a political process by which we create a Latino identity (Beltran 2010). In other words, if the category of Latino includes many different national origins, should we expect that shared ethnicity will shape voting behavior? For example, should a Puerto Rican candidate mobilize Mexican-, Salvadoran-, and Cuban-Americans?

Friday, February 9

Readings

  1. Gutierrez, Angela, Angela X. Ocampo, Matt A. Barreto, and Gary Segura. 2019. “Somos Más: How Racial Threat and Anger Mobilized Latino Voters in the Trump Era.” Political Research Quarterly 72(4): 960–75.

Discussion Questions

  1. What do Gutierrez et al. (2019) argue?
  2. How are the theoretical concepts (e.g., racial threat and anger) measured (or operationalized)? Do you think these are appropriate measures?
  3. What are the implications for Latino mobilization in future elections?

Monday, February 12

Full draft of campaign memo due at the beginning of class on Canvas.

Wednesday, February 14

Readings

1. Michelson, Melissa R. 2016. “Healthy Skepticism or Corrosive Cynicism? New Insights into the Roots and Results of Latino Political Cynicism.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 2(3): 60–77.

Friday, February 16

Readings

  1. Hopkins, Daniel J. 2011. “Translating into Votes: The Electoral Impacts of Spanish‐Language Ballots.” American Journal of Political Science 55(4): 814–30.

Campaign memo due February 16th at 11:59 pm on Canvas

Discussion Questions

  1. What are the two theories of why providing Spanish-language ballots would increase Latine turnout?
  2. How does the author test this? (this is a difficult one!)
  3. Why does the author believe that Spanish-language ballots may not just impact turnout but also election results?
  4. What are the main findings?

Slides

PDF of slides