The authors explore a lengthy controversy surrounding fishing, hunting, and gathering rights of Chippewa Indians in Wisconsin. The book uses a carefully designed survey of public opinion to explore the dynamics of prejudice and political contestation, and to further our understanding of how and why racial prejudice enters into politics in the U.S.

Are Americans less prejudiced now than they were thirty years ago, or has racism simply gone "underground"? Is racism something we learn as children, or is it a result of certain social groups striving to maintain their privileged positions in society? In Racialized Politics, political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists explore the current debate surrounding the sources of racism in America. Published here for the first time, the essays represent three major approaches to the topic. The social psychological approach maintains that prejudice socialized early in life feeds racial stereotypes, while the social structural viewpoint argues that behavior is shaped by whites' fear of losing their privileged status. The third perspective looks to non-racially inspired ideology, including attitudes about the size and role of government, as the reason for opposition to policies such as affirmative action. Timely and important, this collection provides a state-of-the-field assessment of the current issues and findings on the role of racism in mass politics and public opinion. Contributors are Lawrence Bobo, Gretchen C. Crosby, Michael C. Dawson, Christopher Federico, P. J. Henry, John J. Hetts, Jennifer L. Hochschild, William G. Howell, Michael Hughes, Donald R. Kinder, Rick Kosterman, Tali Mendelberg, Thomas F. Pettigrew, Howard Schuman, David O. Sears, James Sidanius, Pam Singh, Paul M. Sniderman, Marylee C. Taylor, and Steven A. Tuch.

Based on one of the most extensive scientific surveys of race ever conducted, this book investigates the relationship between racial perceptions and policy choices in America. The contributors—leading scholars in the fields of public opinion, race relations, and political behavior—clarify and explore images of African-Americans that white Americans hold and the complex ways that racial stereotypes shape modern political debates about such issues as affirmative action, housing, welfare, and crime.The authors make use of the largest national study of public opinion on racial issues in more than a generation—the Race and Politics Study (RPS) conducted by the Survey Research Center at the University of California. The RPS employed methodological improvements made possible by Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing, a technique that enables analysts to combine the internal validity of laboratory experiments with the external validity of probability sampling. Taking full advantage of these research methods, the authors offer highly nuanced analyses of subjects ranging from the sources of racial stereotypes to the racial policy preferences of Democrats and Republicans to the reasons for resistance to affirmative action. Their findings indicate that while crude and explicit forms of racial prejudice may have declined in recent decades, racial stereotypes persist among many whites and exert a powerful influence on the ways they view certain public policies.

"The years have failed to dull the sheen of this slender volume. Its thick subject matters—regionalism, racial politics, democracy—have taken on different casts over the life of the book, yet they retain their relevance and timeliness."—Gary Y. Okihiro, author of Margins and Mainstreams "The insights offered by Roger Daniels almost four decades ago remain trenchant and incisive."—Sucheng Chan, author of This Bittersweet Soil

Amidst discontent over America's growing diversity, many white Americans now view the political world through the lens of a racial identity. Whiteness was once thought to be invisible because of whites' dominant position and ability to claim the mainstream, but today a large portion of whites actively identify with their racial group and support policies and candidates that they view as protecting whites' power and status. In White Identity Politics, Ashley Jardina offers a landmark analysis of emerging patterns of white identity and collective political behavior, drawing on sweeping data. Where past research on whites' racial attitudes emphasized out-group hostility, Jardina brings into focus the significance of in-group identity and favoritism. White Identity Politics shows that disaffected whites are not just found among the working class; they make up a broad proportion of the American public - with profound implications for political behavior and the future of racial conflict in America.

Combining statistical analysis with well-written narrative history, this re-evaluation of the 1928 presidential election gives a vivid portrait of the candidates and the campaign. Lichtman has based his study primarily on a statistical analysis of data from that election and the presidential elections from 1916 to 1940 for all the 2,058 counties outside the former Confederate South. Not relying exclusively on the results of his quantitative analysis, however, Lichtman has also made an exhaustive survey of previous scholarship and contemporary accounts of the 1928 election. He discusses and challenges previous interpretations, especially the ethnocultural and pluralist interpretations and the application of critical election theory to the election. In disputing this theory, which claims that 1928 was a realigning election in which the coalitions were formed that dominated future elections, Lichtman determines that 1928 was an aberration with little impact on later political patterns.

It has been half a century since the publication of An American Dilemma, Gunnar Myrdal's seminal work on race in America. The cleavage between the politics of race of the 1940s and the 1990s is that race has become a greater dilemma than ever before. This book is an attempt to contribute to a fresh understanding of prejudice, politics, and the American dilemma. It presents new lines of questions by deliberately inter-weaving two perspectives, the first taking up issues of race focusing on whites, the second on blacks. The contributors are drawn from several disciplines in the social sciences, sociologists, psychometricians, social and personality psychologists, demographers and political scientists of several persuasions. The book represents an important shift in perspectives, both theoretical and methodological, in the study of race and American politics.