Black Politicians Are More Intrinsically Motivated to Advance Blacks' Interests: A Field Experiment Manipulating Political Incentives
Black Politicians Are More Intrinsically Motivated to Advance Blacks' Interests: A Field Experiment Manipulating Political Incentives
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DOI：
10.1111/ajps.12018
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发表时间：
2013-07-01
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
Broockman, David E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Broockman, David E.
为什么政治家更有可能促进他们种族的利益？我提出了一个实地实验证明，黑人政治家更内在的动机，以促进黑人的利益比他们的同行。在精英访谈的指导下，我用一个黑人的化名给6,928名美国州议员发了电子邮件，要求他们帮助我申请州失业救济金。至关重要的是，我通过随机选择发件人是否声称住在每个立法者的选区内或远离每个立法者的选区来改变立法者的政治动机。当非黑人议员的政治动机减弱时，他们做出回应的可能性明显降低，而黑人议员通常会继续做出回应，即使这样做几乎没有政治回报。因此，黑人立法者似乎更有内在动机来促进黑人的利益。由于政治决策往往难以为选民所观察，具有内在动机的描述性代表在促进少数群体的政治利益方面发挥着至关重要的作用。
Why are politicians more likely to advance the interests of those of their race? I present a field experiment demonstrating that black politicians are more intrinsically motivated to advance blacks' interests than are their counterparts. Guided by elite interviews, I emailed 6,928 U.S. state legislators from a putatively black alias asking for help signing up for state unemployment benefits. Crucially, I varied the legislators' political incentive to respond by randomizing whether the sender purported to live within or far from each legislator's district. While nonblack legislators were markedly less likely to respond when their political incentives to do so were diminished, black legislators typically continued to respond even when doing so promised little political reward. Black legislators thus appear substantially more intrinsically motivated to advance blacks' interests. As political decision making is often difficult for voters to observe, intrinsically motivated descriptive representatives play a crucial role in advancing minorities' political interests.