Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: "Political Inclusion and Ethnic Relations: Did Political Representation Affect Attitudes Towards Untouchables?"

传统上处于不利地位的群体在多大程度上受益于获得政治代表权？该项目以印度达利特人（以前的“贱民”）为重点，概述了“描述性代表”的相对好处和缺点，并特别侧重于将达利特人纳入政治机构对对达利特人态度的影响。与流行的“现实冲突”和群体竞争理论相反，该项目认为，从长远来看，对达利特人的态度应该随着他们的政治代表性而改善。为了提供支持这一说法的经验证据，该研究使用调查实验和其他态度变量来衡量对印度南部村庄的调查中对达利特人的态度。根据经验，该项目有两个目标：衡量达利特人的代表性在多大程度上影响了对达利特人的态度，并调查任何变化背后的因果机制。 由于根据1993年以来实行的“保留”制度，专门为达利特人设立政治办公室的村庄是随机选择的，因此，调查的答案可以更清楚地估计达利特人政治参与对态度的影响。该项目作出了几项贡献。令人惊讶的是，学者们很少关注政治领导人种族变化的态度影响。这个问题对于政治学中的流行观点似乎至关重要，根据这种观点，种族群体争夺经济和政治资源的控制权。根据这一假设，族裔间关系的恶化可能会抵消一个群体从政治代表权中获得的物质利益。为了解决这个问题，该提案使用了对美国种族态度感兴趣的政治心理学家所采用的实验设计。因此，该项目努力规避受访者之间的社会期望效应，并提出了一个罕见的比较测试的一些问题，美国文学的群体态度一直在辩论过去三十年。该项目通过为至少两个与公共政策有关的重大辩论提供信息而产生更广泛的影响。第一个问题涉及增加弱势群体公民参与决策进程的相对好处。虽然这一协商一致的处方被广泛接受，但目前很少有证据表明这将给目标社区带来总体好处。该项目还为关于“积极区别对待”的价值和益处的辩论提供了信息。“在印度、法国和美国，关于“政治保留”等积极歧视对群体间关系的负面影响的争论正在迅速发展。这也将得出关于这一问题的相关结论。 虽然该项目的重点是描述性代表对这些态度的影响，其他学者感兴趣的种族/民族的态度，随后可能会使用这些原始数据来测试各种假设相关的环境决定因素的群体间的态度。

To what extent does a traditionally disadvantaged group benefit from gaining political representation? By focusing on the case of Dalits (the former "untouchables") in India, this project provides an overview of the relative benefits and downsides of "descriptive representation" and a specific focus on the impact of the inclusion of Dalits in political institutions on attitudes toward Dalits. In contrast with prevalent theories of "realistic conflict" and group competition, the project argues that attitudes towards Dalits should improve in the long run with their political representation. To provide empirical evidence supporting this claim, the study uses survey-experiments and other attitudinal variables measuring attitudes towards Dalits in a survey of Southern Indian villages. Empirically, the project has two objectives: measure the extent to which Dalit representation has affected attitudes towards Dalits and investigate the causal mechanisms that lie behind any changes. Since villages in which political offices are specifically set aside for Dalits are randomly chosen according to the "reservation" system in place since 1993, survey answers allow clearer causal estimates of the impact of Dalit political inclusion on attitudes. The project makes several contributions. Scholars have devoted surprisingly little attention to the attitudinal repercussions of a change in the ethnicity of political leaders. This question appears crucial in regards to the prevalent view in political science, according to which ethnic groups fight for the control of economic and political resources. Following this hypothesis, a deterioration of interethnic relations would likely offset the material gains a group derives from political representation. To address this question, the proposal uses experimental designs employed by political psychologists interested in racial attitudes in the United States. The project thus strives to circumvent social desirability effects among respondents and proposes a rare comparative test of some of the questions the American literature on group attitudes has been debating for the last three decades. This project has broader impacts from informing at least two major, public policy-related debates. The first concerns the relative benefits of increasing the participation of citizens from disadvantaged groups in policy-making processes. While this consensual prescription is widely accepted, very little evidence currently exists concerning the overall benefits this would bring to the targeted community. This project also informs the debate over the value and the benefits of "positive discriminations." Arguments over the negative impact on intergroup relations of positive discriminations, such as "political reservations," have been developing fast in India, in France and in the United States. This will also yield relevant findings on this question. While the project focuses on the impact of descriptive representation on these attitudes, other scholars interested in racial/ethnic attitudes may subsequently use this original data to test a variety of hypotheses related to the environmental determinants of intergroup attitudes.