Doctoral Dissertation Research: Being Black Isn't Enough - How Variation in Black Political Leadership affects Black Mass Political Behavior

这个项目研究黑人政治家如何在黑人社区的政治问题上表现出他们的承诺。特别是，它试图确定政治家在自我展示方面的选择是否会导致黑人选民行为和态度的改变。尽管关于代表权和黑人政治领导力的研究结果已经确立，但很少有人调查黑人选民对黑人政客的看法可能会如何改变，这取决于这些政客所采用的政治信息的类型。这项研究利用原始的实验数据来确定为什么一些黑人政客比其他黑人选民获得了更多的支持。这项研究特别重要，因为它使我们能够评估黑人选民的政治反应，因为一些黑人政客变得更加专业化，并采用更多样化的手段来吸引选民。技术摘要这个项目的目的是将黑人政治领导力的研究与描述性表征的研究联系起来，以确定在美国黑人中普遍观察到的特别高水平的群体内候选人支持的原因机制。它试图展示黑人政治领导人信息的不同内容何时以及如何可能导致黑人选民对候选人的支持发生变化。这项研究采用了两个原始的实验测试，以加强我们对候选人对黑人社区政治包容的看法如何导致黑人选民群体政治行为的变化的理解。实验研究设计允许PI隔离起作用的因果机制，从而提供更大的解释力，说明黑人政治领导层内部的差异和社区承诺的表现如何改变黑人选民的政治行为和态度。此外，它还将使人们更深入地了解黑人选民是如何评价黑人代表的。

General AbstractThis project studies how the ways black politicians show their commitment to political problems in the black community. In particular, it seeks to establish whether the choices in politicians' presentation of self can lead to changes in the behaviors and attitudes of black voters. Despite the well-established findings about representation and black political leadership, little has been done to investigate how black voters' perceptions of black politicians may change depending on the types of political messages adopted by these politicians. This study utilizes original experimental data to identify why some black politicians gain more support than others from black voters. The research is of particular importance because it allows us to assess the political responses of black voters as some black politicians become more professionalized and employ a greater variety of means to appeal to voters. Technical AbstractThis project's aim is to bridge the study of black political leadership with that of descriptive representation to identify the causal mechanisms that produce the particularly high levels of in-group candidate support generally observed among black Americans. It seeks to show when and how varying content of the messages of black political leaders might lead to variation in candidate support among black voters. This study employs two original experimental tests that enhance our understanding of how perceptions of a candidate's connection and commitment to political inclusion of the black community might lead to changes in mass political behavior among black voters. The experimental research design allows the PI to isolate the causal mechanism at work, thereby providing greater explanatory power about how differences within black political leadership and displays of community commitment can change the political behavior and attitudes of black voters. Furthermore, it will also allow greater insight into how black representatives are evaluated by black constituents.