Collaborative programs that deputize local police to act as immigration (ICE) agents are associated with an increase in the number of Latinx federal convictions. Walker will examine the political development of the collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement agencies and assess the extent to which the implementation of federal immigration policy may be shaped by preemptive practices employed by local police targeting the Latinx community. She will evaluate the impact of this development on the socio-political attitudes of Latinx people.

Velez will construct a multi-year panel data set to analyze the long-term effects of gentrification on urban politics. Previous studies suggest that gentrification may be associated with declines in descriptive representation at the local level but have been unable to determine whether gentrification is a cause or consequence of this process. Velez will also consider the effects of gentrification on legislators’ non-racial identities (such as gender and education), policymaking, and local civic engagement.

Previous research suggests that at least some opposition to race-based affirmative action is driven by whites’ racial identity, with less attention devoted to how class interests might shape their opinions. Stephens-Dougan will investigate white opposition to affirmative action by studying their reactions to non-race-based selection policies, such as class-based affirmative action and legacy admissions. Unlike race-based affirmative action, these policies have the potential for low-income whites to perceive shared interests with Blacks.

Race is an essential variable in the study of Latino politics, but previous scholarship on political attitudes, group consciousness, and experiences with discrimination have assessed Black and Latino groups separately. Clealand will examine Blackness within the racially heterogeneous Latino community and the ways experience is tied to Black political consciousness. She will examine the ways race and ethnicity overlap in complex, fluid, and seldom recognized ways.

Conventional surveys assess race, economic status, gender, and religion in monolithic terms (by “box-checking”), leading researchers and policy makers to draw incomplete conclusions. People who are thus categorized in one social group may not share the same ideas, or express the same intensity of preference, as people who believe their attachment to the group is more central to their identity. Empirical strategies that account for the complexity and relative nature of identity can improve understanding of the relationship between groups and political attitudes in the U.S.

Democratically-elected leaders are expected to make policy that reflects the interests of their constituents. In reality, however, money buys ads that frame the public debate, funds candidates who run for office, and pays lobbyists who advocate for specific legislation. Political scientist In Song Kim will examine campaign contributions and lobbying to investigate the political origins of social and economic inequalities. First, he will develop a comprehensive database of money in politics, encompassing all federal lobbying and campaign donations from 1999 to the present.

There are nearly 90,000 local governments in the U.S., with hundreds of thousands of locally elected officials in city, county and other types of local governments. Some research finds that local governments are responsive to the views of their citizens across many policy areas and that citizens' preferences have large effects on policy outcomes. The literature also suggests that the affluent and homeowners are over-represented relative to the poor and racial minorities. However, scholars have little systematic knowledge about inequalities in participation and repre