Distingushing Principles from Prejudice in American's Views on Racial Policy

Suny At Stony Brook, Stony Brook NY

Investigators

Abstract

Conflict over racial issues has become one of the major political cleavages in American society and government attempts to eradicate racial differences in financial well being remained highly controversial. Busing, affirmative college admission programs, efforts to award government contracts to minority-owned businesses, the Head Start lunch program, and other racial programs have aroused heated opposition. To better understand the public controversy that currently surrounds government action on racial matters, the investigators examine two competing explanations for broad opposition to racial policies. The first examines opposition grounded in political ideology that stems from individualism and support for limited government; the second explores the role of racial prejudice. There is no consensus, as yet, on which of these two explanations best accounts for opposition to racial policies. The goal in this project is to resolve this controversy more fully than has been accomplished by past research. A broad approach to the problem is developed that builds on past empirical studies, but widens the scope of research considerably. Two analytic methods are melded that have been used in past research to disentangle the origins of racial attitudes: multivariate analyses of cross-sectional data, and experimental designs typically embedded within a survey instrument. Multivariate methods attempt to statistically distinguish between the effects of prejudice and principles on racial policy preferences, although the success of the technique depends heavily on the conceptual status of the measures used to assess a concept. The measurement of racial attitudes has been especially controversial, undermining broad acceptance of evidence that racial resentment and other measures of the "new" racism predict racial policy opposition. In contrast, experimental methods have typically varied the nature and qualities of racial program beneficiaries, but can lead to differences in interpretation of key findings. The investigators build on the strengths of both approaches by relying on a combined experimental-multivariate approach in which they vary a set of racial programs experimentally and analyze the results using multivariate tests. This means, for example, that they infer the existence of prejudicial opposition only when scales of racial prejudice result in opposition to programs that benefit blacks but not whites or members of other groups. The current study draws on this combined experimental -multivariate approach to assess the ideological and prejudicial basis of support for a diverse set of racial polices within the context of a two-wave national telephone survey. The sample is based on interviews with 1,400 white and 400 black respondents in the first wave; re-interviews will be attempted with all initial respondents in the second wave. The first wave of data collection will assess reactions to a series of racial policy experiments and include a set of questions that tap various ideological principles. The second wave will focus on replication of the same policy experiments for different racial groups to provide powerful within-subjects data that will complement reactions to the policy experiments in wave 1. Within the experiments, they manipulate a series of political principles, and examine support for the programs when targeted at blacks, whites, and members of other groups. Moreover, they explore the impact of political principles across the full range of target groups to assess their respective effects. From a broader perspective, this research will extend policy makers' understanding of racial policy attitudes - a potentially divisive factor within contemporary society that may deepen as the United States becomes increasingly diverse over the next several decades. The exploration in this research of a broad variety of racial policy alternatives will provide clear insight into the kinds of racial policies that garner most support from Americans.