Geography, Partisanship, and the Politics of Group Threat.

Abstract

This dissertation project engages three broad themes in the political behavior literature. First, it addresses the question of political geography, and how the physical arrangement of individuals affects their political attitudes and behavior. Interest in spatial consideration has been growing among political scientists in recent years. Technical advancements have allowed scholars to measure the impact of spatial variables at different geographic levels, but we still have only a limited theoretical understanding of the ways in which different spatial or geographical units become politically meaningful to individuals. I address this issue through an analysis of the impact that physical proximity can have between different racial groups. A second theme this project addresses is the change in the strength and salience of individual attitudes, given those spatial arrangements. In particular, I look at the ways in which spatial arrangements structure and define competition and conflict between groups, and the resulting impact we can observe in group-based antagonisms. Finally, I look at the ways in which the previous two factors combine to shape elite campaign strategy. Given that political campaigns are waged in unique geographic areas, and that group attitudes are powerful influencers on vote choice, I examine the tools that elites will use to manipulate group-based attitudes for political gain. This dissertation addresses these themes through three stand-alone empirical chapters. The data I use consist of elite interviews, national surveys, content analysis of real campaign ads, and spatial demographic data from the U.S. Census. The findings from this project contribute to the racial priming literature, the group threat and racial contact traditions, and the work of scholars who seek to identify and measure campaign effects.