The other day I wondered about whether one of the reasons why Sharpton acted the way he did was because of the unsophisticated nature of black folk. I was actually asking this question somewhat facetiously, because I've long believed that black people are much more sophisticated than other groups in this country. Whereas whites for example have only recently begun to accept AND ACT ON the idea that black elected officials can serve their interests, blacks have always focused more on the quality of the candidate than the race. And the fact that blacks didn't vote for Sharpton in significant numbers, even while acknowledging that he played an important role, further solidifies that fact in my book.
But it caused me to wonder whether work had been done on black sophistication as a whole. Doing a search on JSTOR, I found an article by James Glaser. As JSTOR requires either a private subscription or access to a research university server linking either to JSTOR or to the article itself won't really do much. Instead I'll provide the text of the abstract:
Despite a comparative disadvantage vis-a-vis whites in resources like education that often are considered to lead to political sophistication, African Americans show signs of being a rather politically sophisticated group of people. Given that better educated people are much more likely than those with less education to see larger differences between Democrats and Republicans, the propensity for blacks to perceive larger differences between the parties, both in general and on specific issues, is striking. This puzzle is explained by the fact that education has a huge impact on seeing partisan differences for whites, but not for blacks. That this understanding of the structure of American politics has so completely penetrated black public opinion is quite remarkable. Strength of partisanship, and to a lesser degree, racial consciousness, appear to be largely responsible for blacks (particularly less educated blacks) perceiving such stark party differences.
I know Glaser a bit. Particularly for a white political scientist he has a remarkable understanding of black politics. He's also used some innovative techniques to get at white racial attitudes. He does get it wrong in one way. He notes in the text that such a finding is "surprising." For those of us long familiar with the types of political discussions held in barbershops and beauty salons this finding should come at no surprise whatsoever.
"Political Sophistication?" Lot's of conflicting visions pop into my head when I read that term in the two recent pieces on your blog, Lester.
Paint me a word picture of a citizen (black or white) who is "politically sophisticated" and then tell me what differentiates the black political sophisticate from the white?
I suspect that we have different views of what constitutes political sophistication and I'd like to hear yours first to see if I'm correct.
Posted by: Ward Bell at March 20, 2004 02:01 PMa politically sophisticated citizen can tell you the policy differences between the gop and the dnc, or could at least place them correctly on an ideological scale. they would also be able to correctly identify a number of politicians. and their attitudes over time tend to be durable. if you asked them what they thought about a certain policy at time X, they are more likely to exhibit the same preference at time Y.
Posted by: lks at March 20, 2004 10:03 PMThanks, Lester! Your response confirms my suspicion that we might have different views of political sophistication.
Based on what you say above, there does not seem to be any real value in being politically sophisticated -- at least in some senses. For example, let's look at two individuals, one sophisticated and the other not. Both tend to favor DNC candidates -- one out of careful differentiation and the other out of passed-down practices ("my daddy voted Dem; I've always voted Dem"). What is the difference?
I look at political sophistication slightly differently -- more on the strategy side. In my view, the political sophisticate recognizes the benefits of coalitions and cooperation and recognizes the "horse-trading" that goes on.
My favorite case in point involves local politics: Minneapolis has a strong council/weak mayor government. There are a couple of wards where the majority of the population is African American. In the last election, one of the wards voted out the incombent (sp?) who was, at the time, the President of the City Council -- perhaps the most powerful person in City Government. She also happened to be White. The challenger is Black and did very well in the Black precincts and won.
Both candidates were nominally democrats (although the winner aligned herself with the Greens and didn't seek the endorsement). Policy-wise, not a lot of difference.
I contend that the voters in this election were not very politically sophisticated. They gave up backing a powerful person who could do more for the ward than the person they elected. Instead of being represented by the President of the City Council, they are represented by a "newbie" who didn't get the plum assignment and is only one vote of 13.
(Redistricting is going to further impact this "winner" in the next election.)
Back in the 60's, this same ward rejected some potentially beneficial candidates because the unsophisticated didn't understand the compromises the candidates offered. They couldn't understand the fact that a politician has to give his/her votes to unpopular causes in order to get support for the key issues they face. Understanding and using "horse-trading" is a mark of a sophisticated voter in my eyes.
Back to my question: do you see some differentiation between the Black and White political sophisticate?
Posted by: Ward Bell at March 21, 2004 10:29 AMward your comment deserves a longer response, but i'm in a bit of a press. quickly:
it is somewhat difficult to take a single event as an example of political sophistication/unsophistication. now a juxtaposition within an event COULD be an example. split ticket voting on the same ballot (voting democrat for damn near everything except governor--a pattern that holds in many states) might be an example. but there are just too many ways to spin an individual vote for an individual candidate. how do we know the black citizens didn't exhibit sophistication by taking a short term loss for a long term gain?
i think this is why those who study sophistication do so by some measure of knowledge. because imputing motives and sophistication to individual actions is very difficult to do.
....
on the differences. the important difference between the sophisticate and the unsophisticate in the example you note above is that the sophisticate can tell you exactly why he/she voted for the candidate. can most likely tell you about policies. can most likely tell you about where the candidate fits on a spectrum. this is helpful because we know that it can be relatively easy to game citizens...getting them to support you based on how you present yourself rather than on what policies you're down with.
Posted by: lks at March 23, 2004 03:35 PMLester, I can appreciate your press for time; I should probably be spending my own time on other things, but I'm sort of drawn to this discussion.
If a clear understanding of the issues and the ability to communicate the nuances of the issues (including the pros and the cons) is a measure of sophisticated voters, then we probably have a method for judging supporters of different candidates.
Becomes almost a litmus test: eg, if the candidate has not effectively articulated a set of stances or policies that would benefit the target group and yet that candidate receives support from the target group, one could probably conclude that the supporters were not very sophisticated.
Posted by: Ward Bell at March 24, 2004 01:20 PMI think there's sophistication and there's sophistication. Take Richard Clarke for example. In the context of the hearings going on, one has to ultimately understand the tension between policy makers and intelligence operatives. You can't talk about 'intelligence failure' when the standing policy is to know things but do nothing. If, for example, you have a (reasonable) policy against political assassinations, knowing where a 'target' is doesn't help. On the other hand if your policy is to interdict known terrorists at borders but intelligence agencies don't share information (need to know basis) then likewise your hands are tied.
Meanwhile the public, which by and large doesn't understand the legal and bureacratic lines drawn between agencies and practices are going to demand answers that cannot be explained in simple ways. It's not because members of the public aren't sophisticated, but 'the public' asks broad sweeping questions, which must be endlessly qualified in order for straight answers to be given.
So that's how you have situations where Clarke, a hawkier hawk than Bush against Bin Laden, gets accused of working for Kerry. It makes political sense, but only because the public is not about to digest the nuances in the 1000 page reports the nine-eleven commission has been assembling over the past year. Hearings, by their very nature, answer public questions in an unsophisticated way. But how many of us are going to read the books?
Posted by: Cobb at March 24, 2004 09:56 PMI'm sure that there is a cadre of policy wonks who are digging into the reports and hearing and having a grand old time. Is that sophistication? Maybe yes; maybe no.
John Q. is taking this stuff in through the lens of his favorite tv newscaster or the evening newspaper (are there any of those left?) and he only has his local Senator or Congressman to give him some assessment.
Because he cannot hope to understand the nuances (even if he had the time and access), he ends up voting along party lines. And if you are Black, that means for the Dems. Until, the Repubs offer something that really gets my attention, if I'm a Black John Q, I'm going to vote the way I've always voted -- and remain relatively unsophisticated, I guess.
Posted by: Ward Bell at March 25, 2004 04:10 PMno...he takes shortcuts. sometimes these shortcuts work. in california for example, voters pass a consumer sponsored insurance initiative largely because through figuring out who sponsors which initiative (this information garnered by looking at tv ads). sometimes these shortcuts don't. the real test of john q's sophistication is whether he'd be willing to cast a ballot for a republican at the state level. and in many cases we see blacks are indeed willing to do that.
Posted by: lks at April 5, 2004 10:01 PM
He should hang out in a Haitian barbershop. He'd flip.
Posted by: Cobb at March 19, 2004 01:48 PM