In Depth - Ethnicity and Identity
Faculty
Shaun Bowler's interests in the politics of race, immigration, and ethnicity include the political behavior of groups in diverse contexts such as California. His recent publications include an edited volume on minority politics and an article on the boomerang effects of racially divisive policies on the party identification of Latinos and whites.
Ben Bishin's interests include questions of democracy, representation, elections, public opinion and legislative politics. He has written on Cuban American public opinion, and has conducted bilingual exit polls in Miami-Dade. Ben's recent book on subconstituency politics and representation called Tyranny of the Minority: The Subconstituency Politics Theory of Representation (Temple, 2009) employs Social Identity Theory to develop and test a theory of American democracy.
Ebru Erdem's research is in the field of comparative politics and focuses on identity politics, ethnic conflict, political Islam and institutional choice, with a regional concentration in the Turkic world. Her dissertation, "Political Salience of Ethnic Identities: A Comparative Study of Tajiks in Uzbekistan and Kurds in Turkey," investigates why levels of political salience of ethnic identity are different between the two ethnic groups. She is currently studying the consequences of the interaction of Islamic and secular laws in Muslim societies, on issues such as Constitutional Court independence and gender equality.
Martin Johnson studies political communication, public opinion, and public policy in the U.S. Much of his research involves the politics of diversity and how inter-group relations affect political outcomes. His recent work in this area includes a paper investigating how representative of readers reporters are. He finds that in general reporters are representative of the audiences they write for. However, the under-representation of minorities in capitol press corps does appear to affect the representativeness of news bureaus covering government. Johnson has also studied the voting behavior of Latinos in and out of enclaves and how state-level racial attitudes affect welfare policies at the state level.
Karthick Ramakrishnan's research interests include political participation, civic voluntarism, and the politics of race, ethnicity, and immigration in the United States. His articles have appeared in DuBois Review, International Migration Review, Urban Affairs Review, and Social Science Quarterly. His recent book on immigrant civic engagement is titled Civic Hopes and Political Realities: Immigrants, Community Organizations, and Political Engagement (Russell Sage, 2008).
Yuhki Tajima's research examines the causes of communal violence, dynamics of civil war, and post-war outcomes of former combatants. His dissertation examined communal violence during Indonesia's democratic transition, focusing on the role of informal institutions in explaining local variation in violence.
Antoine Yoshinaka’s research interests in the politics of race, immigration, and ethnicity include the comparative study of minority representation. He is currently involved in a project that examines the representation of linguistic minorities at the federal and provincial levels in Canada.
Relevant Courses
Undergraduate
POSC 017. Politics of the Underdeveloped World
POSC 108. Politics of Race, Immigration, and Ethnicity in the United States
POSC 109. Political Religions and Religious Politics
POSC 120. The Politics of India and Pakistan
POSC 123. Conflict Resolution
POSC 133. Politics of Central Asia in Comparative Perspective
POSC 152. Politics of the Middle East
POSC 172. Urban Politics and Policies
Graduate
POSC 208. Seminar in Representation
POSC 220. Politics of Race, Immigration, and Ethnicity
POSC 251. Seminar in Urban Analysis and Issues
POSC 263. Seminar on Conflict and Peace
Selected Publications
Bishin, Benjamin, and Casey Klofstad. Forthcoming. "Deceit, Diversity, or Mobilization? Intra-ethnic Diversity and Changing Patterns in Florida's Hispanic Vote," Social Science Journal.
Bishin, Benjamin, Feryal Cherif, Andy Gomez, and Casey Klofstad. 2009. "Miami Dade's Cuban American Voters in the 2008 election," Cuban Affairs.
Bishin, Benjamin. 2009. Tyranny of the Minority: The Subconstituency Politics Theory of Representation. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Bowler, Shaun, Stephen P. Nicholson, and Gary M. Segura. 2006. "Earthquakes and Aftershocks: Race, Direct Democracy, and Partisan Change." American Journal of Political Science 50:146-159.
Christopher A. Cooper and Martin Johnson. 2009. "Representative Reporters? Examining Journalists’ Ideology in Context." Social Science Quarterly, 90(2):387-406.
Johnson, Martin, Robert M. Stein and Robert D. Wrinkle. 2003. "Language, Residential Stability, and Voting among Latino-Americans." Social Science Quarterly, 84(2):412-24.
Johnson, Martin. 2003. "Racial Context, Public Attitudes, and Welfare Effort in the American States." In Sanford F. Schram, Joe Soss, and Richard C. Fording, eds. Race, Welfare, and the Politics of Reform. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. pp. 151-167.
Lewis, Paul, and S. Karthick Ramakrishnan. 2007. "Police Practices in Immigrant-Destination Cities: Political Control or Bureaucratic Professionalism?" Urban Affairs Review 42:6, 874-900.
Ramakrishnan, S. Karthick, and Irene Bloemraad. 2008. Civic Hopes and Political Realities: Immigrants, Community Organizations and Political Engagement. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Ramakrishnan, S. Karthick. 2005. Democracy in Immigrant America: Changing Demographics and Political Participation. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Segura, Gary M., and Shaun Bowler. 2005. Diversity In Democracy: Minority Representation In The United States. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.
