Abstract
Equality of participation and shared understandings of citizenship are fundamental to democracy. Although clear patterns of inequality according to racial group membership have been found regarding political participation, the extent to which such inequalities are also seen in public definitions of citizenship is unclear. Using the 2004 US General Social Survey, we examine respondents’ beliefs about citizenship duties and rights. Starting from theories on group membership and self-interest, and given the unequal access to full citizenship inherent in the United States, we hypothesize more support for citizenship as a duty among Whites, but more support for democratic rights among non-Whites. The findings of our multivariate analyses show that support for these expectations is mixed. Whites and non-Whites do not differ in the importance they place on citizenship duties. However, non-Whites are significantly more likely to support citizenship rights. The difference is partly explained by non-Whites’ greater likelihood of identifying with the Democratic Party. Implications for democracy and racial (in)equality are discussed.
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Notes
In addition, it has been argued that political participation depends significantly on political mobilization efforts, particularly from political parties (for example, Hero et al, 2000).
A number of well-publicized historical events can serve as examples: experimentation on Blacks with syphilis, legalized discrimination, internment camps for Japanese Americans, forced sterilization of minority women and so on.
The right-censoring begins at 30, the upper limit of the rights additive scale. 34.21 per cent of the respondents had the maximum score of 30.
For both dependent variables, we also explored interaction effects between race and political affiliations and attitudes. We found only one significant interaction effect between race and political attitudes/affiliation (results not shown)]: identifying as Democrat increases support for duty-based citizenship more so among Whites than non-Whites.
The rights items were also analyzed separately. Findings indicate that non-Whites are significantly more supportive of the need to protect the rights of minorities, regardless of controls for socio-demographic and attitudinal characteristics. All other significant bivariate effects of race (see Table 1) are no longer significant when socio-demographic variables and attitudes are added.
When the duty items are analyzed separately, non-Whites are signficantly more likely to emphasize the importance of good citizens helping others who are worse off in the world, even with controls for socio-demographic and attitudinal characteristics. Other significant race effects found in bivariate analyses (see Table 1) cease to be significant once socio-demographic characteristics and attitudes are introduced.
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Coffé, H., Bolzendahl, C. Racial group differences in support for citizenship duties and rights in the US: Racial differences citizenship duties and rights. Acta Polit 48, 47–67 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2012.22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2012.22