Browsing by Author "Marschall, Melissa J."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Are We There Yet? The Voting Rights Act and Black Representation on City Councils, 1981ﾖ2006
    (Southern Political Science Association, 2013) Shah, Paru R.; Marschall, Melissa J.; Ruhil, Anirudh V. S.
    Sound evidence demonstrating what, if any, role the Voting Rights Act (VRA) has played in the impressive gains minorities have made in local office holding over the last 45 years remains in short supply. The present study is motivated by three crucial questions. First, where are gains in minority office holding most apparent, and how are these gains related to the VRA? Second, while studies have noted gains in black representation over time, the question of how the VRA in particular has contributed to these gains remains unclear. Finally, given claims made by opponents of the 2006 legislation reauthorizing the VRA that it was no longer needed, the question of when the VRA has been most efficacious, and if it continues to be relevant, is also salient. Our findings suggest that the VRA has been and continues to be an important tool in ensuring black descriptive representation, particularly in places with a legacy of racial intimidation and discrimination.
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    Latino Descriptive Representation in Municipal Government: An Analysis of Latino Mayors
    (2013-06-05) Cuellar, Carlos; Marschall, Melissa J.; Hamm, Keith E.; Stein, Robert M.; Emerson, Michael O.
    Various questions regarding Latinos’ descriptive representation in the mayoralty are examined in this dissertation including: Where and why are Latino mayors elected? Why do Latino mayoral candidates emerge and win? And, is there is a link between Latino ethnicity and electoral outcomes in municipal elections? The empirical results of a cross-sectional analysis of U.S. cities from 1981-2006 suggest that institutions such as term limits and mayor-council governments influence the representation of Latinos in the mayoralty. These effects, however, are conditioned by Latinos’ numerical strength in a city – which suggests that Latino descriptive representation in the mayoralty is largely a function of population size. Despite the prominence of this factor, the results further reveal that Latinos need to swell the ranks of the city council to provide a steady supply of qualified Latino candidates to ultimately win the mayoralty. An analysis of 648 mayoral elections in 113 cities in the Southwest further tests theories of Latino candidate emergence and success based on city-level factors – that supply elections with Latino candidates – as well as strategic factors in elections – that influence Latino candidates’ cost-benefit decision calculus. The results reveal a combined effect of supply and strategy on candidate emergence and success. For example, in cities where Latinos are sizeable (+40 percent) and the electoral context is more competitive (i.e., where turnout is high, more candidates are on the ballot, and when incumbents are not vying for reelection), Latino candidates are more likely to emerge. A similar pattern occurs with regard to the success of Latino candidates except that the individual candidate’s previous political experience is particularly influential in improving their chances of winning. Given the theoretical expectation regarding the impact of ethnicity on electoral outcomes in municipal elections, I also examine whether Latino ethnicity shapes turnout rates and the margin of victory. Latino ethnicity is not statistically associated with these outcomes. However, other factors such as the election timing and the type of election (i.e., runoff election, open seat) seem to be more influential. In sum, the research here examines various aspects of Latino representation in the mayoralty that is the most comprehensive to date.
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    Minority Voices: The Representational Roles of African American and Latino Legislators during State Legislative Deliberations
    (2013-09-16) Miller, Renita; Hamm, Keith E.; Jones, Mark P.; Marschall, Melissa J.; Byrd, Alexander; Meier, Kenneth
    In this dissertation I systematically examine African-American and Latino legislator behavior in a legislative setting. The project specifically examines whether and how minority legislators represent and influence African American and Latino policy interests during the legislative process. I perform an analysis of minority legislator participation rates on bills and develop an original measure of substantive representation using patterns in legislative speech of state representatives’ language during committee hearings. I build on existing theory in the representation literature and offer new hypotheses for expanding the scope of how substantive representation is defined and investigated, namely through an empirical investigation of the link between deliberation and descriptive representation. Second, I collect an original data set and develop an original measure of substantive representation to test these hypotheses with participation rates and a linguistic frame based content analysis approach of minority and non-minority representatives’ language on bills for racial perspectives during state legislative committee hearings on several policy issue areas including, but not limited to education, healthcare, and immigration. Third, I offer a critical test of hypotheses to test whether African American and Latino representatives’ (1) participate more when the legislation is deemed minority interest in comparison to their non-minority counterparts? (2) their behavior (or deliberation style) is different from non-minority legislators? (3) impact the deliberation style of non-minority legislators? The analysis draws on original data collected through committee hearing tapes and online video archives of Texas committee hearings in multiple policy areas, and the findings indicate that minority legislators do indeed provide a voice for minority constituents, providing more minority interest language on minority interest bills in comparison to their non-minority colleagues, especially when the legislation is threatening to minority populations. These results support the argument that minority legislators do indeed substantively represent minority constituents at levels greater than non-minority representatives during the legislative process.
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    The politics and policy implications of Latino representation in education
    (2006) Shah, Paru Radha; Marschall, Melissa J.
    This study seeks to answer the following broad questions: Under what confluence of institutional and contextual factors is the election of a minority candidate more likely (descriptive representation)? And once elected, do these minority representatives realize their potential to impact public policies or the political attitudes of their constituents (substantive representation)? Recent demographic shifts have moved American cities away from a simple Black/White dichotomy, and thus my goal in this study is to evaluate and extend the present theories and models of representation to other racial minorities. Specifically, I examine the extent of descriptive and substantive representation of Latinos in the educational arena. I find that the current theories of minority representation built upon the unique Black American experience in the US are insufficient to explain the political incorporation of Latinos. Specifically, I find that Latinos face additional challenges to incorporation and subsequent policy or empowerment effects based on their immigration and citizenship histories, their country-of-origin and generational diversity, and their particular assimilation and acculturation processes. As I demonstrate, these additional factors condition the likelihood of Latino representation on school boards, as well as the ability of these Latino representatives to enact policy changes or create empowerment effects among Latino constituents. I argue that these findings have important implications for ensuring representative democracy for Latinos and for educational policy outcomes.