Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Political Behavior
Published in: Political Behavior 3/2023

30-11-2021 | Original Paper

Defending the Dog Whistle: The Role of Justifications in Racial Messaging

Authors: Andrew Ifedapo Thompson, Ethan C. Busby

Published in: Political Behavior | Issue 3/2023

Log in

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

American politicians frequently evoke race in their messages to the public; at the same time, politicians often pay a price for racialized rhetoric. We propose that elites continue to use messages about race because they can mitigate the costs of doing so with justifications for their original statements. Integrating literatures on elite rhetorical tactics and framing, we predict that when justifications and indirect racial messages are combined, elites can mobilize the support for racially resentful Whites without alienating others. In a pair of survey experiments conducted in 2019 and 2020, we examine the effectiveness of justifications in swaying Whites’ attitudes. We find that two different elite justifications bolster support for their messages. Importantly, we also find these tactics do not incur political costs. This provides a compelling reason that political figures continue to use racial messages in politics despite recent social movements and possible shifts in Americans’ attitudes about race.
previous article The Role of Public Broadcasting in Media Bias: Do People React Differently to Pro-government Bias in Public and Private Media?
next article Lethal Engagement: The Relationship Between Contextual Exposure to Police Killings and External Political Efficacy

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
Other research finds that including pre-treatment racial questions does not prime subjects in a way that interferes with treatment effects (Valentino et al., 2018). We emphasize racial resentment as the primary measure of racial attitudes, acknowledging that it imperfectly measures commitment or rejection of racial norms. As most research on racialized messaging relies on racial resentment, future studies should consider more direct measures of norm commitment. In our results, our findings are the same if we use alternative measures of racial attitudes—see figures A.25–28 in the Online Appendix for details.
 
2
The design required respondents to spend at least 15 s on the treatment before moving on; only 1 percent proceeded immediately after this limit. The median time spent reading the vignettes was 43 s.
 
3
Our focus is on support for the Mayor’s policy, rather than the Mayor. This differs from some studies of racial messaging; Study 2 responds to this by measuring support for the mayor.
 
4
The median time spent on the survey was 8 min; very few took less than 3 min.
 
5
Online Appendix Sect. 2 contains our assessment of the relationship between racial resentment and partisanship in this study.
 
6
Estimates behind this figure can be found in the Online Appendix, in Table A.1.
 
7
This boost in support is higher than for those low in racial resentment (p = 0.06 compared to medium and p = 0.05 for high).
 
8
The treatment effect for those low in racial resentment is not statistically different from those with medium or high levels of racial resentment (p = 0.82 for medium, p = 0.51 for high).
 
9
Respondents in the indirect conditions found the Mayor’s statement to be somewhat insensitive; individuals in the direct conditions rated the Mayor’s statements more insensitive than those in the indirect conditions.
 
10
Respondents were again required to spend at least 15 s on the treatments; the median time spent reading the vignettes in Study 2 was 48 s.
 
11
The median time spent on the survey (7.4 min) was comparable to Study 1.
 
12
The embrace and the denial are not statistically significant (p = 0.68).
 
13
P-value of the difference between the denial and appropriation is 0.93.
 
14
P-value of the difference between the denial and appropriation is 0.15.
 
15
Estimates behind Figs. 5 and 6 are in the Online Appendix, in tables A.2 and A.3.
 
16
With respect to Fig. 5 on racial denials, for approval, the estimates for different levels of racial resentment are not significantly different when compared to each other. For vote, the difference between those low and high in racial resentment is significant (p = 0.05). For feeling thermometer ratings, the difference between those low and high in racial resentment is statistically significant (p = 0.02). With respect to Fig. 6 on racial appropriations, for approval, the estimates for different levels of racial resentment are not significantly different. For vote, the difference between those medium and high in racial resentment is marginally significant (p = 0.10). For feeling thermometer ratings, the difference between those low and high in racial resentment is marginally significant (p = 0.06); the difference between medium and high in racial resentment is significant (p = 0.01).
 
17
The Other category includes all other racial minority groups; we create a single category as we did not anticipate sufficient statistical power to consider other groups separately.
 
18
Racial resentment and partisanship are correlated at 0.42 for Study 1 and 0.49 for Study 2. Average racial resentment scores are higher for Republicans than Democrats (Study 1: 4.9 to 3.4 respectively; Study 2: 4.7 to 3.1).
 
Literature
Abrajano, M., & Hajnal, Z. L. (2015). White Backlash: Immigration, Race, and American Politics. Princeton University Press.CrossRef
Banks, A. J., & Hicks, H. M. (2019). The effectiveness of a racialized counterstrategy. American Journal of Political Science, 63(2), 305–322.CrossRef
Chong, D., & Druckman, J. N. (2007). Framing theory. Annual Review of Political Science, 10, 103–126.CrossRef
Coppock, A., & McClellan, O. A. (2019). Validating the demographic, political, psychological, and experimental results obtained from a new source of online survey respondents. Research & Politics, 6(1), 1–14.CrossRef
Craig, M. A., & Richeson, J. A. (2014). On the precipice of a ‘Majority-Minority’ America: Perceived status threat from the racial demographic shift affects white Americans’ political ideology. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1189–1197.CrossRef
DiAngelo, Robin J. (2018). White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Beacon Press.
Engelhardt, Andrew M. 2019. "The Content of Their Coverage: Contrasting Racially Conservative and Liberal Elite Rhetoric." Politics, Groups and Identities.
Engelhardt, A. M. (2020). Racial attitudes through a partisan lens. British Journal of Political Science, 51(3), 1–18.
Gilens, M. (1996). ‘Race Coding’ and white opposition to welfare. American Political Science Review, 90(3), 593–604.CrossRef
Grose, C. R., Malhotra, N., & Houweling, R. P. V. (2015). Explaining explanations: How legislators explain their policy positions and how citizens react. American Journal of Political Science, 59(3), 724–743.CrossRef
Hainmueller, J., Mummolo, J., & Yiqing, Xu. (2019). How much should we trust estimates from multiplicative interaction models? Simple tools to improve empirical practice. Political Analysis, 27(2), 163–192.CrossRef
Hillygus, D. S., & Shields, T. G. (2009). The Persuadable Voter: Wedge Issues in Presidential Campaigns. Princeton University Press.CrossRef
Hopkins, D. J., & Washington, S. (2020). The rise of trump, the fall of prejudice? Tracking White Americans’ racial attitudes via a panel survey, 2008–2018. Public Opinion Quarterly, 84(1), 119–140.CrossRef
Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (2005). Playing the race card in the post-willie Horton era: The impact of racialized code words on support for punitive crime policy. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 69(1), 99–112.CrossRef
Jerit, J. (2009). How predictive appeals affect policy opinions. American Journal of Political Science, 53(2), 411–426.CrossRef
Kam, C. D., & Trussler, M. J. (2017). At the nexus of observational and experimental research: Theory, specification, and analysis of experiments with heterogeneous treatment effects. Political Behavior, 39(4), 789–815.CrossRef
Kraft, P. W., Lodge, M., & Tabor, C. S. (2015). Why people “Don’t Trust the Evidence”: motivated reasoning and scientific beliefs. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 658(1), 121–133.CrossRef
Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480–498.CrossRef
López, I. H. (2014). Dog Whistle Politics. Oxford University Press.
McGraw, K. M. (1990). Avoiding blame: An experimental investigation of political excuses and justifications. British Journal of Political Science, 20(1), 119–131.CrossRef
McGraw, K. M. (1991). Managing blame: An experimental test of the effects of political accounts. American Political Science Review, 85(4), 1133–1157.CrossRef
McGraw, K. M. (1998). Manipulating public opinion with moral justification. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 560(1), 129–142.CrossRef
Mendelberg, T. (2001). The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality. Princeton University Press.CrossRef
Newman, B. J., Shah, S., & Collingwood, L. (2018). Race, place, and building a base: Latino population growth and the nascent Trump campaign for president. Public Opinion Quarterly, 82(1), 122–134.CrossRef
Nteta, T. M., Lisi, R., & Tarsi, M. R. (2016). Rendering the implicit explicit: Political advertisements, partisan cues, race, and white public opinion in the 2012 presidential election. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 4(1), 1–29.CrossRef
Reny, T. T., Valenzuela, A. A., & Collingwood, L. (2020). ‘No, You’re Playing the Race Card’: Testing the effects of anti-black, Anti-Latino, and anti-immigrant appeals in the Post-Obama era. Political Psychology, 41(2), 283–302.CrossRef
Segura, G. M., & Valenzuela, A. A. (2010). Hope, tropes, and dopes: Hispanic and White Racial Animus in the 2008 election. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 40(3), 497–514.CrossRef
Tesler, M. (2016). Post-racial or Most-racial? Race and Politics in the Obama Era. University of Chicago Press.CrossRef
Trawalter, S., & Richeson, J. A. (2008). Let’s talk about race, Baby! When Whites’ and Blacks’ interracial contact experiences diverge. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(4), 1214–1217.CrossRef
Valentino, N. A., Hutchings, V. L., & White, I. K. (2002). Cues that matter: How political ads prime racial attitudes during campaigns. American Political Science Review, 96(1), 75–90.CrossRef
Valentino, N. A., Neuner, F. G., & Matthew Vandenbroek, L. (2018). The changing norms of racial political rhetoric and the end of racial priming. The Journal of Politics, 80(3), 757–771.CrossRef
White, I. K. (2007). When race matters and when it doesn’t: racial group differences in response to racial cues. American Political Science Review, 101(02), 339–354.CrossRef
Metadata
Title
Defending the Dog Whistle: The Role of Justifications in Racial Messaging
Authors
Andrew Ifedapo Thompson
Ethan C. Busby
Publication date
30-11-2021
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Political Behavior / Issue 3/2023
Print ISSN: 0190-9320
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6687
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09759-x

Other articles of this Issue 3/2023

Political Behavior 3/2023 Go to the issue

Original Paper

How Does a Relative Economy Affect Voter Turnout?

Original Paper

Municipal Identity and City Interests

Original Paper

Attraction or Distraction? Impacts of Pro-regime Social Media Comments on Chinese Netizens

Original Paper

Lethal Engagement: The Relationship Between Contextual Exposure to Police Killings and External Political Efficacy

Original Paper

Disagreement and Deliberation: Evidence from Three Deliberative Mini-Publics

Original Paper

Negativity and Elite Message Diffusion on Social Media

Premium Partner

    Image Credits