Newcomers, Outsiders, and Insiders: Immigrants and American Racial Politics in the Early Twenty-first Century

6. Political Incorporation, Governing Coalitions, and Public Policy

6 | Political Incorporation, Governing Coalitions, and Public Policy Having provided an overview of the ways in which recent immigrants have affected the degree to which U.S. Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans (1) are participants in and (2) are represented in the political process, we turn now to an examination of our next two benchmarks of political incorporation: (3) substantial in›uence or power over governmental decisions through membership in governing coalitions, and (4) the adoption of public policies aimed at realizing greater ethnoracial equality in U.S. society and political life. Immigrants, Racial Politics, and Governing Coalitions Beyond political participation and representational parity, the analytical framework we are using in this book suggests that full incorporation of an outsider group requires that the group also has a share in the actual decision -making processes of authoritative governmental institutions. That is, fully incorporated group members will have substantive participation in, and in›uence on, governmental decisions about public policy and appointments to government of‹ces (judicial appointments, political executive appointments, etc.). In their foundational study of minority political incorporation in 10 San Francisco Bay Area cities, for example, Browning, Marshall, and Tabb (1984) argued that representation of minority voters is necessary but insuf ‹cient for attaining full incorporation. This is so because in a racially polarized polity, being “represented” does not prevent the dominant ethnoracial group from ignoring a minority community’s interests when making governmental decisions. The minority group will not be fully incorporated if it loses most of the time on policy issues thought important by the minority community and its leaders. Thus, Browning, Marshall, 194 and Tabb argued, a minority community needs to become part of a governing coalition that can dominate city politics most of the time before it can be considered fully incorporated. They summarized their criteria for incorporation as follows. A group that has achieved substantial political incorporation has taken a major step toward political equality. It is in a position to articulate its interests, its demands will be heard, and through the dominant coalition it can ensure that certain interests will be protected , even though it may not win on every issue. The group will have successfully opened the system and gained the kind of ability to make its interests prevail that other groups have already achieved. (1984, 27) A similar point was made differently by Guinier (1994) in her analysis of Voting Rights Act litigation. Guinier argued that the Voting Rights Act was adopted in hopes of achieving the central aim of the civil rights movement : realizing genuine democratic fairness in the U.S. political system. While gaining access to the political process (through overturning various kinds of voting rights denial), and representation in the political system (through overturning various forms of voting rights dilution) are necessary steps in that process, they are insuf‹cient for achieving democratic fairness. This is so because in a racially polarized polity, minority voices and minority interests might still be suppressed and/or overridden through tyranny of the majority. Under simple majority rule, for example, minority representatives in legislative bodies might still lose every single vote on issues perceived by them as essential for overturning an antidemocratic racial hierarchy. Guinier argued this violates fundamental democratic fairness, and she called for legalizing the principle of interest representation as the necessary next step (a third generation of reform) toward democratization of the U.S. political system. To remedy this problem , Guinier proposed that U.S. governments adopt decision rules1 that would force a majority population to hear, consider, and sometimes compromise with a minority population in a racialized political context. The arguments of Guinier, and of Browning, Marshall, and Tabb, then, recognize that unless a racialized minority has ways to effectively and substantially in›uence governmental decisions, it may continue to suffer from majority tyranny, despite having access to the political arena, and despite having been able to achieve some measure of representation. It should be noted, moreover, that most of the literature in political sciPolitical Incorporation, Governing Coalitions, and Public Policy | 195 ence on the political incorporation of outsider groups approaches its subject from a pluralist perspective. That is, while many individual voters from among the country’s ethnoracial groups may (now or someday) participate in political life as assimilated individuals without conscious attachments to their groups of origin, minority group members who are in public of‹ce are routinely viewed by others as descriptive...