Latinos in New England

10. Descriptive Representation, Political Alienation, and Political Trust:The Case of Latinos in Connecticut

10 Descriptive Representation, Political Alienation, and Political Trust: The Case of Latinos in Connecticut Adrian D. Pantoja Introduction A major goal of the black, Chicano, and Puerto Rican civil rights movements was the elimination of electoral obstacles that kept African Americans and Latinos from having a meaningful voice in the governing process. Political activists and organizers believed the articulation of minority interests would largely be facilitated through the election of descriptive representatives who shared the goals and aspirations of the community.1 Descriptive representation, also referred to as symbolic representation, is a condition in which a citizen shares ascriptive characteristics such as race, ethnicity, and gender with his or her representative.2 African Americans and Latinos achieved a potential breakthrough with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act, along with its subsequent amendments and court interpretations, resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of African Americans and Latinos holding elective office.3 The increase in minority political empowerment not only came about by eliminating voting obstacles but through the creation of majority-minority districts, which are characterized as districts having a sufficient number of African Americans or Latinos to ensure they elect a representative of their choice.4 The rise of minority lawmakers has driven empirically minded researchers to examine the policy outputs resulting from increased minority representation as well as to analyze the behavioral and attitudinal effects they have on minority constituents.5 This chapter builds on the latter studies exploring the representative-constituency political nexus from the constituent perspective. More specifically, I analyze the impact that perceptions of descriptive representation have on levels of political alienation and political trust among Latinos in Connecticut. The analysis is carried out through a unique survey of Latinos done by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis (CSRA) of the University of Connecticut. The survey was randomly administered by telephone to 502 Latinos in 1998 and is representative of the state’s diverse Latino population. Among the sample, 289, or 58 percent, identified as Puerto Rican, while the rest identified with some other Latino ethnicity. To my knowledge, this is the only survey with a significant sample of the Latino population in Connecticut. The questionnaire and data are available through the University of Connecticut’s Roper Center (www.ropercenter. uconn.edu). Political Alienation, Political Trust, and Descriptive Representation Democracies require their citizenries to possess certain political orientations and beliefs in order to ensure systemic stability.6 Two critical orientations that are frequently used to measure the overall health of a democracy are political alienation and political trust.7 Although both are murky concepts, political alienation can be defined as ‘‘a social condition in which citizens have or feel minimal connection with the exercise of political power.’’8 Political trust refers to the faith or confidence people have in their political authorities, institutions, and regime.9 The importance of these orientations is their association with behaviors that can threaten the stability of the regime. At best, politically alienated and distrustful citizens may simply tune out of politics. At worst, they may engage in more aggressive behaviors such protests or acts of terrorism.10 Contemporary research on political alienation and political trust has sought to determine whether these orientations are directed toward the political system or the incumbent administration.11 This chapter does not engage this debate but rather seeks to identify the causes of these orientations .12 A plethora of individual and political factors is associated with these orientations. The relative importance of each, of course, varies depending on the data used. Among the individual sources of political alienation and trust are a person’s income, education, age, race, and sex. Much of the research shows that working-class and lower-class respondents, in general, manifest higher levels of political alienation and distrust.13 Higher levels of education are inversely related to political alienation and distrust, while the effects of age are mixed.14 Finally, researchers generally find that African Americans and women are more politically alienated and distrustful of government than white males.15 Because some find a weak relationship between individual demographic characteristics and these orientations, the research has also considered the political sources of these orientations.16 For example, higher levels of political participation reduce alienation and increase trust, while disapproval of government policies and a pessimistic economic outlook contribute 226 Descriptive Representation to feelings...