Political Discussion Networks and Political Engagement among Voters of Color

• Author: Lisa García Bedolla,Taylor N. Carlson,Marisa Abrajano
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912919873729
• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Date: 01 March 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912919873729

Political Research Quarterly

2020, Vol. 73(1) 79 –95

© 2019 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912919873729

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Article

Conversation theory tells us that individuals arrive at

meaning through conversation (Pask 1980). Conversation

is defined as “the kind of speech that happens informally,

symmetrically, and for the purposes of establishing and

maintaining social ties” (Thornbury and Slade 2006, 25).

We understand intuitively that people might find them-

selves in conversations about politics or current events.

We discuss what is happening in the world with friends.

We discuss the latest news with colleagues in the work-

place. Growing up, we depend on our family members,

teachers, and others to educate us, through conversation,

about how the political system works and what our role is

within it. What is so critical about these informal conver-

sations, and one of the reasons why they are so powerful,

is that they are casual and impromptu—they are typically

the byproducts of people going about their daily activities

and routines (Downs 1957; Klofstad, McClurg, and Rolfe

2009; Walsh 2004).

Yet we also know that these conversations are hap-

pening within very different community contexts; peo-

ple’s social environments are not all the same, particularly

along the lines of ethnorace. In this article, we explore

the importance of engaging in political conversation and

talk within political discussion networks for developing

connections that foster political engagement. Importantly,

these are informal discussions “of politics and current

events that occurs within a social network of peers:

friends, colleagues, family members, and other individu-

als who are present in our social environment” (Klosftad

2011, 9). The social networks within which those politi-

cal discussions occur are political discussion networks.

Decades of research on political discussion networks

has shown their influence in virtually all aspects of our

political behaviors and attitudes. Turning out to vote

(Bond et al. 2012), participating in political and nonpo-

litical civic activities, levels of political knowledge

(Eveland and Hively 2009), policy positions (Sinclair

2012), and candidate preferences (Huckfeldt, Johnson,

873729PRQXXX10.1177/1065912919873729Political Research QuarterlyCarlson et al.

research-article2019

1Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

2University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

3University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Taylor N. Carlson, Washington University in St. Louis, One Brookings

Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.

Email: tncarlson@wustl.edu

Political Discussion Networks and

Political Engagement among

Voters of Color

Taylor N. Carlson1, Marisa Abrajano2,

and Lisa García Bedolla3

Abstract

Despite a large and growing literature documenting the powerful and positive role that political discussion networks

exert on the political behavior among whites, we know little about how political discussion networks affect political

behavior among voters of color. To fill this void in the existing literature, we conducted an original survey in California

to gather information on a diverse group of registered voters’ political discussion networks and political engagement.

The social positioning of ethnoracial groups in society, we contend, will affect how network characteristics explain

their levels of political engagement. Our results support this contention. While we find that network characteristics,

including network size, partisan homogeneity, and discussion frequency are positively associated with validated voter

turnout and nonelectoral political participation, the effects are not uniform across black, Latino, Asian American,

and white respondents. This is the first study that examines the relationship between political discussion network

characteristics and political engagement among voters of color. Our analysis demonstrates that the opportunities for

political integration and engagement offered by political discussion networks are not afforded equally across the U.S.

electorate, which has important implications for broader patterns of engagement.

Keywords

political discussion, networks, race, ethnicity, political participation

80 Political Research Quarterly 73(1)

and Sprague 2004) can all be affected by our political

conversations with others. However, the vast majority of

this research relies on survey data from predominantly

white Americans, making it difficult to draw conclusions

about whether—and in what ways—political discussion

networks operate among the most rapidly growing share

of the electorate (for the exception, see Leighley and

Matsubayashi 2009).

Given that the social positioning of ethnoracial groups

is different relative to that of whites, we expect political

discussion networks to play an important role in their

political engagement, but perhaps not in entirely the same

way as whites. At minimum, it is worth exploring whether

the previous findings regarding the relationship between

discussion network characteristics and political engage-

ment generalize from whites to ethnoracial minorities.

This in and of itself is an important contribution. But,

there are also theoretical reasons why we might expect

discussion network characteristics to operate differently

for ethnoracial minorities vis-à-vis whites.

In this paper, we theorize that the differences in politi-

cal discussion networks between ethnoracial groups are

rooted in variation in how members of these ethnoracial

groups are socially situated in U.S. society (Eveland and

Kleinman 2013). To empirically test this theory, we use

original survey data to examine (1) how the network size,

discussion frequency, and partisan composition of politi-

cal discussion networks differ among ethnoracial groups

and (2) how these three different network characteristics

impact political engagement differently across ethnoracial

groups. We partnered with four community organizations

that work with communities of color in California to con-

duct a survey of approximately 3,500 African Americans,

Latinos, Asians, and whites. In the survey, we used a name

generator to obtain information about respondents’ politi-

cal discussion networks as well as information about their

discussion partners.

The Importance of Social Position

Ethnoracial group membership in the United States is

important because of its impact on the social position that

a particular individual possesses within U.S. society. That

positioning is not under the person’s individual-level

control. In addition, we are not making an essentialist

argument that all group members are “naturally” the

same (Beltrán 2013). Rather, we contend that the contexts

within which people are often similarly situated and the

opportunity structures attached to those contexts can

affect their political attitudes and engagement. Those con-

texts, in turn, are shaped by an individual’s social position,

which, for political and historical reasons, is strongly

affected by their ethnoracial group membership.

We define a social group as “a collective of persons

differentiated from others by cultural forms, practices,

special needs or capacities, structure of power, or privi-

lege” (Young 1990). According to Young (1990), what

makes a collection of people into a group is “less some

set of attributes its members share than the relation in

which they stand to others.” In other words, defining a

particular population as a social group does not mean that

we need to assume that all group members are the same,

share the same experiences, or have the same goals or

aspirations. What is similar (but not necessarily always

the same) about the ethnoracial group members are where

they are placed in the U.S. racial hierarchy and how that

placement has affected their social, political, and eco-

nomic opportunity structures. As Eveland and Kleinman

(2013, 84) point out, “political discussion networks are

heavily influenced by the opportunity structure of the

social settings in which we are embedded.” We would

add that those opportunity structures also are influenced

by a particular person’s social position. Thus, it is impor-

tant to explore the ways in which political discussion net-

works vary among groups who hold different social

positions.

These opportunity structures, and the constraints they

may place on political behavior, are especially important

when considering the target voters in this study—mostly

low-income ethnoracial voters. These target voters belong

to social groups that historically have been excluded from

the polity, which has extended to the present day.

Numerous scholars, including Rogers Smith (1997,

2003), have shown how citizenship and inclusion in the

U.S. polity was defined ascriptively in terms of both race

and gender classifications (see also Gardner 2005;

Goldberg 2002; Jacobson 1998; King 2000; Ngai 2004).

These studies demonstrate the many ways that discourses

of political inclusion and exclusion were the product of

explicit public policies, particularly U.S. immigration

policies, which were designed to maintain the United

States as a white Protestant nation and to materially privi-

lege the white population (Haney-López 1996; King

2000; Lipsitz 1998). These ascriptive understandings, in

turn, have been found to affect the development of politi-

cal thought within ethnoracial communities, as well as

approaches to and engagement with political and collec-

tive action (Cohen 1999; Dawson 2001; García Bedolla

2005, 2014; Gutierrez 1995; Jones-Correa 1998; Kim

2000; Parker 2009; Tate 1993). All these factors derive

from individuals’ relative social position and, we con-

tend, play an important role in the structure and function

of their political discussion networks.

Social position also carries numerous implications for

an individual’s ability to exercise individual-level agency.

As Masuoka and Junn (2013, 25) point out, “the notion

that there is uniformity in political agency—in one’s abil-

ity to participate, to be mobilized by political parties and

elites, to consider political alternatives, to seek and con-

sume political information, to form positions on political