Political Inequality in the Digital World: The Puzzle of Asian American Political Participation Online

• Published date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912920945391
• Author: Nathan K. Chan
• Date: 01 December 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

2021, Vol. 74(4) 882 –898

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920945391

Political Research Quarterly

© 2020 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912920945391

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Introduction

Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in

the United States. Along these lines, the overall share of

Asian Americans in the electorate has also increased

(Budiman 2020; File 2015). While voting may be one

way in which the group can make their voice heard, Asian

Americans can additionally make their impact on the

political system by participating in other activities. This

includes both electoral and non-electoral participation.

However, Asian Americans may take further political

action on the Internet. Online forms of involvement do

not restrict action by political integration nor exclude

the opportunity to participate to U.S. citizens. To include

online modes into the repertoire of Asian American polit-

ical participation is particularly important given they lead

in terms of Internet access compared to other racial

groups. While it is well documented that Asian Americans

are le it is well documented that Asian Americans are less

politically involved than their counterparts, there may be

potential to make up lost ground in expressing their voice

by taking action online. The conditions are seemingly fer-

tile for there to be a shift toward equalization of the racial

political participation gap. However, as I will lay out in

full, we should be cautious about this assumption.

There are several goals of this paper. First is to include

online activities more explicitly within the repertoire of

Asian American political participation. This is crucial as

Dalton (2017, 128) argues that the Internet “creates new

ways for people to engage politically: to connect with

others, to gather and share information, and to attempt to

influence the political process.” The second is to theorize

about the consequences of the overall Asian American

political participation gap, inclusive of digital activism.

The third is to empirically reassess the size of the racial

participation gap after accounting for both offline and

online activities. To accomplish these goals, I will answer

the following research questions: To what extent do Asian

Americans see online as a space for their politics? What

disadvantages does the group face online, both on the

individual and structural-level, and why do such factors

shape discrepancies in Asian Americans’ online political

behavior? Despite having more Internet resources, how

does the proliferation of the Internet contribute to rather

than reduce political inequality for Asian Americans?

I start with an overview of the status of the Asian

American offline political participation gap. Then, I

review the literature which examines the relationship

between Internet usage and political involvement; I note

945391

PRQXXX10.1177/1065912920945391Political Research QuarterlyChan

research-article2020

1University of California, Irvine, USA

Corresponding Author:

Nathan K. Chan, Department of Political Science, University of

California, Irvine, 4184-4198 Pereira Drive, Irvine, CA 92617, USA.

Email: nkchan@uci.edu

Political Inequality in the Digital

World: The Puzzle of Asian American

Political Participation Online

Nathan K. Chan1

Abstract

This paper adds to existing literature by reassessing the racial participation gap after placing online activity within

the repertoire of minorities’ political actions. Even though Asian Americans are the most resourced in terms of

Internet access, I theorize about how individual and structural-level impediments uniquely disadvantage this group

from participating in politics online—widening overall participation disparities. Using data from the 2016 National

Asian American Survey, I find that while the racial participation gap is similar for Latina/os and African Americans

compared to whites, regardless of the activity’s platform either offline or online, disparities magnify solely for Asian

Americans when considering digital modes of political behavior. The paper ends by noting how the Internet may

contribute to rather than solve issues of political inequality across race and discusses distortions in which political

voices are heard or muted offline and online.

Keywords

Asian American politics, online political participation gap, race and ethnicity, political behavior

Article

Chan 883

2 Political Research Quarterly 00(0)

that Asian Americans do not fit in well with previous

explanations and that there needs to be a renewed under-

standing of the overall racial participation gap when

including consideration of e-activities. I, then, propose a

theory which accounts for both individual and structural-

level impediments, which pose unique challenges to

Asian American political participation online. My derived

hypothesis suggests that the Asian American political

participation gap widens when accounting for both online

and offline behavior. Next, I test and find support for this

expectation using the 2016 National Asian American

Survey. While the gap in offline or online participation

between Latina/os and African Americans compared to

whites remains constant, the Asian American-White gap

magnifies when comparing online to offline action. While

Asian Americans are already less active on the ground,

they fall even further behind in their political activity

online. This is even though they access the Internet at the

highest rates. I also empirically assess what mitigates this

racial participation gap online according to the factors I

proposed. This includes noting variation in psychological

political interest, pan-ethnic identification, and recruit-

ment. I conclude by discussing implications for Asian

Americans’ political voice and inequality, particularly in

an era characterized by the use of social media and the

Internet.

The Asian American Political

Participation Gap

The Asian American political participation gap has often

been studied with a comparative frame of reference, look-

ing at their rates of activity relative to other racial groups.

In terms of voter turnout, Asian Americans lag behind

(Krogstad 2014; Leighley and Nagler 2013; Ong and

Nakanishi 1996; Ramakrishnan 2005). In a comprehen-

sive study, Wong et al. (2011, 22) find that in the 2008

presidential election, “Asian Americans tied with Latinos

at 57%, and behind whites at 74% and African Americans

at 77%.” This trend persists with more recent data that

Fraga (2018) presents from the Current Population

Surveys and American National Election Studies.

In line with how Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995)

conceptually define political participation as “activity that

has the intent or effect of influencing government action

either directly or indirectly (p. 38),” voting is not the only

mode of action important to consider. Asian Americans

may turn out to vote less often because some may not have

access to the ballot box but “rather than being passive

objects of social forces, Asian American men and women

have been pragmatic and calculating actors who have

adopted a multifaceted style of politics to maximize their

chances of survival and [realizing] their interests” (Lien

2001, xii). Political activities beyond voting, then, are

important to take into account for them. Yet research

shows that this gap also remains across political activities

apart from voting (Lien 2001; Wong et al. 2011).

Scholars have thought about why this disparity persists

across different actions. They argue that socio-demo-

graphic and compositional factors such as differences in

average age, income, and education explain the gap in

political participation between whites and minorities

(Leighley and Nagler 2013; Ramakrishnan 2005;

Schlozman, Verba, and Brady 2013). Related to immigra-

tion status, those born outside of the United States may

also have high information costs to become involved in

politics (Barreto 2005; Frey 2013). Accompanying the

lack of resources to stay politically informed and lack of

language assistance, Asian Americans are often not

recruited into politics in the same manner as other groups.

Particularly in an era of weak institutions (DeSipio 2011),

they may be left out from outreach efforts by the

Democratic or Republican Parties (Kim 2007) and by

other mobilization efforts (Ramírez, Solano, and Wilcox-

Archuleta 2018). García-Castañon et al. (2019) note the

lack of partisan recruitment efforts at influencing minori-

ties’ political involvement, although community-based

organizations serve as alternatives.

While work on Asian American political participation

has grown vastly over the last 20 years (Watanabe 2018),

this literature has heavily focused on offline activities.

Given the time in which she was writing, Lien (2001) is

critical of the notion of cultural docility and political com-

placency that is often stereotyped of Asian Americans

and, as a result, examines voting and non-voting, offline

forms of involvement. Similarly, Wong et al. (2011) uti-

lize a survey of Asian Americans, which includes some

measures of online activities but focus on five participa-

tory activities: voting, campaign donations, contacting

government officials, community activism, and protest-

ing. Some recent scholarship has looked at how Internet

engagement and ethnic media consumption may influence

political action among Asian Americans (García-

Castañon, Rank, and Barreto 2011; Lai 2011). Additionally,

Lai (2018) centralizes the relevance of social media and

“connective action” as crucial for understanding Asian

American politics on Twitter.

With these exceptions, to the best of my knowledge,

looking at online political participation as an outcome

separate from offline action for Asian Americans has

been taken less seriously. Asian American political par-

ticipation is primarily characterized by voting, electoral,

and non-electoral activities. Their participation is also

generally confined to offline spaces even though

Theocharis and Van Deth (2018, 139) emphasize online

modes of action are “creative, expressive, individualized,

and digitally enabled (which) can be classified as parts

of the repertoire of political participation.” Assessing