Strange Bedfellows? Polarized Politics? The Quest for Racial Equity in Contemporary America

• Author: Rogers M. Smith,Desmond S. King
• Date: 01 December 2008
• Published date: 01 December 2008
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912908322410
• Subject Matter: Mini Symposium: American Political Development through the Lens of Race

Political Research Quarterly
Volume 61 Number 4
December 2008 686-703
© 2008 University of Utah
Strange Bedfellows? Polarized Politics?
10.1177/1065912908322410
http://prq.sagepub.com
hosted at
The Quest for Racial Equity in Contemporary America
http://online.sagepub.com
Desmond S. King
Nuffield College, Oxford University
Rogers M. Smith
The University of Pennsylvania
Some scholars see contemporary American politics as characterized by “strange bedfellows” on racial issues and by
polarization driven by economic, not racial, views. The authors argue instead that on most issues with racial dimen-
sions, political actors and institutions are aligned into two racial orders, one favoring “color-blind” policies and the
other “race-conscious” measures. Coalitions on two issues—affirmative action in employment and majority-minority
districting—are explored to support this “racial orders” thesis.
Keywords:
race; African Americans; redistricting; affirmative action; polarization
Some scholars suggest that policy coalitions on political power to resist or to advance the measures to
racial issues are now composed of strange bedfel-
promote racial equality that are politically pivotal in
lows that confound traditional American alliances
their eras (King and Smith 2005).2 These orders have
(Hochschild 1989, 1584; Kim 2004, 349-50). Others
long provided structure and content to American
contend that race has “been absorbed into the main
racial identities (Lieberman 2005). In every period,
redistributive dimension of liberal-conservative
one order has promoted arrangements thought to
politics,” taken to be driven by economic interests
advantage those then labeled “whites.” A rival order
(McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2006, 11, 23). We
has sought to end many of those advantages.
explore two issues involving basic American institu-
We interpret the racial-orders framework to require
tions that are often said to display unusual coalitions:
analysts to identify the foundational structures of eco-
affirmative action in employment and majority-
nomic and political status for those designated as
minority districting.1 We find that most actors and
having particular racial identities in each historical
institutions are aligned as predicted by analyses of
era, the policy disputes that actors regard as important
“racial institutional orders.” Defections from these
for those foundational structures’ future, and the
orders are rare, contextually explicable, and useful in
political coalitions that align around these disputes.
predicting outcomes. The orders are consonant with
American history displays three sets of racial orders.
modern conservative and liberal camps, but they cut
In the slavery era, from 1789 to 1865, a proslavery
across class lines, so the conservative-liberal spec-
and white supremacist racial order contested with an
trum in politics today may be constituted by racial as
antislavery order composed of both white supremacists
well as economic views. A racial-orders framework
and racial egalitarians. Slavery was a regionally concen-
can thus clarify both racial “strange bedfellows” and
trated but nationally supported foundational economic
modern political polarization, even as it documents
structure that initially had massive white acceptance.
political sources of American racial inequalities.
But in the antebellum years, opposition grew in the
form of northern states’ antislavery laws and religious
Racial Institutional Orders
Desmond S. King, Professor of American Government, Nuffield
College, Oxford University; e-mail: desmond.king@nuffield.ox
Racial orders are durable alliances of elite political
.ac.uk.
actors, activist groups, and governing institutions
Rogers M. Smith, Professor of Political Science, University of
united by agreement on racial policies. They seek
Pennsylvania; e-mail: rogerss@sas.upenn.edu.
686

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King, Smith / Strange Bedfellows?
687
movements and black resistance efforts. At the height of
Table 1
the proslavery order, political institutions denied elec-
Jim Crow–Era Prosegregation
toral rights to African Americans in most but not all
Order, 1896 to 1954
states, while economic and legal institutions buttressed
Southern and conservative Democrats
slavery and limited rights even for free blacks. As chal-
Conservative Republican Party officeholders and members
lenges rose, struggles over the extension of slavery
Most presidents of both parties
became the main policy battleground on which the rival
Most members of Congress, especially the Senate
racial orders fought, shattering political parties and pro-
Majority of the Supreme Court to 1954
Most federal civil service officials
ducing the fragmented 1860 election. Abraham
Most lower federal court judges, many state judges
Lincoln’s slim victory led in turn to the Civil War, slav-
Most white businesses
ery’s end, and, emerging through coalition-building and
Most white labor unions
coercion over the next three decades, a new enduring
Most white churches
reconfiguration of the nation’s racial alliances.
White supremacist groups (the Ku Klux Klan, the Pioneer
In the Jim Crow period, from 1896 to 1954, divi-
Fund, White Citizens Councils)
sions centered on prosegregation and antisegregation
Sources: Kluger (1975, 66-91, 102-104, 115-23, 218-38), Sitkoff
racial orders. Jim Crow institutions largely disfran-
(1978, 3-33, 102-28, 169-89), Franklin and Moss (1988, 231-38,
chised African Americans and excluded them from
301-17, 415-19), Nieman (1991, 105-60), and Swain (2002, 80-83,
juries. Public policies also aided public and private
241-42).
Note: Because of data deficiencies and variations over time, we can
employment segregation and discrimination. Mounting
state only that “most” members of these categories took the indi-
black resistance and the eventual defection of most
cated positions. Our characterizations are widely supported.
nonsouthern white elites generated official repudiation
of Jim Crow laws from 1954 through 1965. Again, a
reconfiguration era followed, with growing opposition
Table 2
to minority rights advocacy culminating in the emer-
Jim Crow–Era Antisegregation
gence of altered rival racial orders by 1978, a time of
Order, 1896 to 1954
heightening ideological polarization in American poli-
tics generally (cf. Skrentny 2002, 330-31; McCarty,
Liberal Republicans
Liberal Democrats, overwhelmingly northern
Poole, and Rosenthal 2006, 7).
Minority of Congress, federal bench
To clarify how today’s racial orders differ from these
Some federal agency officials after Franklin Roosevelt
predecessors, from its rise in the 1890s to 1954, the pros-
A few white and most black businesses
egregation order cut across party and class lines, consist-
Black unions
ing of most southern and many northern Democrats, plus
Some liberal and socialist advocacy groups and parties
Most nonwhite advocacy groups (NAACP, Urban League)
conservative Republicans. These groups were always
Black fraternal organizations
powerful in Congress and often in control of the White
Liberal black and white religious groups
House and the U.S. Supreme Court, dominant in solid
southern state and local offices, and joined by most
Sources: Kluger (1975, 66-91, 102-104, 115-23, 218-38); Sitkoff
(1978, 3-33, 102-28, 169-89); Franklin and Moss (1988, 231-38,
though not all white unions and businesses, conservative
258-59, 286-90 301-17, 318-23, 342-59, 411-19); Nieman (1991,
white churches, and white supremacist organizations
105-60); Swain (2002, 80-83, 241-42); Valelly (2004, 61-71,
such as the Ku Klux Klan (see Table 1).
121-72); and Skocpol, Liazos, and Ganz (2006, 174-213).
The antisegregation order also cut across party and
Note: Because of data deficiencies and variations over time, we can
class lines. It included activist groups such as the
state only that “most” members of these categories took the indicated
National Association for the Advancement of Colored
positions. Our characterizations are widely supported. NAACP =
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
People (NAACP) and the Urban League; many liberal,
mostly northern Democrats and some Republicans;
some white unions, such as (often) the Congress of
and added more executive branch officials and judges
Industrial Organizations (CIO), and black ones, such
from Franklin Roosevelt onward. They won large
as the Sleeping Car Porters; liberal white churches
majorities of all three branches of the federal govern-
and some white businesses; many black churches and
ment in 1964, enacting laws and making judicial
businesses; and leftist political groups, such as the
decisions to end de jure segregation and many forms
American Communist Party (Table 2).
of private discrimination at last.
These antisegregation forces long held some con-
Those achievements generated new issues around
gressional seats and northern state and local offices
which, over the next decade, elite actors and activists

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688
Political Research Quarterly
forged new, still enduring racial alliances. In this post–
deference to most of its members’ self-descriptions,
civil rights movement era, the nation’s foundational
we term it the color-blind racial order. But it is still a
structures of political and economic institutions
“racial” order because it is bonded by agreements on
officially embrace racial equality, as do both major
the main issues of race policy in this era. And because
parties and most Americans. But in the late 1960s,
it rejects policies targeted at near-term...