I study electoral behavior and diversity, such as the voting behavior of immigrants, discirmination against minorty candidates, and public opinion on multiculturalism. Much of my research draws on the social-psychology of identity.
Book with UBC Press:
Identities and Interest: Race, Ethnicity, and Affinity Voting
Pre-Order now at UBC press! The book demonstrates that racialized Canadians are more likely to support candidates of their own ethnic group as well as other racialized ethnic group as compared to White candidates. It also examines what motivates racialized voters to support racialized candidates. The argument presented is that, that contrary to most existing research, there is little evidence for interest-based heuristics. Instead, drawing on social psychology, affinity voting is the result of the effects of self-identification (such as in-group bias, persuasion effects, and expressive voting). The analysis in the manuscript draws on a major survey of racialized Canadians, a series of experiments, census data, and a dataset on the demographics of some 4000 Canadian federal election candidates.
Articles and Book Chapters:
Friendly Fire: Electoral Discrimination and Ethnic Minority Candidates (in Party Politics) (pre-print here)
Discriminatory attitudes towards ethnic minorities are widespread, and a common presumption is that ethnic minority candidates suffer electorally as a result. However, some research has shown that little electoral discrimination occurs, because ethnic minority candidates tend to run for parties of the left, while voters with negative attitudes towards minorities are concentrated on the right. This study shows that when ethnic minority candidates do run for right-wing parties they suffer the brunt of electoral discrimination, while those on the left are insulated. To do so it leverages two methods: a candidate experiment and a difference-in-difference analysis of candidate demographic data and aggregate election results. An ideological stereotyping mechanism is also tested, but there is little evidence that right-wing voters reject ethnic minority candidates because they are viewed as left-leaning.
Rainbow Coalitions or Inter-Minority Conflict? (shortlisted for McMenemy Prize, best article in the Canadian Journal of Political Science)
There is a considerable amount of research that says voters are likely to support a candidate of the same race – this is called racial affinity. However, it is unclear whether these affinity effects apply only to candidates of the voters’ specific ethnocultural group or to racialized candidates in general. Previous research suggests that the prospects for “rainbow coalitions” (affinity effects across ethnocultural goups) on the basis of group identities are poor; indeed, findings of inter-minority conflict are common. This study uses new data from a web-based survey experiment with a large panel of racialized respondents and found that while respondents show strong affinity for their own ethnocultural group, they also show some affinity for other minority candidates and certainly no inter-minority conflict. Effects are strongly conditional on the degree of ethnic self-identity. Therefore, “rainbow coalitions” may be more likely than previous research suggests.
Does Everyone Cheer? The Politics of Immigration and Multiculturalism in Canada (with Erin Tolley)
The conventional wisdom is that Canada is a tolerant country, accepting of immigration and at peace with diversity. A closer look at public opinion on immigration, multiculturalism, and racial minorities shows that roughly one third of Canadians have negative views. Another third are what we call “conditional multiculturalists”. A large majority approve of restrictive policies, depending on framing. Yet, politics and policy have remarkably positive. We argue political institutions play a crucial role in dampening the effect of anti-immigrant and anti-multicultural public opinion.
White Millionaires and Hockey Skates – Racialized and Gendered News Coverage of Canadian Mayoral Election (with Bailey Gerrits and Scott Matthews)
This study, using a mixed method approach, examines gendered and racialized news coverage in the 2014 Toronto Mayoral Election, which featured a competitive, non-White woman mayoral candidate and a White woman candidate. The content analysis reveals that the non-White woman candidate received less coverage than the comparable men running against her. Strikingly, employing a quasi-experimental design, we show that the non-White woman received less coverage even while leading in the polls. While there are no quantitative differences in private framing in our study, discourse notes reveal clear qualitative differences. Two directions for further research are proposed: better conceptualization of prominence and a focus on differences in the type and meaning – rather than simply the quantity – of private framing.
Regionalism in Political Attitudes, 1993-2010 (with Scott Matthews and Matthew Mendelsohn)
Regionalism has an undeniable influence on Canadian politics. Our history is marked by several changes that revealed or gradually established important
political divisions. It is therefore surprising that researchers are so rarely interested in regional variations in political behavior. Anxious to fill at least partially this gap, the authors have structured this section around the issue implicitly raised by Gidengil et al. : What is the role of regionalism in political behavior? The data tell a story in two stages. First, that attitudinal differences between regions have diminished in recent decades. But it also shows that our political life is still clearly dominated by regionalism, at least in the sense of widening gaps separating the regions in intergovernmental and regional policies. These may complicate behavior in the coming years with the adoption of measures to reduce the deficit, to renew financial transfers, or fight changes without exacerbating climate inter-regional tensions.