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Racial Redistricting and Minority Representation
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| | Unformatted Document Text:
Racial Gerrymandering
and Representative Democracy
∗
David Epstein and Sharyn O’Halloran
Department of Political Science, Columbia University
August 31, 2005
Abstract
We present a model of optimal redistricting schemes to promote
minority interests. In the model, after districting, candidates frommajority and minority groups run for office in each district; each can-didate has a fixed position on an ideological dimension and offers aplatform of redistributive benefits for each social group. The resultsshow that minorities with relatively little political power prefer to con-centrate their voters in a few districts, while more powerful minoritiesdo best by distributing their voters more evenly across districts. Fur-thermore, declining majority racism has two effects on minorities: ithelps them by making it easier to elected minorities to office, butit may also hurt them by making majority voters more pivotal andtherefore increasing their relative power at minorities’ expense. In ad-dition, the impact of adding more minority voters to a given districtis non-monotonic, and in some cases can have the perverse effect ofelecting a candidate less favored by the minority community.
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Introduction
Studies on the relation between redistricting and political outcomes fallbroadly into two categories: those that study its impact on partisan poli-tics, and those that study its impact on racial and ethnic minorities. Keyquestions that have been investigated in the former context include the de-gree of bias and responsiveness in the seats-votes curve (Tufte 1973; King
∗
Paper prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association Meet-
ings, September 1, 2005.
Preliminary Draft: Comments welcome.
Thanks go to the
Russell Sage Foundation and the NSF for financial support, and to Avinash Dixit, SeanGailmard, and John Londregan for helpful comments.
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Racial Gerrymandering
and Representative Democracy
∗
David Epstein and Sharyn O’Halloran
Department of Political Science, Columbia University
August 31, 2005
Abstract
We present a model of optimal redistricting schemes to promote
minority interests. In the model, after districting, candidates from
majority and minority groups run for office in each district; each can-
didate has a fixed position on an ideological dimension and offers a
platform of redistributive benefits for each social group. The results
show that minorities with relatively little political power prefer to con-
centrate their voters in a few districts, while more powerful minorities
do best by distributing their voters more evenly across districts. Fur-
thermore, declining majority racism has two effects on minorities: it
helps them by making it easier to elected minorities to office, but
it may also hurt them by making majority voters more pivotal and
therefore increasing their relative power at minorities’ expense. In ad-
dition, the impact of adding more minority voters to a given district
is non-monotonic, and in some cases can have the perverse effect of
electing a candidate less favored by the minority community.
1
Introduction
Studies on the relation between redistricting and political outcomes fall
broadly into two categories: those that study its impact on partisan poli-
tics, and those that study its impact on racial and ethnic minorities. Key
questions that have been investigated in the former context include the de-
gree of bias and responsiveness in the seats-votes curve (Tufte 1973; King
∗
Paper prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association Meet-
ings, September 1, 2005.
Preliminary Draft: Comments welcome.
Thanks go to the
Russell Sage Foundation and the NSF for financial support, and to Avinash Dixit, Sean
Gailmard, and John Londregan for helpful comments.
1
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