A Partisan by Any Other Name? The Effects of Race and Gender on Foreign Policy

• In Event: Gender and Foreign Policy

Abstract

In this paper, we provide evidence from a survey experiment about how political partisans use race and gender cues to inform foreign policy positions in low information environments. Previous studies have considered how race characteristics condition support for political institutions, generally, and members of Congress, specifically (Avery 2007; Griffin and Flavin 2007). At the same time, there is evidence that respondents have viewed race (and gender) as a lens through to categorize — or stereotype — politicians (McDermott 1998). Indeed, racial attitudes are persistent, remaining fixed over time (West, et al 2014).

Partisanship can activate or amplify gender and race-based attitudes. Prior scholarship has identified an ideological trigger for these attitudes; supporters of Donald Trump, for example, would become more opposed to a policy when exposed to a Black (man) cue, as opposed to respondents exposed to a white man cute (Luttig, et al 2017). This may be driven to a great extent by racial identity — chiefly the notion that white respondents are more punitive as a function of their concerns of the status of their racial group (Bunyasi 2019). Many of these attitudes were shaped and framed by politicians by framing an in-group using outgroup rhetoric (Matos and Miller 2021). To a lesser extent, attitudes varied by race and gender among Democrats, too (Nelson 2021).

To explore the use of racial and gender heuristics, we consider scenarios in which official, foreign policy statements are made about countries that do not regularly feature in domestic news stories (Moldova, Sri Lanka, etc.), i.e. low information environments. Foreign policy, while important to political debates, is often not a pressing concern for American voters, leaving them less informed and more susceptible to cues than domestic policy concerns.

Using data collected from an online survey experiment, we test whether partisans use race and/or gender cues to inform their policy positions. We argue that when a respondent is presented a statement of support in a low information environment — and that statement is attributed to a co-partisan member of Congress — they will be more likely to support the position than when the same statement is attributed to a representative from a different party. In addition, we find that among co-partisans, there is variation in support when race and gender are cued; Republican partisans tend to discount co-partisans based on race and gender, with the greatest penalty given to women of color. These findings contribute to the long literature on the use of cues across the political landscape. They also help illustrate the challenges that elected officials face in recommending policies when race and gender limit the support even co-partisans receive from their presumed supporters.

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Authors

• Howard Bartlett Sanborn, Oklahoma State University

• Tinni Sen, Virginia Military Institute