Perceived racial efficacy and voter engagement among African Americans

ABSTRACTThis paper seeks to provide clarity on the link between Black people’s perceptions of racism in American institutions and society and voter engagement. We hypothesize that Black people with high feelings of racial efficacy, or the belief that government and society operate in a racially equitable manner, the more likely they will be to vote. Conversely, Black people with low racial efficacy are discouraged from voting. However, confidence in in-group leaders and movements can counteract the demobilizing risk of low racial efficacy. Our analysis uses data from an African American Research Collaborative national survey of 1200 Black voters. Analysis of turnout in 2016 finds that Black people with low racial efficacy were significantly less likely to vote, all else being equal. However, we find that having highly favorable attitudes toward Barack Obama, Black Elected Officials, and Black Lives Matter recovers the propensity to vote for low racial efficacy Blacks back to levels comparable with their racially optimistic peers. Finally, we conclude with a survey experiment which demonstrates that priming Black people with a low racial efficacy environment results in reduced faith in government, in part corroborating the causal direction theorized in our study.