Democratic Backsliding and Ethnic Politics: The Republican Party in the United States

Abstract

Views diverge about whether ethnic politics undermines or reinforces democracy. While ethnic politics is typically understood as minority politics, we consider the case of political parties that represent majority rather than minority ethnic groups. Two contextual factors increase the likelihood that a party representing a majority ethnicity will engage in democratic backsliding behavior: population decline that threatens the group’s majority status and close partisan competition. We show that under this combination of conditions, the U.S. Republican Party has been more likely to engage in voter suppression and vote manipulation rather than adapting to the changing demographics of the median voter. Republicans in states where these conditions prevail are more likely to pursue voter suppression; at the national level, Republicans have increasingly pursued a strategy aimed at rolling back longstanding voting rights protections. In elucidating the story of the Republican Party, we also open up comparison to other parties on the Right that have drawn on appeals to “ethnicized” partisanship.