SELF, GROUP, AND PUBLIC INTERESTS MOTIVATING RACIAL POLITICS

Racial politics may be expected to involve a commons dilemma in which voters perceive the choice of political candidates of different races as a zero-sum game. To test this expectation, regression models were constricted based on survey data collected during the 1988 New York City-mayoral primary between David Dinkins and Edward Koch. Both the perception of racial outgroup threat and dissatisfaction with public resources predicted candidate support in registered Democrats. Thus, communal interests supplemented racial group power interests as motives for candidate support, despite apparent power conflict and resource competition between racial and class groups. Group power concerns appeared to reflect symbolic concerns with procedural justice rather than concern with personal or collective resource distributions. Symbolic racial politics may reflect social competition aimed at enhancing self-esteem through group identification. Political appeals to public resource concerns are concluded to be more effective and less destructive campaign strategies than appeals to either social competition for symbolic empowerment or realistic group competition for resource distributions.