Rethinking Race in American Politics

This piece introduces the four articles in this issue's minisymposium by explaining how they fit in with an emerging body of scholarship that places race centrally in asking and answering questions about American political development. The author identifies common themes and debates among the articles that contribute to understandings of the role of race in American politics and to different approaches in American political development. The author suggests that these articles together generate a new critical purchase on American politics through placing questions about civic membership as a crucial developmental phenomenon at the center of the analysis.