Katherine Cramer Walsh

Putting Inequality in Its Place: Rural Consciousness and the Power of Perspective

Why do people vote against their interests? Previous explanations miss something fundamental because they do not consider the work of group consciousness. Based on participant observation of conversations from May 2007 to May 2011 among 37 regularly occurring groups in 27 communities sampled across Wisconsin, this study shows that in some places, people have a class- and place-based identity that is intertwined with a perception of deprivation. The rural consciousness revealed here shows people attributing rural deprivation to the decision making of (urban) political elites, who disregard and disrespect rural residents and rural lifestyles. Thus these rural residents favor limited government, even though such a stance might seem contradictory to their economic self-interests. The results encourage us to consider the role of group consciousness-based perspectives rather than pitting interests against values as explanations for preferences. Also, the study suggests that public opinion research more seriously include listening to the public.

The Effects of Social Class Identification on Participatory Orientations Towards Government

This article calls into question the common claim that class identity does not matter for American political behaviour. Using panel-study data spanning thirty-two years and two generations, we investigate the effects of social-class identity on five participatory orientations towards government. As expected, working-class identifiers in both generations consistently display lower levels of involvement in politics than do middle-class identifiers. Significantly, however, these differences typically persist when the analysis controls for objective indicators of class and are always enhanced among those who retain the same class identity over time. Rather than sustaining a conclusion that class identification has little relevance for Americans, the results suggest that class may be particularly important in the present political context.

Communities, Race, and Talk: An Analysis of the Occurrence of Civic Intergroup Dialogue Programs

Why do communities differ in the strategies they adopt to address the challenges of interracial relations? In this article, I ask specifically why cities choose to pursue or forego provision of a particular type of social service, civic intergroup dialogue programs on race. I test arguments that such choices arise in response to post-materialist values, in response to conditions of racial injustice, and in communities with larger stores of existing resident-government linkages. The empirical results support the resident-government linkages model, but support the post-materialist model only among high-income cities, while supporting the social justice model particularly among low-income cities. The results suggest that community decisions to pursue dialogue are driven by the needs of marginalized racial groups as much as, if not more than, the desire among affluent community members to engage in talk about other racial cultures.

Applying Norton's Challenge to the Study of Political Behavior: Focus on Process, the Particular, and the Ordinary

In 95 Theses Anne Norton picks a fight with conventional political science. She asks conventional political science to use different measures (indeed, conceptualize what we do as something other than “measuring”), use different methods, and ask different questions. Some may read this as a threat to an entire way of life. I read it as an intriguing and exciting challenge.