Kevin A. Hill

Does the Creation of Majority Black Districts Aid Republicans? An Analysis of the 1992 Congressional Elections in Eight Southern States

This article asks a relatively simple question: does the creation of majority black electoral districts in the South aid Republicans? Given the post-1990 reapportionment of state legislative and congressional districts, and the zeal with which Sections Two and Five of the Voting Rights Act have been enforced by Republican Justice Departments, this is a timely question. The rise in the electoral fortunes of southern Republicans in the past decade also demands an answer to this question. Using electoral and district-level census data for the congressional districts of eight southern states in the 1990 and 1992 elections, this article found that, of the nine seats taken by the Republicans in 1992, four were due to the creation of majority black districts. Further, the following analysis finds that several previously uncompetitive Democratically held districts were made competitive by the creation of majority black districts, and can be expected to swing Republican in the next few years, especially given further acceleration of retirements by white Democratic incumbents.

Computer-Mediated Political Communication: The USENET and Political Communities

Social and political groups can facilitate the transmission of information and the formation of political attitudes. We employ the logic of group formation to examine electronic communities. Do electronic groups form cohesive social groups exhibiting the characteristics of traditional physical groups such as churches and peers? We conduct a content analysis of 5,611 USENET messages. The messages are analyzed for the following behaviors: political content, group maintenance, and recruitment. We find that most political USENET groups demonstrate the behavioral characteristics one would be expect of a socially cohesive group. We also find that liberal or left-wing political groups are less active and more poorly organized.

Second-Generation Cubans.

This article tests the hypothesis that second-generation Cuban Americans have significantly different political attitudes than either their parents or more recent Cuban immigrants to the United States. Using the unique data set provided by the Latino National Political Survey, the article investigates whether or not there are differences between the following three sets of Cuban Americans: those born in the United States, those whofirst arrived in the United States at the age of 10 or younger and those who immigrated to the United States when they were over the age of 10. The authors find significant differences between these three groups in several sets of political attitudes, including partisanship, trust in the federal government, feelings of closeness toward the Cuban American community, and support for increased governmental spending. Interestingly, the authors find no significant differences among Cuban Americans over the question of reestablishing relations with the Castro regime.

Racial and Partisan Voting in a Tri-Ethnic City: The 1996 Dade County Mayoral Election

Through an analysis of the 1996 Dade County, Florida mayoral election, this article explains which is more important in vote choice in a racially-diverse polity—ethnicity or partisanship. We directly test this question in a metropolitan local election that constitutes a unique natural experiment. In September 1996, Dade County held a mayoral election with four major candidates whose partisan and ethnic interactions were not normal for the political history of the area: a Black Republican, a Puerto Rican Democrat, a Cuban American Democrat, and a Cuban American Independent. There was no non-Hispanic White (Anglo) candidate, even though Anglos constituted the bare plurality of the county’s registered voters. In the October runoff, the Black Republican challenged the Cuban American Democrat in a county where over 80% of registered Black voters are Democrats, and over 60% of registered Hispanic voters are Republicans. As such, this election gives scholars a unique opportunity to untangle the effects of ethnicity and partisanship on vote choice. Using a three-wave survey of Dade County voters in 1996, we find that ethnicity was an overwhelmingly more powerful predictor of vote choice than partisanship. We assess the implications of how this study can be generalized to other multi-ethnic polities.

Is the internet an instrument of global democratization

This article explores the hypothesis that people in less democratic nations will use the Internet newsgroups devoted to those countries as a relatively ‘safe’ form of political discussion and even protest. Also, it is expected that nationals of those countries living overseas will use these newsgroups to more openly discuss politics in those nations than they could otherwise do so. Before turning to a content analysis of the messages posted in non‐United States Usenet groups, the number of these groups and the levels of political discussion in them are quantified. The article quantifies the international usage of the Usenet as a first attempt to find some patterns in this usage that may be politically motivated. After all, many pundits imagine that the Internet will become the vaunted ‘global village’ and source of ‘grass‐roots democracy’, and not merely in the United States. An examination of the content of about 2500 messages in 41 Usenet groups then follows, with a view to establishing the following: h...

Zimbabwe's Wildlife Conservation Regime: Rural Farmers and the State

This article examines the rhino and elephant conservation policies of Zimbabwe, focusing on the historical experiences of rural farmers with colonial and post-colonial wildlife policies. It begins by defining the social and political ramifications of the current environmental conservation debate in Africa, and how these are crucially affected by rural peoples perceptions of environmental goods. Next, the paper explores the exploitative colonial legacy of wildlife conservation in Zimbabwe, and how that legacy has or has not been transformed since independence. The paper pays close attention to the development of linkages between rural farmers, local conservation NGOs, and local and national governmental bodies. Finally, the paper finds that, while many positive linkages have been made between conservation authorities and rural farmers and ranchers in elephant conservation programs, few such linkages have been made in the various rhino conservation schemes. Since Zimbabwe has been relatively successful in conserving its elephant population, but relatively unsuccessful in stopping rhino poaching, the paper concludes that the development of positive linkages between rural farmers and the state, which include heavy doses of popular participation at the grassroots level, is crucial for any successful natural resource policy.

Politicians, farmers and ecologists: commercial wildlife ranching and the politics of land in Zimbabwe

The decline of African plains game has been taking place for all of the twentieth century. At the same time, rural poverty has become a larger problem on the continent, and many scholars have found a connection between the two. This paper examines Zimbabwe’s policies of private wildlife ranching from both a political and an ecological perspective. The research finds that although commercial wildlife ranching is an ecological and economic success, there are large political problems with this rapidly developing land use practice, given the continuing racial disparities in land tenure in Zimbabwe.

Language as a Variable: English, Spanish, Ethnicity, and Political Opinion Polling in South Florida

This article argues that conducting public opinion surveys in Spanish as well as English is crucial to the study of the modern Latino electorate. Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom is to survey only in English because, so the argument goes, the validity and reliability problems raised by bilingual polling and translation do not make it worthwhile to conduct surveys in two languages. The authors challenge this assertion with evidence from six political surveys in Miami-Dade County, Florida, that were conducted in both English and Spanish. It is found that, had the conventional wisdom been followed and the polls been conducted in English only, results would have been profoundly inaccurate and invalid. The authors further take advantage of bilingual survey research methodology and assess the level of difference between the survey responses of English-speaking and Spanish-speaking Latino voters, comparing the former to non-Hispanic White voters as well. It was found that, on average, English-speaking Hispanic voters gave sets of responses to different survey questions that were roughly equidistant between those of non-Hispanic Whites and Spanish-dominant Hispanics. The importance of these findings, not only for the survey research methods literature but also for assimilationist models of ethnicity, is assessed.