Race and identity politics
Mclaren’s research examines how different aspects of racial identity in the US influence political beliefs and behaviors. Mclaren’s work in Black politics includes a focus on the increasing ethnic diversity within Black America. Particularly as a result of exponential waves of Black immigrants to the United States from the Caribbean, and Africa in the 21st century. Mclaren is also interested in how connections to identity influence Black political behavior, and the prospects for political coalitions between Black Americans and other minority groups. Mclaren’s dissertation work in this area has been funded by the Russell Sage Foundation
Strategic Invisibility: How Candidates with “Invisible Identities” Strategize in Political Campaigns.
Strategic Invisibility: How Candidates with “Invisible Identities” Strategize in Political Campaigns. Book Manuscript in Progress
This dissertation book project seeks to gain a better understanding of how Black candidates with “invisible identities,” specifically immigrant status, strategize for support in political campaigns and how constituencies across politically relevant identity groups respond to candidates who lean into, distance or weaponize their identities as a political strategy. I take a multi-methodological approach and center Black immigrant political candidates as a case that will allow me to parse out issues of race, ethnicity, and immigration status. I use content analysis and survey experiments to test how these candidates market their identities for support, and how they are received amongst Black and White Americans. Ultimately, I find that these candidates have greater control over and can make salient (or mute) some of their structurally contingent identities, and are rewarded differently for this amongst Black and White audiences.
Willing But unable: Assessing the Relationship between racial group consciousness and political particiaption
Smith, J., Clemons, J., Krishnamurthy A., Martinez, M., Mclaren, L., & White, I. (2023). “Willing but Unable: Reassessing the Relationship between Racial Group Consciousness and Black Political Participation”. American Political Science Review, 1-17.
In this article, we offer a framework for understanding the role that racial group consciousness (RGC) plays in influencing Black Americans’ engagement in costly political action. Attempting to add clarity to decades of inconsistent and at times contradictory findings, we argue that the effect of RGC at inspiring political action among Black Americans is conditional on (1) the relevance of the political activity to achieving a well-recognized racial group outcome and (2) individual capacity to assume the cost of engaging in the activity. Analyzing data from the ANES and two behavioral experiments, we find that RGC exhibits a consistently strong relationship with engagement in low-cost political behavior, regardless of whether the behavior has some explicit group-relevant outcome. When engagement becomes more costly, however, Blacks high in RGC are only willing to assume these costs if the engagement has some clear potential for racial group benefit.
Race, Immigration and Black Intergroup Politics
“Race, Immigration, and Black Intergroup Politics” 2024. Politics, Groups, and Identities
While the literature has established that immigration opinions among African Americans are frequently driven by economic anxieties, less is known about how this co-exists with other factors. I argue that race and distribution of foreign- born immigrants at the local level may be additional important factors in determining African American immigration policy opinions. Results suggest that African Americans living in counties with high proportions of Black or Asian immigrants may lead to more positive immigration sentiments. I find the opposite for those in high Latino foreign-born counties. These findings have implications for the future of intergroup relations and suggest taking a deeper look at the diverse identities of immigrants and its effects on Black political opinion.
Checkout my CV for more working papers on racial identity and political behavior