The Oberlin Review SCIENCE A SENSE OF PLACE
Oberlin Research Highlights Black Advocacy in Congress Jenny Garcia Editor’s Note: Assistant Professor of Politics and Comparative American Studies Jenny Garcia’s work focuses on the representation of racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. government. Here Garcia summarizes recent political science research she conducted with several of her Oberlin students on how race shapes the behavior and strategies of Black members of Congress.
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y research aims to better explain the relationship between race and legislative behavior and political representation. In my work, I ask questions like: How does race and racism influence what representatives prioritize and how they advocate for those priorities? How does a representative’s race shape the constraints they face? How does this influence the tactics they use to try to advance their policy priorities?
What implications does this hold for policymaking and representation? For many, it may seem apparent that these questions should be asked. However, in the field of legislative studies, these questions are not only infrequently asked, but they often run counter to key assumptions made by foundational scholarly work. Like many fields of study, the subfields in political science aren’t always 18
great at speaking to one another. While scholars of race and ethnic politics have long highlighted the important role of racial identity in politics, other subfields — like legislative studies — haven’t engaged much with this work. Not to mention, legislative studies is whiter and has more men than almost any other subfield in political science. Through my work and my presence, I seek to push the boundaries of what tradition-