Quote:
Originally Posted by wwmiv
Both Latino and African American elected officials are known to scholars to behave as representatives (across representational definitions, including in voting behavior, oversight activities, constituent relations and service, and in symbolic behavior) for coethnic citizens, regardless of whether those citizens are their own constituents or not.
|
It's not like the only thing we know about our representatives is their ethnic identity. There are many statistics that can be used in order to try to predict behavior, but knowledge of the individual's actual behavior leaves stats in the dust. Maybe you're thinking abstractly about this situation because you're far away and don't feel much connection to the councilmembers? A construct like "coethnic citizens" isn't meant to be applied as a means to predict the voting behavior of elected representatives according to their presumed ethnic identity. It's research jargon that describes patterns as seen through the eyes of researchers, with limited applicability in the real world.