The African Centre for the Study of the United States, University of Pretoria (ACSUS-UP) invites you to the Public Webinar: White Nationalism and Congressional Politics in the American South by  Dr. Ariel Zellman, Department of Political Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.

Although ethnocentrism, out-group prejudice, and racial threats strongly predict American political attitudes and voter behaviour, how social movements predicated on these beliefs shape political outcomes is rarely considered. In an article recently published in American Politics Research, Weiner and Zellman (2022) argue that white nationalist activities significantly contribute to the radicalization of Congressional representatives’ policy agendas in a manner non-reducible to demographic or socioeconomic conditions. By mobilizing white voters against racial status threats, they indirectly compel politicians to adopt more radically conservative agendas. To answer the key question of the extent to which white nationalists influence Congressional representative conservatism in US politics, they quantitatively test the stated propositions by examining distributions of white nationalist groups in the American South against 
Congressional representative conservatism from 2010–2017. The findings reveal that white nationalists indeed appear to significantly impact representative radical conservatism, even controlling for numerous factors commonly theorized to explain their rise.

Date: Friday, 14 October 2022
Time: 10:00 - 11:30 
Venue: Online
Enquiries: Ms Lerato Dube ([email protected])