Governing a Multiethnic California

 

This colloquium brought together scholars from two countries (the United States and France) and three disciplines (political science, demography, and urban planning) who study the influence of racial, ethnic, and national-identity diversity on California. Both completed works and works in progress were presented in a small setting that maximized scholarly interaction. The panels also included graduate student research, in the hopes that the colloquium will encourage further collaboration across discipline, across countries, and across generations of scholars.

Final Program

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

8:00 pm

Dinner at Great China Restaurant, 2115 Kittredge St. in Downtown Berkeley

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Harris Room, Institute of Governmental Studies

9:30 am

IGS Welcome: Jack Citrin, Director

9:40 am

Conference Welcome: Thad Kousser, Frederick Douzet and Kenneth P. Miller

10:00 am – 11:30 am

The Politics of Ethnic Transition

“Black Power Challenged in California Cities: The Cases of Oakland and Richmond,” Frederick Douzet (University of Paris 8), Alex Schafran (UC Berkeley), Lisa M. Feldstein (UC Berkeley)

“Concern Over Immigration and Support for Public Services,” Max Neiman and Eric McGhee (Public Policy Institute of California)

1:00 pm – 2:30 pm

Ethnic Politics in Place

“East Palo Alto: The Search for an Urban Civic Culture” Denis Lacorne (Sciences Po)

“Immigrant Political Incorporation in Context: A Case Study of San Jose, California,” Loan Le (UC Berkeley)

2:45 pm – 4:15 pm

Race, Ethnicity, and Electoral Institutions

“Racial and Socio-economic Issues in Election Administration,” Bruce Cain (UC Berkeley) and Karin MacDonald (UC Berkeley)

“No se puede: barriers to Latino representation on the Phoenix City Council,” Justin Levitt (UC San Diego)

4:30 pm – 5:00 pm

Work in Progress Presentations

Gerald Gamm (University of Rochester)

Kenneth P. Miller (Claremont McKenna College) and Justin Levitt (UC San Diego)

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Harris Room, Institute of Governmental Studies

9:45 am – noon

Ethnicity, Urbanism, and Politics: A Historical Perspective

“The Embattled Metropolis: Big Cities in American State Legislatures,” Gerald Gamm (University of Rochester) and Thad Kousser (UC San Diego)

“Partisan and Spatial Realignment in California,” Iris Hui (UC Berkeley)

“The Democratic Coalition’s Religious Divide: Why California Voters Supported Obama But Not Same-Sex Marriage,” Kenneth P. Miller (Claremont-McKenna College)

Noon – 3:00 pm

Informal Working Lunch

For scholars working on collaborative projects, we will reserve this time for them to work together in the Harris Room, the visiting scholar carrels, or a café of their choosing.

3:00 pm – 4:30 pm

Measuring Concepts

“Comparing Residential Segregation in the United States, Great Britain, and France” Bruce Cain (UC Berkeley), Frederick Douzet (University of Paris 8) and John Hanley (UC Berkeley)

“Getting it Right? Correct Voting in Direct Democracy,” Mike Binder (UC San Diego)

4:30 pm – 5:00 pm

Work in Progress Presentations

Thad Kousser (UC San Diego), Alex Schafran and Lisa M. Feldstein (UC Berkeley)
Program Participants

John Hanley is a graduate student in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include American politics, elections, and public opinion. John’s dissertation project looks at legislative investigations of governmental and non-governmental institutions.

Gerald Gamm is chair of the Department of Political Science and associate professor of political science and history at the University of Rochester.  He is the author of The Making of New Deal Democrats: Voting Behavior and Realignment in Boston, 1920-1940 (1989), Urban Exodus: Why the Jews Left Boston and the Catholics Stayed (1999), and a forthcoming book with Steven S. Smith on the rise of party leadership in the Senate. He has written extensively on the historical development of committees and leadership in Congress. With Thad Kousser, he is currently studying American state legislatures, examining patterns of bill introduction and success, changes in membership and party coalitions over time, and the relationship between local and state governments.  He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1994.

Alex Schafran is a doctoral student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, where his primary research focuses on gentrification and the changing geographies of race and class in American cities. Prior to coming to Berkeley, he worked for a decade as an organizer, advocate, policy analyst and planner for a variety of social justice organizations in New York and California. He holds a MA in Urban Planning from Hunter College, CUNY, and a BA in History from Stanford University.

Kenneth P. Miller is associate professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College in California. He holds a B.A. from Pomona College, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. His research focuses on direct democracy, state and federal constitutional law, and California politics. Recent work includes The New Political Geography of California (coedited with Frederick Douzet and Thad Kousser) (BP3 2008) and Direct Democracy and the Courts (Cambridge forthcoming 2009).

Mike Binder is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. Mr. Binder’s primary research investigates voter competence, specifically focusing on ‘correct voting’ within direct democracy. His work was recognized as the Best Graduate Student Paper in State Politics at presented at APSA 2007. Mike also has interests in political participation, campaigns and elections in general. He has significant teaching experience at San Diego State University and was presented the Outstanding Faculty Service Award and the APSA and Pi Sigma Alpha Outstanding Teaching in Political Science awards in 2007.

Loan K. Le is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at UC Berkeley. She studies political behavior, social psychology, race, ethnicity and immigration. Her dissertation examines the effects of spatial concentration on immigrant political incorporation.

Frédérick Douzet is an associate professor of geopolitics at the French Institute of Geopolitics of the University of Paris 8. She is a junior member of the Academic Institute of France, a member of the editorial board of the review Herodote and a former Fulbright Research grantee (2005-2006). Her research focuses on urban geopolitics, immigration, segregation and California politics. Recent work includes La couleur du pouvoir. Géopolitique de l’immigration et de la segregation à Oakland, Californie, Belin, Paris 2007 and The New Political Geography of California (coedited with Thad Kousser and Kenneth P. Miller) Berkeley Public Policy Press 2008.

Denis Lacorne is a senior research fellow at the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI/Sciences Po) in Paris. He holds a Diplôme from Sciences Po, a MA in international relations, a MPh and a PhD in political science from Yale University. His interests are comparative politics, American political history and political philosophy. He is the author of De la religion en Amérique. Essai d’histoire politique, Paris, Gallimard, 2007, La Crise de l’identité américaine. Du melting-pot au multiculturalisme, Paris, Gallimard, 2003 (2d edition). He is also the editor of  Les Etats-Unis, Paris, Fayard, 2006, with Justin Vaïsse of La Présidence impériale: de Franklin D. Roosevelt à George W. Bush, Paris, Odile Jacob, 2007 and with Tony Judt of With Us or Against Us. Studies in Global Anti-Americanism, New York, Palgrave, 2007 (paperback edition).

Thad Kousser is an Associate Professor of Political Science at UC San Diego. His publications include work on term limits, the initiative process, voting by mail, reapportionment, campaign finance laws, the blanket primary, health care policy, and European Parliament elections. He is the author of Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2005), a co-author of Adapting to Term Limits: Recent Experiences and New Directions (Public Policy Institute of California, 2004), a co-editor of The New Political Geography of California (Berkeley Public Policy Press, 2008), and a co-author of The Logic of American Politics, 4th Edition (Congressional Quarterly Press). He is a recipient of the UC San Diego Academic Senate’s Distinguished Teaching Award, serves as co-editor of the journal State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and has worked as a staff assistant in the California, New Mexico, and United States Senates.

Lisa Feldstein is a Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley, where her research focuses on land use, urban politics, and social inequality. She has worked in the San Francisco Bay Area’s affordable housing and land use arenas for two decades. Prior to commencing her doctoral studies, Lisa was the Public Health Law Program’s Senior Policy Director and the Founding Director of PHLP’s Land Use and Health Program (now the Project for Healthy Places). The Land Use and Health Program focuses on how the built environment creates barriers to and opportunities for healthy choices, and trains public health professionals, planners, and attorneys in ways to work together to utilize land use for the creations of healthier environments, with a focus on access to healthy food. Lisa Feldstein authored the textbook General Plans and Zoning: A Toolkit on Land Use and Health, and is a co-author of the textbook Economic Development and Redevelopment: A Toolkit on Land Use and Health. She has also written a number of articles for a variety of publications.

Max Nieman is Associate Director and Senior Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. Before that, he was Professor of Political Science, University of California, Riverside (1973-2005); Graduate Advisor (2001-2005); Director, Center for Social and Behavioral Science Research (1996-2003); Chair, Political Science Department (1998-1999); Associate Dean of Academic Affairs (1996-1999), University of California, Riverside; Chair, University of California Systemwide Committee on Research Policy (2004-2005); Lecturer in Political Science, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (1972-1973).

Eric McGhee is a Research Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. He has served as an Assistant Professor, political science, University of Oregon (2004-2007); Congressional Fellow, American Political Science Association (2003-2004); and Research Associate, PPIC Statewide Survey, Public Policy Institute of California (2000-2002).

Bruce E. Cain, Heller Professor of Political Science and Director of the UC, Washington Center, came to UC Berkeley in 1989 from the California Institute of Technology, where he taught from 1976 to 1989. A summa cum laude graduate of Bowdoin College (1970), he studied as a Rhodes Scholar (1970-1972) at Trinity College, Oxford. In 1976 he received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. His writings include The Reapportionment Puzzle (1984), The Personal Vote (1987), written with John Forejohn and Morris Fiorina, and Congressional Redistricting (1991), with David Butler. He has also co-edited numerous books, including Developments in American Politics, Volume I – IV, with Gillian Peele, Constitutional Reform in California, with Roger Noll, Racial and Ethnic Politics in California, Vol. II, with Michael Preston and Sandra Bass, and Voting at the Political Fault Line: California’s Experiment with the Blanket Primary with Elisabeth R. Gerber (2002). Professor Cain has served as a polling consultant for state and senate races to Fairbank, Canapary and Maulin (1985-86); redistricting consultant to (among others) the Justice Department, 1989; Los Angeles County, 1991; San Diego Citizens Commission on Redistricting, 2001; City and County of San Francisco, 2002; Special Master for a three judge panel, Arizona State Legislative Redistricting, 2002; consultant to the Los Angeles Times (1986-89) and political commentator for numerous radio and television stations in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. He received the Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service in March, 2000, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in April, 2000.