Descriptive or Partisan Representation? Examining Trade-Offs for Asian Americans

2026/01/01 by John J. Cho, Mia Costa, Yusaku Horiuchi · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Gender Politics and Representation #Populism, Right-Wing Movements

paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0007123425101324

openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/02/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22

Abstract

Abstract Do voters want representatives who share their race, ethnicity, or partisanship? We examine this question with a focus on Asian Americans who face trade-offs between descriptive (that is, Asian American or ‘pan-ethnic’) and partisan representation, as well as trade-offs involving ‘co-ethnic’ (for example, Korean for Korean) and ‘cross-ethnic’ (for example, Indian for Korean) descriptive representation. Across two experiments, we find that when Asian Americans are asked about collective representation in Congress, they prioritize more co-ethnic and pan-ethnic legislators over co-partisan legislators. However, in a competitive electoral setting, they often trade off race/ethnicity for partisanship. Asian Americans are only willing to cross party lines to vote for a co-ethnic candidate, but never for a cross- or pan-ethnic candidate. These findings shed light on the importance of considering heterogeneous preferences along ethnicities within the same racial ‘in-group’, such as Asian Americans, a heavily understudied and heterogeneous group in American politics.

Citations

• Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women? A Contingent "Yes"
• The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans
• Affect, Not Ideology
• Race and Gender Cues in Low-Information Elections
• Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization
• Expressive Partisanship: Campaign Involvement, Political Emotion, and Partisan Identity
• A Cross-Cutting Calm
• The Symbolic Benefits of Descriptive and Substantive Representation
• The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States
• Biases at the Ballot Box: How Multiple Forms of Voter Discrimination Impede the Descriptive and Substantive Representation of Ethnic Minority Groups
• Perceived prototypicality of Asian subgroups in the United States and the United Kingdom
• Descriptive Representation in an Era of Polarization
• Strategic Discrimination in the 2020 Democratic Primary
• Using Eye-Tracking to Understand Decision-Making in Conjoint Experiments
• The Contingent Effects of Candidate Sex on Voter Choice
• Measuring Subgroup Preferences in Conjoint Experiments
• Causal Inference in Conjoint Analysis: Understanding Multidimensional Choices via Stated Preference Experiments

Discussions

• Read "Descriptive or Partisan Representation? Examining Trade-Offs for Asian Americans," in the latest British Journal of Political Science, by John Cho, Mia Costa, and Faculty Associate Yusaku Horiuc [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]