Racial authoritarianism in U.S. democracy

“Indeed, much of the broader polarization literature is framed against a supposedly normatively desirable time of less polarization—one that coincided with the existence of White racial authoritarian states in the US South that both political parties generally upheld (Weaver and Prowse, 2020).”

“Coercive state authority, seen in extreme forms in authoritarian policing and mass incarceration, are also mostly administered with state-level authority (Miller 2008; Soss and Weaver 2017; Weaver and Prowse 2020).”

“(Checkoway 1981, 569; see also Gilens and Page 2014; Weaver and Prowse 2020).”

“Across the entire country, racist, repressive, and seemingly unreformable policing has been a constant in the last century and since, with numerous and harmful consequences for democracy (Weaver and Prowse 2020).”

“…in the United States, because of the systematic oppression and NOTE: Both authors contributed equally to this article. exclusion of certain groups that make the challenge of seeking common purpose seem farcical to some (Lieberman 1998; Klinkner and Smith 1999; Mickey 2015; Weaver and Prowse 2020).”

“…outfitted with military-grade hardware; and quadrupling the prison population, leading some to argue that racial authoritarianism persists (Weaver and Prowse 2020). the Great Recession shed painful light on these inequalities and, with the election of President barack Obama, prompted…”

“…which ushered in other state-sanctioned violence through the police, somewhat mirroring the function of the system of Jim Crow in how Black Americans are relegated to second-class citizenry and are barred from a host of institutions (Alexander 2012; Weaver and Lerman 2010; Weaver and Prowse 2020).”

“City politicians created regimes of exception for drugs and crime controlled by militarised police, namely issues, places, and people for which and/or whom legal rights and democratic norms would not apply (Weaver and Prowse, 2020).”

“…racial hierarchy, implicit in the Constitution’s sanctioning of the enslavement of African Americans, has repeatedly limited and imperiled American democracy, even long after the demise of slavery in the 19th century and the dismantling of Jim Crow segregation in the 20th (Weaver and Prowse 2020).”

“The absence of universal standards leads to a lack of accountability for police o ffi cers, which in turn undermines trust within communities that experience relatively high levels of misconduct and violence at the hands of law enforcement (Weaver and Prowse 2020).”

“With race continuously impacting people’s experiences with and views of the police and democracy (Weaver & Prowse, 2020), and amid a context of unprecedented international media coverage on calls to reform and transform the police, what do people think?”

“…the entwinement of prisons, punishment, and policing with profit-making has been an invariable product of the American combination of racial capitalism and liberal ideology (Smith 1993; Davis 2003; Gilmore 2007, 2020; Kelley 2017; Chaudhary, Weaver, and Prowse 2020; Weaver and Prowse 2020).”

“Authoritar-ian policing practices against Black people have also resulted in the mass incarceration of Black people (Weaver & Prowse, 2020; Webb, 2020).”

“Rooted in colonialism, enslavement, and segregation, racial injustice continues to define societal and interpersonal patterns in democracies (Weaver & Prowse, 2020).”

“” 6 Michener (2018) and Weaver and Prowse (2020) have shown how federalism enables the creation and perpetuation racial and socioeconomic inequalities.”

“The effects of failed state-building have been felt most acutely by black Americans, who have long experienced the twin combinations of failed economic and social opportunities alongside the long, violent arm of the law (Francis 2014 ; Weaver and Prowse 2020).”

“This feat requires us to overcome “an overly narrow definition of authoritarian practices (executive power grabs, direct police collusion, and limited political competition)” (Weaver & Prowse, 2020, p. 1177).”

“Finally, and sometimes most profoundly, they experience this discrimination in the domain of law, where court systems and police levy against them greater penalties for legal infractions target them with repression even when they have done nothing wrong (Crabtree, 2019; Weaver and Prowse, 2020).”

“Today, even as incarceration rates in the USA have plateaued (Kang-Brown et al., 2018), organized interests are exploiting new or expanding opportunities, including immigration detention (Collingwood, Morin, and El-Khatib, 2018), monetary sanctions (Harris, 2016), forms of “ e-carceration ” such as predictive policing…”