Webs of Difference: The Social and Institutional Roots of Racial Politics in New York City and London

This dissertation conducts a comparative historical analysis of nonwhite politics in New York City and London, examining how social and institutional factors interact to influence the content of nonwhite political appeals---the claims that nonwhite political entrepreneurs make on government. Given the explanatory weakness of extant theories, I formulate an alternative synthetic framework, which emphasizes the importance of local civil society and political institutions, to explain cross-national and over time variation in the content of nonwhite elite political appeals. To test this and other theories, I observe the evolution of nonwhite elite political appeals in New York City and London over two historical periods. In the first historical period, I focus on the evolution of nonwhite elite perceptions of white representation. In the second historical period, I trace the evolution of nonwhite elite appeals during key elections in three congressional districts in New York City and four parliamentary constituencies in London. Drawing upon a variety of primary and secondary sources and employing an interpretive approach, I observe nonwhite political debates at particular electoral moments and over time, assessing how shifts in local civil societies and political institutions influence variation in the content of nonwhite elite political appeals.;I find that the endogenous properties of the American party system made nonwhite elite appeals sensitive to local electoral dynamics while the exogenous properties of the British party system made nonwhite elite appeals sensitive to national electoral dynamics. In New York City, nonwhite political elites embraced identity politics (racial and ethnic appeals) to maximize their electoral chances in competitive, ethnically diverse districts. In London, white political elites policed the content of nonwhite political appeals, frequently removing racial and ethnic content, to construct successful, national, electoral coalitions.