| Scholars widely cite the Voting Rights Act as pivotal in shaping post-civil rights movement minority political empowerment. Much current voting rights discourse focuses on congressional districts. Foregrounded against the Supreme Court's recent shifts in voting rights jurisprudence, this study establishes the importance of describing and explaining the Act's impacts on municipal politics. The research design involves comparative empirical case studies of two southern cities, Jackson, Mississippi, and Tallulah, Louisiana, using four main methods: analysis of federal administrative actions and voting rights case law; explication of historical and census data; incorporation of field research and interviews; and scrutiny of quantitative data of the types employed in voting rights litigation and studies of community power, economic growth coalitions, and equity of public service distribution. The study identifies components of empowerment (and the extent to which people of color have achieved it), how the Act shapes local regime coalitions, and conditions under which political incorporation results in downwardly redistributive policies. It makes three overarching contributions: (1) critiquing the standard narrative of minority electoral success and emphasizing substantive representation at the local level, it pursues a new way to understand the Act in the context of the larger study of racial politics; (2) it elaborates a theoretical framework to measure democratic efficacy; and (3) its comprehensive case studies serve as models for future research on urban and rural politics. |
