Mapping Democracy: Racial Identity and the Quandary of Political Representation

In a series of lawsuits during the 1990s, federal courts in the United States rejected congressional election districts that had both extremely irregular boundaries and nonwhite majorities. In particular, courts ruled that the shape of these districts–which they characterized as ‘bizarre’ and noncompact–demonstrated that states had unconstitutionally classified voters by race. These legal cases reflect a fundamental tension in American political culture between universalistic citizenship and particularistic racial identity. Universalistic concepts that embrace numeric political representation, geometric standards of shape, and the ‘liberal self ’ share an understanding of the individual as the basic unit of political representation and define this individual by the ability to make rational choices. In contrast, concepts of particularistic identity that emphasize the importance of ‘regional community representation,’ informal visual standards of shape, and place-based or regional attachments view communities as the basic unit of political representation, and believe that individual identity is primarily constituted by membership in communities. Although some participants in the redistricting litigation have advocated notions of community based on racial solidarity, federal courts have only recognized such claims to the extent that these communities are defined by regional attachments. This suggests that the importance of regional attachments remains firmly entrenched in the American political system, despite the ascendance of ‘placeless’ numeric representation. Notwithstanding the impassioned rhetoric on both sides, the effect of these cases is ambiguous for two reasons. First, the creation of nonwhite majority districts is a problematic strategy of political empowerment; second, the decisions do not directly address the underlying issues of segregation and racial inequality.