Racial and Ethnic Politics in American Suburbs

Racial and Ethnic Politics in American Suburbs examines racial and ethnic politics outside traditional urban contexts and questions the standard models we use to understand mobility and government responses to rapid demographic change and political demands. This study moves beyond traditional scholarship in urban politics, departing from the persistent treatment of racial dynamics in terms of a simple black-white binary. Combining an interdisciplinary, multi-method and multi-racial approach with a well-integrated analysis of multiple forms of data including focus groups, in-depth interviews and survey data, Racial and Ethnic Politics in American Suburbs explains how and why redistributive policies that accommodate new immigrants and racial/ethnic minorities - something that given earlier knowledge and theorizing should never happen - takes place. Lorrie Frasure-Yokley relies on the framework of suburban institutional interdependency (SII), which presents a new way of thinking systematically about local politics within the context of suburban political institutions in the United States today.