My Work
Publications
Davis, B. (2019). Are Majority Minority Districts Too Safe?: A look at the Alabama State Legislature. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 1-19.
Davis, B. R. (2018). Predation in State and Nation. Race and Justice, 1-21.
Davis, B (Forthcoming). Redistricting. In T. King-Meadow, K. Middlemass, & V. Sinclair-Chapman (Eds.), African Americans in the American Political System: An Encyclopedia of African Americans as Voters, Candidates, and Office Holders. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO
Davis, B (Forthcoming). Stop and Frisk. In T. King-Meadow, K. Middlemass, & V. Sinclair-Chapman (Eds.), African Americans in the American Political System: An Encyclopedia of African Americans as Voters, Candidates, and Office Holders. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO
Under Review
"Testing Mechanisms: Carceral Contact and Political Participation"
Despite extensive scholarship detailing the expansion of the carceral state, the subsequent increase in carceral contact, and the negative externalities of carceral contact, our understanding of the effects of carceral contact, as either simultaneous or path dependent, remains unknown. My contribution to the literature on the political consequences of the carceral state is a clearer understanding of the direct and indirect relationship between carceral contact and participation. This research moves the conversation from what is happening to how it is happening. I find that carceral contact has significant direct and indirect effects on political participation mediated through feelings of civic duty and governmental trust. Roughly twenty-three percent of the negative effect on political participation is an indirect effect of carceral contact on feelings of civic duty and governmental trust. My results strongly suggest that the causal arrow points in my hypothesized direction—carceral contact depresses levels of civic duty and governmental trust, which subsequently suppresses political participation.
"Feeling Politics: Carceral Contact, Well-Being, and Political Participation"
In this paper, I argue that feelings of well-being are strongly associated with political participation and in part produced through interactions with institutions. Using panel analysis and structural equation modeling, I offer evidence that carceral contact has a strong direct effect and a strong indirect effect on political participation mitigated through measures of well-being. I find that twenty-three percent of the political suppression effect is an indirect effect of carceral contact mediated through measures of well-being. My results strongly suggest that the causal arrow goes in my hypothesized direction—carceral contact adversely affects feelings of well-being and thereby subsequent political participation. My results have important implications for the study of law and society, institutions, race and American politics, and political participation.
"Faith, Race, and Immigration: Religiosity and Public Opinion"
How much does religiosity inform public opinion and attitudes? On January 24, 2018, Reverend Franklin Graham, son of famed Baptist preacher Billy Graham, stated on CNN that God placed Donald Trump in the Presidency of the United States. Reverend Graham made this proclamation to explain why White Evangelicals support and defend President Trump despite his past lewd behavior and continued derogatory and incendiary comments. Trump is not the only morally questionable candidate supported by the Religious Right. In 2017, they choose to support senatorial candidate Roy Moore an accused child molester. Moore has consistently campaigned has a Christian Conservative, while Evangelical support for Donald Trump is a new phenomenon, but what is not new is the juxtaposition of holding both deeply religious and deeply discriminatory beliefs. I argue that Trump’s rhetoric and policies have illuminated, not created, these existing divisions and contradictions among race, politics, and religion. My contributions to the literature on religion, race, and politics include finding that religiosity has significant direct and indirect effect on public opinion and attitudes. I find that up to thirty-seven percent of the negative effect on public opinion and attitudes is an indirect effect of religiosity mediated through political beliefs and ideology.
"The Politics of Racial Abjection"
Building on the theoretical frameworks of both Mills and Hooker I inject the racial polity and racialized solidarity into Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection to show how the lack of concern about the pain and suffering of blacks produces a race based abjection. I argue, such as with political solidarity, theorist have not sufficiently considered the effects of race on abjection. The central problematic of this paper is racial abjection—how race creates an inverted conceptualization of abjection and what this means for blacks. First I discuss the theory of abjection and its connection to women’s bodies and most significantly the dead body—the ultimate abjection. Secondly I discuss how akin to solidarity, when race is injected in to abjection the concept takes on new meaning. Essentially, black pain and suffering have become spectacles and the dead black body its climax. This is primarily the ability and desire of whites to inflict and bare whiteness to black suffering and pain and not express solidarity in neither an affective or normative manner. Next, I discuss the normative implication of racial abjection on the black body and the sexualization of the black body. Then I detail the effects of racial abjection on black masculinity and femininity. Lastly, I offer (dis)identification as a means of counter-conceptualizing back identity.
Working Papers
Poverty to Prison Pipeline: Gendered Pathways into the Carceral State
Welfare Receipt and Civic Engagement
Sophistication, Inconsistency, and Symbolism: A Rational Approach to Ideology
Antigone: Autonomy and the State
Other Publications
Davis, B (2016) Globalizing the Agenda of #BlackLivesMatter. Agenda for International Development.
Davis, B. (2015) Graduate students hurt by the Affordable Care Act. The Hill, July 29, 2015.
Davis, B. (2014) Ferguson the Latest Front in the State’s War on Black Community. PanAm Post
August 22, 2004.
Davis, B. (2019). Are Majority Minority Districts Too Safe?: A look at the Alabama State Legislature. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 1-19.
Davis, B. R. (2018). Predation in State and Nation. Race and Justice, 1-21.
Davis, B (Forthcoming). Redistricting. In T. King-Meadow, K. Middlemass, & V. Sinclair-Chapman (Eds.), African Americans in the American Political System: An Encyclopedia of African Americans as Voters, Candidates, and Office Holders. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO
Davis, B (Forthcoming). Stop and Frisk. In T. King-Meadow, K. Middlemass, & V. Sinclair-Chapman (Eds.), African Americans in the American Political System: An Encyclopedia of African Americans as Voters, Candidates, and Office Holders. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO
Under Review
"Testing Mechanisms: Carceral Contact and Political Participation"
Despite extensive scholarship detailing the expansion of the carceral state, the subsequent increase in carceral contact, and the negative externalities of carceral contact, our understanding of the effects of carceral contact, as either simultaneous or path dependent, remains unknown. My contribution to the literature on the political consequences of the carceral state is a clearer understanding of the direct and indirect relationship between carceral contact and participation. This research moves the conversation from what is happening to how it is happening. I find that carceral contact has significant direct and indirect effects on political participation mediated through feelings of civic duty and governmental trust. Roughly twenty-three percent of the negative effect on political participation is an indirect effect of carceral contact on feelings of civic duty and governmental trust. My results strongly suggest that the causal arrow points in my hypothesized direction—carceral contact depresses levels of civic duty and governmental trust, which subsequently suppresses political participation.
"Feeling Politics: Carceral Contact, Well-Being, and Political Participation"
In this paper, I argue that feelings of well-being are strongly associated with political participation and in part produced through interactions with institutions. Using panel analysis and structural equation modeling, I offer evidence that carceral contact has a strong direct effect and a strong indirect effect on political participation mitigated through measures of well-being. I find that twenty-three percent of the political suppression effect is an indirect effect of carceral contact mediated through measures of well-being. My results strongly suggest that the causal arrow goes in my hypothesized direction—carceral contact adversely affects feelings of well-being and thereby subsequent political participation. My results have important implications for the study of law and society, institutions, race and American politics, and political participation.
"Faith, Race, and Immigration: Religiosity and Public Opinion"
How much does religiosity inform public opinion and attitudes? On January 24, 2018, Reverend Franklin Graham, son of famed Baptist preacher Billy Graham, stated on CNN that God placed Donald Trump in the Presidency of the United States. Reverend Graham made this proclamation to explain why White Evangelicals support and defend President Trump despite his past lewd behavior and continued derogatory and incendiary comments. Trump is not the only morally questionable candidate supported by the Religious Right. In 2017, they choose to support senatorial candidate Roy Moore an accused child molester. Moore has consistently campaigned has a Christian Conservative, while Evangelical support for Donald Trump is a new phenomenon, but what is not new is the juxtaposition of holding both deeply religious and deeply discriminatory beliefs. I argue that Trump’s rhetoric and policies have illuminated, not created, these existing divisions and contradictions among race, politics, and religion. My contributions to the literature on religion, race, and politics include finding that religiosity has significant direct and indirect effect on public opinion and attitudes. I find that up to thirty-seven percent of the negative effect on public opinion and attitudes is an indirect effect of religiosity mediated through political beliefs and ideology.
"The Politics of Racial Abjection"
Building on the theoretical frameworks of both Mills and Hooker I inject the racial polity and racialized solidarity into Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection to show how the lack of concern about the pain and suffering of blacks produces a race based abjection. I argue, such as with political solidarity, theorist have not sufficiently considered the effects of race on abjection. The central problematic of this paper is racial abjection—how race creates an inverted conceptualization of abjection and what this means for blacks. First I discuss the theory of abjection and its connection to women’s bodies and most significantly the dead body—the ultimate abjection. Secondly I discuss how akin to solidarity, when race is injected in to abjection the concept takes on new meaning. Essentially, black pain and suffering have become spectacles and the dead black body its climax. This is primarily the ability and desire of whites to inflict and bare whiteness to black suffering and pain and not express solidarity in neither an affective or normative manner. Next, I discuss the normative implication of racial abjection on the black body and the sexualization of the black body. Then I detail the effects of racial abjection on black masculinity and femininity. Lastly, I offer (dis)identification as a means of counter-conceptualizing back identity.
Working Papers
Poverty to Prison Pipeline: Gendered Pathways into the Carceral State
Welfare Receipt and Civic Engagement
Sophistication, Inconsistency, and Symbolism: A Rational Approach to Ideology
Antigone: Autonomy and the State
Other Publications
Davis, B (2016) Globalizing the Agenda of #BlackLivesMatter. Agenda for International Development.
Davis, B. (2015) Graduate students hurt by the Affordable Care Act. The Hill, July 29, 2015.
Davis, B. (2014) Ferguson the Latest Front in the State’s War on Black Community. PanAm Post
August 22, 2004.
