The Politics of Inclusion: Black Political Incorporation and the Use of Lethal Force

Abstract

Scholarship on the incorporation of Blacks in government and politics has focused on electoral gains and representational styles, but the broad, substantive benefits of inclusion have yet to be established. Utilizing data from 1994 to 2004 for 30 of the 60 largest U.S. cities, random-effects negative binomial regressions for panel data show that the political incorporation of Black elected officials reduces the likelihood of the incidence of lethal force over time, with significance reaching the .01 level in each of 3 models. This study confirms that inclusion contributes to democratic policing by reducing enforcement costs and increasing legitimacy.