In his seminal 1958 article (“Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position”), sociologist Herbert Blumer argued that we should understand race relations and racial prejudice especially as a “sense of group position.” Blumer's basic intuition is that individuals are organized by racial categories as groups and that group members are concerned about the relative position of their group in the racial hierarchy: Members of higher-status groups in particular react with many of the visible signs of race prejudice when their group's status is challenged. Lawrence D. Bobo and Mia Tuan offer possibly the most comprehensive exposition and explanation of that argument in their new book, Prejudice in Politics. First, Bobo and Tuan let us know exactly what group position theory is and how to make sense of it in comparison to other ideas about the nature of prejudice in politics. Along with group position, they examine the relevance of other theoretical explanations of prejudice, such as self-interest, clashing values, and symbolic racism. Then they use a unique survey to operationalize, compare, and contrast these competing ideas about prejudice in politics. In the end, they offer us the compelling idea that the “real” answer to understanding prejudice in politics lies not in eliminating alternative hypotheses but in a group position–oriented synthesis of these presumably competing ideas.

At first glance, this book may seem to be about a relatively small issue. As noted in the subtitle, the book examines the context surrounding a treaty dispute in Wisconsin between a tribal group of Native Americans, the Chippewa, and various governmental entities. The actual dispute (lasting officially from 1974 to the mid-1990s) was about whether the Chippewa have the right to fish, hunt, and gather off their reservation in Wisconsin, as had been guaranteed by treaties signed in 1837, 1842, and 1854. But Bobo and Tuan use this particular case to understand a much larger set of issues of broad relevancy to students of American politics. Their central question is clear: “How and why does racial prejudice enter into politics in the modern United States?” (p. 1). Having taken on such a large issue, they examine it in an interesting and enlightening way. They employ original survey data (for both open-ended and standard question formats) and offer an innovative analysis of the content of media sources and other miscellaneous sources such as flyers and posters.

The book has three clear goals: to understand the sociology and psychology of ethno-racial relations, to pay attention to the treaty rights controversy, and to examine these issues though a survey instrument. After laying out Blumer's group position theory in the Prologue and Chapter 1, in Chapter 2 the authors discuss the context under which the treaty rights dispute occurred. Their broad overview of Native American history helps us comprehend the very particular situation of the Chippewa. The overview provided in this chapter, for example, makes it easy to understand how the traditional stereotypes of Native Americans end up impacting white perceptions of the Chippewa people and Chippewa political maneuvers.

In Chapters 3, 4, and 5, the authors turn most directly to their empirical tests. Here they examine the relevance of such explanations as self-interest, the clash of ideological values (what they label the “injustice frame”), symbolic racism, and group position. They do this using survey data from the 1990 statewide Chippewa Indian Treaty Rights Survey (CITRS). Just over 91% of respondents were white Wisconsinites, and almost 45% were residents of the 19 counties most directly affected by the treaty dispute. After assessing the salience of the dispute, the contours of relevant group stereotypes, and the relative strength of the self-interest motive in Chapter 3, the authors turn to a full analysis of all of the competing theoretical concerns in Chapter 4. Here they examine the effects of ideology (as the “injustice frame”), symbolic racism, and group position. It is obvious from the authors' analysis that these three constructs move parallel to one another. After further demonstrating this parallel movement by comparing construct predictors (Table 4.7, pp. 162–63), the authors argue for a theoretically driven synthesis. Their argument centers on these empirical demonstrations and their assertion that group position fully accounts for what we observe in the tables in Chapter 4.

From there the authors move in Chapter 5 to demonstrate how group position aids our understanding of public opinion toward the political aspects of the dispute, such as attitudes toward the antitreaty protestors, actual involvement in the dispute, and feelings toward a political compromise (comanagement of the resources at stake by the state and the Chippewa people). In the last chapter, they step back from their data to again evoke the larger frames and task at hand, noting how their work aids our understanding of race/ethnicity, prejudice, and politics.

There is not much wrong with this book that the authors do not themselves foreshadow. Although I applaud it for focusing on the particulars of the case, letting us know the history of this prolonged debate and interactions, in the final analysis it is about just one state, and it is not clear that its findings can be generalized to the American context at large. Perhaps the most problematic aspect of Prejudice, however, concerns its focus on white Americans. Bobo and Tuan's story is about group position and competition. Of course we can only have a full sense of the battle between two groups when we know how they perceived each other, as well as how the groups maneuvered with each other politically, socially, and economically. Unfortunately, Prejudice does not provide a full picture of either. As noted, we get an exquisitely detailed view of the proceedings, but a view of one side of the debate only. We simply do not hear from the Native Americans in this story. They are treated in the main as a reference point, not a political group with active protagonists or a sense of agency. To the authors' credit, these are critiques of which they are painfully self-aware. They note that they could not conduct a comparable content analysis since the mainstream papers rarely had a discussion of the Chippewa side of things (other than a few scattered comments from tribal leaders), and they acknowledge that the focus on whites is the biggest weakness of their project (p. 21).

Despite these critiques, this is an important book that will serve as a great source for scholars seeking to understand racial politics. It is comprehensive in its overview of the theoretical underpinnings of such politics, especially for those wishing to know more about the logic of group position theory. It is also laudable for its move outside the white/black paradigm to a relatively unique, but ultimately quite familiar, case.