While on it’s face, increasing demographic diversity seems like it would result in an increase in political diversity, I don’t think that is actually true.
This rests on several assumptions:
I am looking through the lens of U.S. domestic politics, and identifying political diversity by having representation of America’s two largest political parties.
Increases in diversity will not be evenly distributed across the American population. (White Evangelicals are not being targeted in a diversity push, and we would expect the addition of college grad+ women and BIPOC.)
Of all demographic groups, white college grad+ men, “Sams,” are the most politically diverse group, at 48 D, 46R. By contrast, the groups typically understood to be represented by increased diversity:
College Grad+ Women: 65 D, 30R
There is difficulty in a lack of BIPOC breakdown by education level, but assuming that trends of increased education would result in a greater democratic disparity, these are useful lower bounds:
Black: 83 D, 10R
Hispanic: 63 D, 29 R
Asian American: 72 D, 17R
While I would caution against partisanship in the evaluation of ideas and programs, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong in a movement having a partisan lean to its membership. A climate change activist group can work in a non-partisan manner, but the logical consequence of their membership will be primarily Democratic voters, because that party appeals to their important issue.
if you encourage people from Ghana, you’ll get whole new political ideologies nobody at silicon valley has even heard of.
I think this aspect of diversity would offer real value in terms of political diversity, and could potentially add value to EA. I think clarification on what it means to “increase diversity” are required to assess the utility. I am biased by my experience in which organizations become more “diverse” in skin color, while becoming more culturally and politically homogenous.
Reducing “political diversity” down to the 2 bit question of “which american political party do they vote for” is a gross simplification. For example, while black people are more likely to vote democrat, a black democrat is half as likely as a white democrat to identify as “liberal”. This is because there are multiple political axes, and multiple political issues to consider, starting with the standard economic vs social political compass model.
This definitely becomes clearest when we escape from a narrow focus on elite college graduates in the US, and look at people from different nations entirely. You will have an easier time finding a Maoist in china than in texas, for example. They might vote D in the US as a result of perceiving the party as less anti-immigrant, but they’re not the same as a white D voter from the suburbs.
As for your experiences where political and ethnic diversity were anti-correlated: did the organisation make any effort on other aspects of diversity, other than skin colour, or did they just, say, swap out a couple of MIT grads of one race for a couple of MIT grads of a different race? Given that you say the culture didn’t change either, the latter seems likely.
While on it’s face, increasing demographic diversity seems like it would result in an increase in political diversity, I don’t think that is actually true.
This rests on several assumptions:
I am looking through the lens of U.S. domestic politics, and identifying political diversity by having representation of America’s two largest political parties.
Increases in diversity will not be evenly distributed across the American population. (White Evangelicals are not being targeted in a diversity push, and we would expect the addition of college grad+ women and BIPOC.)
Of all demographic groups, white college grad+ men, “Sams,” are the most politically diverse group, at 48 D, 46R. By contrast, the groups typically understood to be represented by increased diversity:
College Grad+ Women: 65 D, 30R
There is difficulty in a lack of BIPOC breakdown by education level, but assuming that trends of increased education would result in a greater democratic disparity, these are useful lower bounds:
Black: 83 D, 10R
Hispanic: 63 D, 29 R
Asian American: 72 D, 17R
While I would caution against partisanship in the evaluation of ideas and programs, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong in a movement having a partisan lean to its membership. A climate change activist group can work in a non-partisan manner, but the logical consequence of their membership will be primarily Democratic voters, because that party appeals to their important issue.
I think this aspect of diversity would offer real value in terms of political diversity, and could potentially add value to EA. I think clarification on what it means to “increase diversity” are required to assess the utility. I am biased by my experience in which organizations become more “diverse” in skin color, while becoming more culturally and politically homogenous.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/06/02/democratic-edge-in-party-identification-narrows-slightly/
Reducing “political diversity” down to the 2 bit question of “which american political party do they vote for” is a gross simplification. For example, while black people are more likely to vote democrat, a black democrat is half as likely as a white democrat to identify as “liberal”. This is because there are multiple political axes, and multiple political issues to consider, starting with the standard economic vs social political compass model.
This definitely becomes clearest when we escape from a narrow focus on elite college graduates in the US, and look at people from different nations entirely. You will have an easier time finding a Maoist in china than in texas, for example. They might vote D in the US as a result of perceiving the party as less anti-immigrant, but they’re not the same as a white D voter from the suburbs.
As for your experiences where political and ethnic diversity were anti-correlated: did the organisation make any effort on other aspects of diversity, other than skin colour, or did they just, say, swap out a couple of MIT grads of one race for a couple of MIT grads of a different race? Given that you say the culture didn’t change either, the latter seems likely.