Shedding Light on the Complex Racial Dynamics of Congress

Hunter Rendleman, PhD ’24, studies the group dynamics at play in American political institutions. She discusses how her work illuminates the complex interplay minority members of Congress navigate between racial identity, personal relationships, congressional norms, and constituent expectations. 

Pressure to Conform 

I came to Harvard straight out of college—Bryn Mawr, where I was a math and economics major. I had originally applied to economics graduate programs that weren’t at Harvard. Then one of my advisors said, “Oh, just apply to Harvard for government, because I think you'll like the people there.” 

When I checked it out, I thought, “Wow, political science is the best. It's way better than economics.” I just had to come to Harvard. 

The question that intrigued me was: How do Black congressional representatives see themselves? What is their relationship with their colleagues? Black members of Congress, like other groups, are often typecast: you’re a Black congressperson, you’re a Hispanic congressman, you’re a MAGA Republican, you’re a progressive, and so on. We know that if people ascribe these identities to you, you tend to play out those dynamics internally. So, the question becomes: Are you reflecting your own identity, or are you acting in part the way people think you should behave? 

What I found was that their behavior is a mix of both, of course, but also a function of the social pressures they face day to day on the job. When we see people acting in ways we can identify as “Black” political behavior, it’s in part because they are very aware that they are being monitored by other members of their group. They want to make sure that they stay loyal—and they don’t want to be the person who “spoils it for the team” by speaking or acting in a way that’s unexpected. 

So, within the group, there’s pressure to conform. When Black members are around more of their colleagues—for example, in the Congressional Black Caucus—they are more reluctant to deviate. A more conservative Black member might disagree with the more liberal caucus, but they let someone else do the speaking. There is especially pressure from elites who want to maintain a particular vision of Black politics—not just within the group but also outside it. 

As a citizen, it doesn’t feel so great when you think that your representative is so prone to peer pressure. You elect a representative, and you want them to be an independent force who will work for your interests. 

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Hunter Rendleman, PhD ’24

From Conformity to Second Wave 

But there’s another side: the pressure to conform leads to cohesion. And cohesion is good for getting things done in Congress. You can see the opposite, for example, in the Hispanic Caucus back in the early 2000s. It broke up because the members just couldn’t agree on anything. And so even though people perceived them all as the same ethnic group, they were like, “We’re too different from each other. We can’t produce anything, and we fight all the time.” 

Group identities and the pressure to conform are just a part of life, especially for minoritized races or genders. Even years ago, when there were no racial or gender minorities in Congress—when it was just white men—there was still a lot of conflict and pressure to conform, but it centered around geography and occupation. Different men in the agricultural caucus, for example, would be really mean to each other because they wanted to maintain discipline—to conform to this very particular way of being. My research tries to bridge all of that and say, “Hey, we’re really just seeing the same sorts of dynamics, with different labels over time.” 

So, on the point of group dynamics—no, this is not a new thing. One thing that is new-ish is just the general diversification of who runs for office these days. New types of people, with different backgrounds, are entering office. The Congressional Black Caucus, for example, used to be composed of people with very strong in-group bona fides—civil rights leaders, the heads of protests, people like that. Now the field is wider, and candidates don’t always come straight out of movements. You can’t just say, “Hey, let’s elect more people of color, let’s elect more women,” and expect to get the same outcomes as in the past. 

Andra Gillespie, a professor at Emory, shows that there is a second wave of congressional politicians with less traditional movement backgrounds. Instead, they went to Harvard, for instance, and spent time in more traditional, nonpolitical workplaces. They are more explicitly deracialized. They’ll say, “I’m a Black member, but I don’t talk about race. I’m just like anyone else.” 

Work on What’s Right 

At Harvard, my advisory chairs were Jim Snyder and Ryan Enos. I also had Claudine Gay, as well as Assistant Professor of Government Peter Buisseret, on my committee. They were the best people. I felt very, very lucky to have had them in my court. They met with me frequently. Even with Claudine being super busy, she would make time to meet with me. 

They always told me to work on what I thought was right and what I thought was interesting. No one handed me anything—which made it challenging sometimes—but they would say, “There is something interesting in what you’re doing.” And I thought that was really valuable. 

I was in the Stone Program, which researches wealth and inequality in America, at the Harvard Kennedy School. They were looking for PhD students interested in doing multidisciplinary work, with a particular focus on what they call “top-end inequality”: Why do we see the rich getting richer, and what does that mean for society, both domestically and internationally? It’s a really important question for our time. 

In fall 2025, I start a new position as assistant professor of political science at Berkeley. I saw the chair of Harvard’s Department of Government, Dan Carpenter, earlier today, and he said, “You picked the right line of work for this time.” And I’m like, “Yeah!”