Abstract

Hanes Walton’s Invisible Politics: Black Political Behavior challenges the illegibility of Black political research in mainstream political science by developing a multidimensional framework. In this dialogue, I take up Walton’s call for redefinition by showing the importance of his framework and extending it by combining it with Hancock’s (2007) power thesis for legislative studies and the Black legislative context. Synthesizing these frameworks creates a critical institutionalist framework that makes legible how systems of oppression manifest through the interactions between lawmakers that emerge in the formal institutional process, which forces marginalized lawmakers to appraise the quotidian politics that, in turn, shape how Black lawmakers develop their legislative strategies. In the spirit of redefinition, the second intervention in this dialogue is making a case for moving away from the post-positivist paradigm to an interpretivist paradigm. I argue that the principles of interpretivism allow scholars to be more in register with the Black legislative experience. Walton’s work is canonical to political science especially to legislative studies. What makes Walton crucial for political science is his call to have frameworks that make the Black legislative experience legible while simultaneously allowing us to imagine what is possible to research in Black legislative studies.

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