Anna Mikkelborg
Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations Loyola Marymount University
- Los Angeles CA
Biography
Education
University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D.
Political Science
2024
University of California, Berkeley
M.A.
Political Science
2020
University of Oxford
M.Sc.
Political Science
2018
University of Washington
B.A.
Political Science and Law, Societies and Justice
2017
Areas of Expertise
Articles
Migration and the Persistence of Violence
Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesMartin Vinæs Larsen, Gabriel S. Lenz, and Anna Mikkelborg
2025-11-24
Why do some regions experience high rates of violence for generations, while others remain safe? This research uncovers a crucial insight: When individuals move from historically dangerous to safer areas, a significant part of their original risk of violent victimization travels with them. This suggests that the roots of violence are not solely determined by a person’s current circumstances but also by persistent characteristics—perhaps learned behaviors or cultural adaptations—that migrants carry from their original environments. Our findings, based on millions of US migrants, help explain how high homicide rates can stubbornly endure across different places and times.
As Racial Attitudes Go, So Goes Approval: Why White Democrats Favor Representatives of Color
Political BehaviorAnna Weissman and Anna Mikkelborg
2025-10-29
Recent research shows that white Democrats have become more approving of politicians of color compared to white politicians in the last decade, in contrast with past research indicating that white voters typically prefer white representatives. White voters’ support for politicians of color has long been linked to their racial attitudes, implying that this change could be a result of white Democrats’ increasing racial liberalism. This mechanism deserves more than speculation, since understanding the cause of this shift influences expectations about its likely durability and broader implications for racial politics. This paper provides evidence of the persistence of this shift and evaluates the most plausible potential mechanisms behind it. We find that racial attitudes are strongly associated with white Democrats’ greater approval of representatives of color at the individual level and over time, while there is little evidence that either ideological stereotyping or differences in legislator quality are responsible. These results provide evidence that white Democrats’ increasing racial liberalism influences consequential political opinions like approval of representatives of color.
White Democrats’ Growing Support for Black Politicians in the Era of the “Great Awokening”
American Political Science ReviewAnna Mikkelborg
2025-02-28
Equitable representation of minority groups is a challenge for democratic government. One way to resolve this dilemma is for majority-group voters to support minority-group candidates, but this support is often elusive. To understand how such inter-group coalitions become possible, this paper investigates the case of white Democratic Americans’ growing support for Black political candidates. I show that as white Democrats’ racial attitudes have liberalized, an increasing number of majority-white districts have elected Black congressional representatives. White Democratic survey respondents have also come to prefer Black candidate profiles, as demonstrated in a meta-analysis of 42 experiments. White Democratic respondents in a series of original conjoint experiments were most likely to prefer Black profiles when they expressed awareness of racial discrimination, low racial resentment, and dislike towards Trump. Additional tests underscore the association between majority-group voters’ concern about racial injustice and their support for minority-group candidates.
COVID-19 responsibility and blame: How group identity and political ideology inform perceptions of responsibility, blame, and racial disparities
Social and Personality Psychology CompassLyndsey Wallace, Anna Mikkelborg, Rubi Gonzales, Kyneshawau Hurd, Celina Romano, and Victoria Plaut
2023-12-22
This study explored how racial group, racial identity centrality, and political ideology inform perceptions of responsibility, blame, and racial disparities in COVID-19 outcomes. The findings revealed that highly identified members of non-dominant racial groups were less likely to endorse items indicating individual blame, while being more inclined to attribute racial disparities to structural inequalities. Furthermore, conservative ideology was consistently linked to individual blame and responsibility, with those endorsing conservative ideology agreeing less with explanations of racial disparities based on structural inequalities and agreeing more with explanations for racial disparities based on personal blame and responsibility. Understanding perceptions of blame and responsibility for COVID-19 may influence political discourse and subsequent health inequities, highlighting the importance of exploring how race, identity, and political ideology shape such perceptions.
