Ambivalent, biological, and cultural racism and the legitimation of inequality: Original cross-national survey evidence from the United States and The Netherlands

This article scrutinizes the linkage between racism and legitimizing beliefs about inequality in internationally comparative perspective. Drawing on original national surveys from the United States and the Netherlands (n = 4137), our contribution is threefold. First, we quantify the prevalence of racism across the two countries, finding that a majority in each country expresses blatant racism or ambivalent racism , reflecting conflicting attitudes toward a racial or ethnic group. Second, we provide a socio-demographic profile of racism, confirming past research, but adding important nuance in distinguishing between non-racism, blatant and ambivalent racism, and cultural and biological racism, each of which takes on a different form. Third, we demonstrate the political relevance of studying racism: in both countries, people who express ambivalent or blatant racism are less likely to acknowledge inequalities and unwilling to support government intervention. Ambivalent racism is especially salient in explaining opposition to redistributive and anti-racist policies in the United States.