PEER
REVIEWED
PAPERS
My research is motivated by questions about democracy, citizenship, and inequality. As a scholar, I apply an interdisciplinary approach to the study of American political power threading disparate literatures in race/racism, work and organizations, American political development, and Black politics. I am interested in how the United States government produces and reinforces racial domination through public policy institutions and the professionals who run them.
Below you will find information about my published and forthcoming scholarly work. A complete review of my research can be found on my CV, here.
A House Still Divided: The 2024 election and the racial politics of Congress
The 2024 elections brought unified Republican control and enabled President Trump to pursue a white supremacist agenda. While much focus has been on executive actions, this paper centers Congress as a critical but understudied site of democratic erosion and racialized governance. Despite growing racial diversity, Congress remains a deeply racialized institution. Using a Black epistemological framework, I analyze it as both a white space and a Black space – where white dominance is reinforced even as Black lawmakers resist and reshape norms. Focusing on three developments in the 118th Congress – the clash between Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jasmine Crockett, the closure of the House Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and the primary defeats of Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman – this study reveals how racism structures institutional power and constrains Black agency. By shifting attention from policy outcomes to the institutional environment, this paper offers a grounded analysis of racism within congressional governance.
Jones, James. 2025. “A House Still Divided: The 2024 Election and the Racial Politics of Congress.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, June, 1–14. doi:10.1080/01419870.2025.2519804.
Black Life in Congress: A Relational Approach to Studying Racism in American Government
Congress is a racialized institution. While previous scholarship has explored how racism manifests within the ranks of lawmakers and in lawmaking, there remains a significant gap in our understanding of how racism unfolds within the inner workings of Congress as a workplace. This chapter offers a sociological framework for studying Congress as a racialized workplace. This approach foregrounds the careers and work experiences of Black Americans who work in the Capitol as staffers, service workers, and auxiliary workers. By centring the narratives of these often underrepresented actors within legislative studies, this framework offers a more comprehensive perspective on how racism shapes the distribution of power, organization of work, and the overall operations of the legislature. The paper concludes by providing recommendations for future research.
Jones, James. 2025 'Black Life in Congress: A Relational Approach to Studying Racism in American Government'“, in Meena Dhanda (ed.), Oxford Intersections: Racism by Context (Oxford, online edn, Oxford Academic, https://doi.org/10.1093/9780198945246.003.0001
Congress as a
Racialized Social System
In this paper, I theorize how the congressional workplace became racialized and identify the racial processes that maintain a racialized workplace today. I investigate how lawmakers have organized their workplace and made decisions about which workers would be appropriate for different types of roles in the Capitol. Through a racial analysis of the congressional workplace, I show a connection between Congress as an institution and workplace and how racial domination is a thread that connects and animates both its formal and informal structures.
Jones, James R. 2019. “Congress as a Racialized Social System” Race, Organizations, and the Organizing Process (Research in the Sociology of Organizations). Melissa Wooten, ed. Emerald Insight Limited, 171-191.
Racing Through the Halls of Congress:
The “Black Nod” as an Adaptive Strategy for Surviving in a Raced Institution
Throughout the day, African Americans routinely nod to one another in the halls of the Capitol, and consider the Black nod as a common cultural gesture. However, data from over sixty in-depth interviews suggest there is an additional layer of meaning to the Black nod in Congress. From the microlevel encounters, I observed and examined, I interpret the nod as more than a gesture that occurs in a matter of seconds between colleagues or even among perfect strangers in the halls of Congress. The Black nod encompasses and is shaped by labor organized along racial lines, a history of racial subordination, and powerful perceptions of race in the post-Civil-Rights era on the meso-, and macrolevels. Using this interpretive foundation, this article will show how the nod is an adaptive strategy of Black staffers that renders them visible in an environment where they feel socially invisible.
Jones, James R. 2017. “Racing Through the Halls of Congress: The “Black Nod” as an Adaptive Strategy for Surviving in a Raced Institution.” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, (14)1, 165-187.