Ethnic Legacy
Bloodlines: National Border Crossings and Antisemitism in Weimar Germany
Robert Braun
American Sociological Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article argues that national border crossings act as focal points for xenophobia. Two mechanisms converge to produce this pattern. First, when the nation-state is under pressure, border crossings make cross-national differences salient, producing a perceived link between international forces and socioeconomic problems of vulnerable social classes. Second, border crossings come to symbolize international threats and attract aggressive nationalist mobilization by radical movements who frame ethnic outsiders as an international evil. In this distinct spatial landscape, ethnic outsiders become scapegoats for broader social problems among individuals losing social status. I develop my argument through the study of local variation in antisemitism in Weimar Germany before the Holocaust. Statistical analysis of Jewish bogeymen and an in-depth exploration of local reports on antisemitism reveal how pluralism in the Weimar Republic started eroding among members of the lower-middle class living at the margins of the state. In doing so, I draw attention to the spatial sources of xenophobia and demonstrate that borders between nations activate borders within nations, shedding new light on the complicated relationship between pluralism and state formation.
Where you stand depends on where you live: County voting on the Texas secession referendum
Curtis Bram & Michael Munger
Constitutional Political Economy, March 2022, Pages 67-79
Abstract:
During the first half of the 19th century, Western Texas was a "trap baited with grass" that attracted migrants hoping to farm. When settlers on the wrong side of an unknown, invisible line could not build successful farms, residents in those counties voted to remain in the Union at far higher rates than residents in neighboring counties who could farm. The connection between the vote and economic interest was obvious, as those without suitable land could not make use of enslaved labor, which was too expensive given the implicit marginal product of labor. Because the location of settlement was plausibly random, these results highlight the importance of economic interest as a determinant of even fundamental moral beliefs that affect vote choice.
The voice of radio in the battle for equal rights: Evidence from the U.S. South
Andrea Bernini
Economics & Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although the 1960s race riots have gone down in history as America's most violent and destructive ethnic civil disturbances, a consensus on the factors able to explain their insurgence is yet to be found. Using a novel data set on the universe of radio stations airing Black-appeal programming, the effect of the media on riots is found to be sizable and statistically significant. A marginal (1%) increase in signal reception from these stations is estimated to lead to a 2.4% and 4.1% rise in the mean levels of the frequency and intensity of riots, respectively. Several mechanisms behind this result are considered, with the quantity, quality, and length of exposure to radio programming all being decisive factors.
European Recessions and Native American Conflict
Marco Del Angel, Gregory Hess & Marc Weidenmier
NBER Working Paper, March 2022
Abstract:
We investigate the extent to which conflicts between Native American tribes and U.S. Army troops were caused by poor economic conditions in Europe from 1869 to 1890. We hypothesize that contractions in economic activity pushed many Europeans to move to the western United States in search of better economic opportunity. The empirical analysis demonstrates that immigration, interacted with US railroad access, caused the probability of a Native American conflict to increase by approximately 46 percent.
Long-Term Correlates of Racially Diverse Schooling: Education, Wealth, and Social Engagement in Later Life
John Reynolds & Dawn Carr
Social Currents, forthcoming
Abstract:
Racially diverse educational settings yield various benefits according to past research. However, researchers have not fully considered how longlasting the benefits are and whether they exist for adults who attended school prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We analyze a national sample of older adults born between 1931 and 1953 to test for an association between attending a race discordant school in early life and socioeconomic status and social engagement in later life. We use OLS regression and propensity adjusted regression to account for early life factors that select children into race discordant schools. Findings indicate that race discordant schooling is associated with long-term educational benefits for Hispanic adults and greater wealth for Black adults at age 65. Attending a race discordant school was not correlated with socioeconomic outcomes in later life for Whites. Additionally, Black and White older adults who attended discordant schools reported higher levels of social engagement at age 65. To the extent our models successfully account for selection, early exposure to race discordant schools yielded some later-life benefits to all racial/ethnic groups and reduced racial/ethnic inequalities among older adults, despite growing up in a time of entrenched institutional racism and significant White opposition to school integration.
The Legacy of Slavery and Contemporary Racial Disparities in Arrest Rates
Matthew Ward
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, forthcoming
Abstract:
Scholars seeking to understand the consequences of historical regimes of violence and social control frequently turn their attention to lynching and its legacy. More recently, however, a small but growing body of scholarship across the social sciences has expanded the scope of this work by additionally focusing on slavery and, most notably, its enduring negative consequences for African-Americans in the U.S. South. Despite providing a more robust understanding of slavery's effects across numerous spheres, slavery's legacy of social control - in particular, its link to modern law enforcement - remains a frontier in need of further investigation. Moreover, a central theoretical weakness of this historical racial violence and social control literature has been the absence of attention given to the mechanisms that are a part of slavery's legacy. This article addresses these issues by using quantitative techniques to examine the relationship between prior slave dependence and contemporary Black-White disparities in arrest rates. In Southern counties where slave dependence was greater in the past, today there exists greater disparities in the Black-White arrest rate for drug and violent crime related offenses. While slavery exerts direct effects, its legacy also persists indirectly by shaping population distributions and local levels of interracial threat and structural disadvantages facing minority communities. This article establishes empirically the extent to which dehumanizing institutions like slavery continue to blight state-run social control apparatuses in the South - notably law enforcement - and develops theoretical explanations of the mechanisms that are a part of slavery's legacy.
Intergenerational Mobility Begins Before Birth
Ananth Seshadri & Anson Zhou
Journal of Monetary Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Nearly 40% of births in the United States are unintended, and this phenomenon is disproportionately common among Black Americans and women with lower education. Given that being born to unprepared parents significantly affects children's outcomes, could family planning access affect intergenerational persistence of economic status? We extend the standard Becker-Tomes model by incorporating an endogenous family planning choice. In a policy counterfactual where states reduce family planning costs for the poor, intergenerational mobility improves by 0.3 standard deviations on average. We also find that differences in family planning costs account for 20% of the racial gap in upward mobility.
Black Americans' Landholdings and Economic Mobility after Emancipation: New Evidence on the Significance of 40 Acres
William Collins, Nicholas Holtkamp & Marianne Wanamaker
NBER Working Paper, March 2022
Abstract:
The US Civil War ended in 1865 without the distribution of land or compensation to those formerly enslaved - a decision often seen as a cornerstone of racial inequality. We build a dataset to observe Black households' landholdings in 1880, a key component of their wealth, alongside a sample of White households. We then link their sons to the 1900 census records to observe economic and human capital outcomes. We show that Black landowners (and skilled workers) were able to transmit substantial intergenerational advantages to their sons. But such advantages were small relative to the overall racial gaps in economic status.
Exodus in the American metropolis: Predicting Black population decline in Chicago neighbourhoods
Michael Snidal, Magda Maaoui & Tyler Haupert
Urban Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Urban population decline in the largest metropolitan regions of the United States is now explained almost exclusively by a 'Black exodus'. In Chicago, competing 'push' explanations have been put forth to explain Black population loss in urban neighbourhoods, including housing instability, cost of living, unemployment and crime. However, no study to date estimates the predictive power of each of these factors. This article seeks to answer the research question: which neighbourhood characteristics predict Black exodus in Chicago? We explore relationships between Black population loss in Chicago and a comprehensive range of metrics representing economic and social conditions. A fixed-effects multivariate panel regression is specified for the years 2010 to 2018 at the census tract level and cross-checked with bivariate Granger causality tests. We find that foreclosure filings predict Black population decline, and suggest that government prioritise foreclosure relief policies to stem Black exodus.