The Voting Rights Act of 1965 redefined race relations in the United States. Yet evidence on its effect on Black office holding remains scant. Using novel data on Black elected officials between 1962 and 1980, we assess the impact of the Voting Rights Act on the racial makeup of local governments in the Deep South. Exploiting predetermined differential exposure of Southern counties to the mandated federal intervention, we show that the latter fostered local Black office holding, particularly in the powerful county commissions, controlling local public finances. In the presence of election by district, covered counties experienced Black representation gains and faster capital spending growth.

Summary.In the last few years a growing attention on the preservation of languages has developed, thanks to initiatives of language planning, which imply inter alia the recognition of an idiom as a language at the political level. This view follows the dichotomy between those idioms that are official languages of institutions and those which h do not have such status, i.e. dialects. However, the difference between languages and dialects being socio-linguistic and not linguistic tout court, the efforts for preserving languages should not take the official status as a reference point. In addition, since it is very unlikely to give the same official status to a large number of languages, a different solution should be envisaged for non-official languages. Thus, they could be preserved through initiatives that can be named as dialect planning, the main purpose of which is not spreading a language in all domains but its preservation. Dialect planning is analysed in this study considering its five steps:(1) corpus planning that entails, first of all, language documentation; (2) status planning that implies some protections without entailing the recognition of the status of official language in the light of the linguistic rights; (3) prestige planning that counterbalances the 'weaker' status of dialects with respect to languages, by instilling in speakers the awareness that idioms are fundamental parts of cultures; (4) acquisition planning that identifies the strategies carried out for teaching a language; and (5) family language planning aimed at strengthening the family language transmission.Keywords: dialect planning, language planning, language policy, language rights, Intangible Cultural Heritage.Così ci parlano del gran danno che sia il i nostri figliuoli quasi bilingui, lasciando loro cioè il dialetto materno e costringendoli a studiare, al modo che si fa d'un idioma estraneo, la lingua che si dice nostra, con tanto spreco, aggiungono, delle loro intelligenze, e in tanto bisogno di far tesoro di ogni più piccol briciolo delle facoltà mentali della nazione; come se la scienza e l'esperienza non dimostrassero in cento maniere, che è anzi una condizione privilegiata, nell'ordine dell'intelligenza, questa dei figliuoli bilingui, […]

Summary.The spreading of few 'powerful' languages to the detriment of numerous 'weak' languages has led to the endangerment of many idioms, a process caused by three main factors: linguistic imperialism and globalization, the language policies traditionally adopted by nation-states, and language shift. Some theoretical frameworks justify the impoverishment of linguistic diversity according to an instrumentalist viewpoint, while others support linguistic diversity. Two documents by UNESCO, for instance, underline the importance held by languages in relation to the I(ntangible) C(ultural) H(eritage), not only as vehicles of culture, but also as part of the ICH themselves. Other theoretical frameworks stress the importance of linguistic diversity according to both an ecolinguistic perspective and a rights-oriented approach. From these starting points, the expression 'ecolinguistic capital' is proposed to designate that particular intangible capital by implying an anthropocentric view, and composed of three interrelated elements: languages, individuals and places.

Although the 1960s race riots have gone down in history as America's most violent and destructive ethnic civil disturbances, a single common factor 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 media on riots is found to be sizable and statistically significant. A marginal increase in the signal reception from these stations is estimated to lead to a 7% and 15% rise in the mean levels of the likelihood and intensity of riots, respectively. Several mechanisms behind this result are considered, with the quantity, quality, and the length of exposure to radio programming all being decisive factors.

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