When Canvassers Became Activists: Antislavery Petitioning and the Political Mobilization of American Women

Carpenter, Daniel; Moore, Colin D.

doi:10.1017/s000305541400029x

Cited by 90 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…A natural extension of this inquiry would be to investigate how other social movements and institutional changes can either reinforce or erode progress made by past social movements. For example, a growing body of research in political science shows the importance of the women's suffrage movement for the organizational development and political mobilization of women in politics (Carpenter and Moore 2014;Corder and Wolbrecht 2016;McConnaughy 2013;Teele 2018). While the institutional victory of enfranchisement is of immense importance, this article suggests that there could have also been a much deeper legacy of the women's suffrage movement by fundamentally changing attitudes toward women.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

The Persistent Effect of U.S. Civil Rights Protests on Political Attitudes

Mazumder¹

2019

Preprint

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Protests can engender significant institutional change. Can protests also continue to shape a nation's contemporary politics outside of more formalized channels? I argue that social movements can not only beget institutional change, but also long-run, attitudinal change. Using the case of the U.S. civil rights movement, I develop a theory in which protests can shift attitudes and these attitudes can persist. Data from over 150,000 survey respondents provide evidence consistent with the theory. Whites from counties that experienced historical civil rights protests are more likely to identify as Democrats and support affirmative action, and less likely to harbor racial resentment against blacks. These individual-level results are politically meaningful-counties that experienced civil rights protests are associated with greater Democratic Party vote shares even today. This study highlights how social movements can have persistent impacts on a nation's politics.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

The Persistent Effect of U.S. Civil Rights Protests on Political Attitudes

Mazumder¹

2019

Preprint

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“…In contrast to previous studies of redistributive preferences that rely on costless expressions of opinion on a survey or relatively unnatural distributive games, this study examines the effect of exposure on a real political action in an authentic setting. Although signing a petition is less costly than some forms of political engagement, it is a meaningful, public form of advocacy (14,15) and a potential gateway to future political participation (16,17).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Exposure to inequality affects support for redistribution

Sands

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

149

116

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The distribution of wealth in the United States and countries around the world is highly skewed. How does visible economic inequality affect well-off individuals' support for redistribution? Using a placebo-controlled field experiment, I randomize the presence of poverty-stricken people in public spaces frequented by the affluent. Passersby were asked to sign a petition calling for greater redistribution through a "millionaire's tax." Results from 2,591 solicitations show that in a real-world-setting exposure to inequality decreases affluent individuals' willingness to redistribute. The finding that exposure to inequality begets inequality has fundamental implications for policymakers and informs our understanding of the effects of poverty, inequality, and economic segregation. Confederate race and socioeconomic status, both of which were randomized, are shown to interact such that treatment effects vary according to the race, as well as gender, of the subject.inequality | redistribution | field experiment | political science | taxation T he distribution of wealth in many countries across the globe is highly skewed. In the United States, the gap between the top 1% of earners and everyone else was wider in 2012 than any time since before the Great Depression (1) and is a pervasive social and political phenomenon (2). With this phenomenon comes visible manifestations of inequality, which affect social interactions from cooperation (3) to conflict (4). However, very little is known about how direct exposure to inequality in everyday settings-such as poverty and homelessness in relatively wealthy neighborhoods-shapes human behavior. Isolating this causal effect is challenging because of selective sorting. To overcome this difficulty, I experimentally manipulate exposure to inequality that occurs on sidewalks and street corners. Using a randomized placebo-controlled field experiment, I show momentary passive "contact" with a poverty stricken person in an affluent public place can change people's willingness to actively support redistributive policies.Economic inequality is an abstract concept that is difficult to concretely portray without the help of numbers, graphs, or words. Understanding the implications of exposure to inequality as a personal experience, rather than as an impersonal abstraction, requires the manipulation of microlevel contextual features. I evoke everyday inequality by placing poor individuals in a place of affluence. (Using a separate, online experiment, detailed in SI Appendix, I show that subjects describe images of the poor in affluent settings as depicting inequality. Thus, I use the terms "exposure to inequality" and "poverty in an affluent setting" interchangeably.)Those with the means to live and shop in such neighborhoods are more likely than the average citizen to participate in politics and donate to political causes and thus wield a disproportionate influence over politics and policy (2).The experimental intervention created a microenvironment of inequality that was both highly reali...

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“…16 Figure 5 displays the petition's prayer, as well as the first few lines of signatures, with addresses. Compared to known antislavery "hot spots" like western New York and Massachusetts where evangelical constituencies could be targeted (Carpenter and Moore 2014), the value of learning in New York was higher, as less was known about the location of antislavery sympathizers. The abolitionists' decision to canvass in New York City highlights how canvassers must balance petition yield against local risks.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 94%