Essays on Race in Political and Public Institutions

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the following features of liberal-democratic society in political and public institutions through the lens of race: the freedoms of speech and expression, the right to vote, and humane engagement with law enforcement. The second chapter, "The Impact of Conservative Media on Southern Partisan Realignment", examines the most listened to pro-segregation radio broadcaster of the 1960s, Carl McIntire, to gauge conservative media's impact on Southern partisan realignment. I exploit irregular topographical contours as a source of exogenous variation in exposure to McIntire's political program. I incorporate these signal strength measures in a triple difference-in-differences design for estimation. A one standard deviation increase in predicted signal strength is associated with a 2.31 p.p. decline in Democratic vote share in the South. This effect corresponds to an 18% increase in overall realignment. His impact on realignment is driven by local ideological competition on preserving segregation. The third chapter, "Voter Mobilization or Electoral Oversight?: Exploring Determinants of Black Re-Enfranchisement", analyzes Black political participation at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. While the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) is credited with the large-scale "re-enfranchisement" of Blacks following some 75 years of restrictive test devices, state-level registration rates call into question if the VRA alone is responsible for reigniting Black political participation. The political economy literature has conjectured that pre-VRA gains in black registration could be attributed to mobilization campaigns funded by the Voter Education Project (VEP). This chapter is the first to put this theory to the test. I estimate a triple difference-in-differences design that permits a statistical horse race between VEP, VRA, and VEP-by-VRA counties. Results indicate that the VEP was equally effective in bolstering Black turnout relative to the VRA from 1964 to 1980. Further suggestive evidence links pre-VRA gains to the VEP. White resistance to Black registration is predictive of long-run gains, but organization type is most associated with pre-VRA gains. The fourth chapter, "Understanding Policing in the Aftermath of Gun Violence: Examining Investigatory Stops and Crime in Chicago", examines investigatory stops conducted by Chicago police officers following recent gun violence. I use a staggered difference-in-differences design to dynamically compare stops between neighboring police beats. In the immediate aftermath of gun violence, I find a rise in total stops that corresponds with a decline in index crime incidents and results in more seized weapons and/or contraband. Over the next month, officers continue to conduct additional stops, but these stops prove unproductive in yielding illicit goods, and seemingly have no impact on crime. Stops resulting in enforcement action persist three months after gun violence. Non-White stops in regions with considerable gang concentration account for much of the baseline rise in total stops. The concluding chapter, "Insights into American Black Journalism: From the Freedom's Journal to the 21st Century", examines trends in Black print media from 1820 to 1997. Black media access accelerated in industrial Northern centers around the timing of the Great Migrations. Regional path dependency was deterministic of the rate of print publications over time: differences between smoothed South and Non-South rates never converged over this roughly 180 year window. Evidence suggests that Black authors wrote on a diverse set of subject matter. Finally, burgeoning literary rates in Black communities are surprisingly not correlated with the founding of new Black newspapers and periodicals.