Suryanarayan, Pavithra 
ORCID: 0000-0002-3809-3199 and White, Steven
(2021)
Slavery, reconstruction, and bureaucratic capacity in the American South.
American Political Science Review, 115 (2).
pp. 568-584.
ISSN 0003-0554
Abstract
Conventional political economy models predict taxation will increase after franchise expansion to low-income voters. Yet, contrary to expectations, in ranked societies - where social status is a cleavage - elites can instead build cross-class coalitions to undertake a strategy of bureaucratic weakening to limit future redistributive taxation. We study a case where status hierarchies were particularly extreme: the post-Civil War American South. During Reconstruction, under federal oversight, per capita taxation was higher in counties where slavery had been more extensive before the war, as predicted by standard theoretical models. After Reconstruction ended, however, taxes fell and bureaucratic capacity was weaker where slavery had been widespread. Moreover, higher intrawhite economic inequality was associated with lower taxes and weaker capacity after Reconstruction in formerly high-slavery counties. These findings on the interaction between intrawhite economic inequality and pre-War slavery suggest that elites built cross-class coalitions against taxation where whites sought to protect their racial status.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | © 2024 Cambridge University Press |
| Divisions: | LSE |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HM Sociology J Political Science |
| Date Deposited: | 02 Aug 2024 15:21 |
| Last Modified: | 30 Nov 2024 17:24 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/124452 |
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