Dear all,
Please join us for the Applied Statistics Workshop (Gov 3009) this
Wednesday, April 18 from 12.00 - 1.30 pm in CGIS Knafel Room 354. Omar
Wasow<http://www.omarwasow.com/>m/>,
a Ph.D. candidate from the Department of Government and the Department of
African and African American Studies at Harvard University, will give a
presentation entitled "Violence and Voting: Did the 1960s Urban Riots
Reshape American Politics?". As always, a light lunch will be provided.
Abstract:
Between 1964 and 1971, more than 750 riots flared up in black neighborhoods
across the United States. Scholarship on how the
American polity respond to
these violent protests is contested. Some scholars argue that urban riots
produced a conservative ``backlash'' among white voters, while other
scholars find little or no effect. Using a measure that incorporates the
location, timing and severity of urban riots between 1964 and 1971, I
examine whether increased exposure to urban riots is associated with
decreased support for the Democratic party. In the 1964, 1968 and 1972
presidential elections, I find a strong negative relationship between
exposure to civil unrest and the county-level Democratic vote share. I find
a similar negative relationship between exposure to riots and Democratic
vote share in congressional elections between 1968 and 1972. Finally, I
find that in counterfactual scenarios of fewer riots the Democratic
presidential nominee, Hubert Humphrey, would have beaten the Republican
nominee, Richard Nixon, in the 1968 election. As African Americans were
strongly identified with the Democratic party in this time period, my
results suggest that, in at least some contexts, political violence by a
minority group may contribute to a backlash among segments of the mass
electorate and encourage outcomes directly at odds with the preferences of
the protestors.
An up-to-date schedule for the workshop is available at
http://www.iq.harvard.edu/events/node/1208.
Best,
Konstantin
--
Konstantin Kashin
Ph.D. Student in Government
Harvard University
Mobile: 978-844-0538
E-mail: kkashin(a)fas.harvard.edu
Site:
http://www.konstantinkashin.com/<http://people.fas.harvard.edu/%7Ekkashi…