Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T17:29:53.427Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Strategic Policy Making in the South

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Masataka Harada
Masataka Harada*
Affiliation:
New York University, NY, USA
*
Masataka Harada, New York University, 246 Greene Street, New York, NY 10003, USA Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study uses historical data from the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) to examine the effect of strategic policy making on policy outcomes. Strategic policy making refers to the exploitation of future policy resources by an incumbent government when it anticipates the policy change by a future government. In the South, the segregationist governments immediately after the enactment of the VRA still stayed in office but anticipated the future policy change that would result from minority voters acquiring the right to franchise. This political context provides an ideal setting for testing the theory of strategic policy making. Through analysis of county panel data analysis from the 1960s, this study finds that segregationist governments with large budgets increased long-term debts, education spending, and highway spending significantly when compared with the rest of the country. This finding supports a version of strategic policy making, namely, strategic use of debts, and is consistent with anecdotal evidence indicating that resistance to school integration through the creation of all-white suburban schools is one of the primary motives for bond issues.

Keywords

Southern politicsstrategic use of debtsEmpirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM)difference in differencesnatural experiments
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , December 2012 , pp. 456 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alberto, A., Baqir, R. and Easterly, W.. 1999. “Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 114(4): 1243–1284.Google Scholar
Abadie, A., Drukker, D., Herr, J. L., and Imbens, G. W.. 2004. “Implementing Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects in Stata.” Stata Journal 4:290–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abrams, B. A., and Settle, R. F.. 1999. “Women's Suffrage and the Growth of the Welfare State.” Public Choice 100(3/4): 289–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aghion, P., and Bolton, P.. 1990. “Government Domestic Debt and the Risk of Default: A Political-Economic Model of the Strategic Role of Debt.” In Public Debt Management: Theory and practice, eds. Dornbusch, R. and Draghi, M.. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 121–45.Google Scholar
Alesina, A., and Drazen, A.. 1991. “Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?” The American Economic Review 81(5): 1170–88.Google Scholar
Alesina, A., and Tabellini, G.. 1990. “A Positive Theory of Fiscal Deficits and Government Debt.” Review of Economic Studies 57(3): 403–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allan, J. H. 1965. “Core Sharpening Battle of Bonds.” New York Times, August 15, p. F1.Google Scholar
Alt, J. E. 1994. “The Impact of the Voting Rights Act on Black and White Voter Registration in the South.” In Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965–1990, eds. Davidson, C., Grofman, B.. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 351–77.Google Scholar
Alt, J. E., and Lowry, R. C.. 1994. “Divided Government, Fiscal Institutions, and Budget Deficits: Evidence from the States.” The American Political Science Review 88(4): 811–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angrist, J. D., and Pischke, J.-S.. 2009. Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashenfelter, O., and Kelley, S. J.. 1975. “Determinants of Participation in Presidential Elections.” Journal of Law & Economics 18:695.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, C. R. 2009. Imperfect Union: Representation & Taxation in Multi-Level Governments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besley, T., and Case, A.. 2003. “Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States.” Journal of Economic Literature 41(1): 7–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, J. M., and Wagner, R. E.. 1977. Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cameron, C., Epstein, D., and O'Halloran, S.. 1996. “Do Majority-Minority Districts Maximize Substantive Black Representation in Congress?” The American Political Science Review 90(4): 794–812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crain, W. M., and Tollison, R. D.. 1993. “Time Inconsistency and Fiscal Policy: Empirical Analysis of US States, 1969–89.” Journal of Public Economics 51(2): 153–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, C. 1994. “The Recent Evolution of Voting Rights Law Affecting Racial and Language Minorities.” In Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965–1990, eds. Davidson, C., Grofman, B.. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 21–37.Google Scholar
Davidson, C., and Grofman, B.. 1994. Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965–1990. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
DeWolff, J. 1998. The Political Economy of Fiscal Decisions: The Strategic Role of Public Debt. Heidelberg: Physica.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donohue, J. J. III, Heckman, J. J., and Todd, P. E.. 2002. “The Schooling of Southern Blacks: The Roles of Legal Activism and Private Philanthropy, 1910–1960*.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(1): 225–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Filer, J. E., Kenny, L. W., and Morton, R. B.. 1991. “Voting Laws, Educational Policies, and Minority Turnout.” Journal of Law & Economics 34:371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischel, W. A. 2001. The Homevoter Hypothesis: How Home Values Influence Local Government Taxation, School Finance, and Land-Use Policies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. C. 2006. State and Local Public Finance. 3rd ed. Mason: Thomson South-Western.Google Scholar
Franzese, R. J. Jr. 2000. “Electoral and Partisan Manipulation of Public Debt in Developed Democracies, 1956–90.” In Institutions, Politics and Fiscal Policy. Vol. 2. eds. R. Strauch, and J. Von Hagen. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 61–83.Google Scholar
Glaser, J. M. 2002. “White Voters, Black Schools: Structuring Racial Choices with a Checklist Ballot.” American Journal of Political Science 46(1): 35–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grilli, V., Masciandaro, D., Tabellini, G., Malinvaud, E., and Pagano, M.. 1991. “Political and Monetary Institutions and Public Financial Policies in the Industrial Countries.” Economic Policy 6(13): 342–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haines, M. R., and ICPSR. 2010. Historical, Demographic, Economic, and Social Data: The United States, 1790–2002 [computer file]. ICPSR02896-v3. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2010. doi:10.3886/ICPSR02896.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, W. B. 1997. “Bicameralism and Budget Deficits: The Effect of Parliamentary Structure on Government Spending.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 22(4): 485–516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Husted, T. A., and Kenny, L. W.. 1997. “The Effect of the Expansion of the Voting Franchise on the Size of Government.” Journal of Political Economy 105(1): 54–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imbens, G. W., and Wooldridge, J. M.. 2009. “Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation.” Journal of Economic Literature 47(1): 5–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, K. 1987. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Key, V. [1949] 1984. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Lott, John R. Jr., and Kenny, L. W.. 1999. “Did Women's Suffrage Change the Size and Scope of Government?” Journal of Political Economy 107(6): 1163–98.Google Scholar
McCubbins, M. D. 1991. “Party Governance and US Budget Deficits: Divided Government and Fiscal Stalemate. Politics and Economics in the Eighties.” In The Politics of Divided Government, eds. Cox, G. and Kernell, S.. Boulder: Westview Press, 113–53.Google Scholar
Meyer, B. D. 1995. “Natural and Quasi-Experiments in Economics.” Journal of Business & Economic Statistics 13(2): 151–61.Google Scholar
Mueller, D. C. 2003. Public Choice III. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, E. J. 2001. Democracy in Suburbia. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Persson, T., and Tabellini, G.. 2000. Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Persson, T., and Svensson, L. E. O.. 1989. “Why a Stubborn Conservative Would Run a Deficit: Policy with Time-Inconsistent Preferences.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 104(2): 325–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, P. E. 1981. City Limits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettersson-Lidbom, P. 2001. “An Empirical Investigation of the Strategic Use of Debt.” Journal of Political Economy 109(3): 570–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, G. N. 2008. The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sapiro, Virginia, Steven J. Rosenstone, and the National Election Studies. 2007. American National Election Studies Cumulative Data File, 1948–2004 [computer file]. ICPSR08475-v13. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies [producer], Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2007. doi:10.3886/ICPSR08475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, M. E. 2005. XTIVREG2: Stata Module to Perform Extended IV/2SLS, GMM and AC/HAC, LIML and k-Class Regression for Panel Data Models. Statistical Software Components, Boston College Department of Economics.Google Scholar
South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301 (1966).Google Scholar
Tabellini, G., and Alesina, A.. 1990. “Voting on the Budget Deficit.” American Economic Review 80(1): 37–49.Google Scholar