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Black empowerment and white mobilization: The effects of the Voting Rights Act

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  • Andrea Bernini
  • Giovanni Facchini
  • Marco Tabellini
  • Cecilia Testa

Abstract

The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) paved the road to Black empowerment. How did southern whites respond? Leveraging newly digitized data on county-level voter registration rates by race between 1956 and 1980, and exploiting pre-determined variation in exposure to the federal intervention, we document that the VRA increases both Black and white political participation. Consistent with the VRA triggering counter mobilization, the surge in white registrations is concentrated where Black political empowerment is more tangible and salient due to the election of African Americans in county commissions. Additional analysis suggests that the VRA has long-lasting negative effects on whites’ racial attitudes.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Bernini & Giovanni Facchini & Marco Tabellini & Cecilia Testa, 2023. "Black empowerment and white mobilization: The effects of the Voting Rights Act," Discussion Papers 2023-02, Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notnic:2023-02
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    Cited by:

    1. Andrea Bernini & Giovanni Facchini & Marco Tabellini & Cecilia Testa, 2024. "Sixty Years of the Voting Rights Act: Progress and Pitfalls," Economics Series Working Papers 1035, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Civil Rights; Race; Voting Behaviour; Enfranchisement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General
    • N92 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

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