Frontiers in Historical Political Economy

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Historical political economy is a growing interdisciplinary field of research that brings together social scientists who carry out historically contextualized studies to address fundamental questions in political economy. This panel aptly demonstrates the strengths of HPE research: its applicability to a broad range of political economy topics, such as of identity, gender, conflict, bureaucratic capacity, distribution, and democratic participation; the utilization of novel theoretical and empirical approaches; the availability of numerous natural experiments; and rich fine-grained data.

Boix considers the evolution of Jewish political identity in the inter-war Poland, which was shaped by the differential political treatment of Polish and Russian Jews in the Russian Empire, as shown by regression-discontinuity estimates. He argues that the triumph of an inclusive “liberal” or “bourgeois” political order was necessary for the emergence of modern national identities congruent with state borders, which challenges dominant theories of the genesis of nationalism. One of the most vivid manifestations of the oppressed position of Jews in the Russian Empire was Jewish pogroms, the causes of which are explored by Dower, Gehlbach, Kofanov and Nafziger. They use a novel settlement-level dataset on religious diversity in 1897 and the incidence of pogroms in 1904–1905. According to their findings, ethno-religious heterogeneity is an important factor not only of the emergence, but also of the propagation of conflict.

The focus of Sellars’ study is on state strategies of preventing conflict and demobilizing citizens. Using original archival data on the processing and outcome of community petitions for land redistribution in early 20th-century Mexico, she discovers that, in addition to repression and redistribution, authorities can strategically apply bureaucratic delay to defuse agrarian conflicts. The problems of civic engagement and the potential of asset ownership in promoting political participation, especially of underrepresented groups, and in strengthening democracy are analyzed in the work by Cirone, Childree, and Dienes. They take advantage of a natural experiment – the 1805 Georgia Land Lottery – which brought random windfall gains to its participants, with a focus on female lottery applicants. Cirone et al. find that lottery winners indeed exhibited greater civic participation via petitioning.

Basing on rich historical material and advanced empirical techniques, the papers of this panel revisit conventional perspectives on identities, conflict, and civil participation. They provide a more nuanced view of these phenomena, stressing the role of hitherto underexplored structural determinants, behavioral patterns, and strategic choices.

Sub Unit

• Division 6: Political Economy

Individual Presentations

• The Struggle for Political Emancipation and the Formation of National Identities - Carles Boix, Princeton University

• When Women Win: Land Lotteries and Civic Participation in Georgia - Ali Cirone, Yale ISPS / Cornell University; Aaron Childree, Cornell University; Harry Dienes, Cornell University

• Demobilization through Inaction: Bureaucratic Delay and Collective Action - Emily A. Sellars, Yale University

• Diversity and Contagion in Conflict: Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Late Imperial Russia - Scott Gehlbach, University of Chicago; Dmitrii Kofanov, University of Barcelona; Steven Nafziger, Williams College; Paul Castañeda Dower, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Chair

• Volha Charnysh Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Discussants

• Volha Charnysh Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Ali Cirone Yale ISPS / Cornell University