Elite-Driven Community Collective Action and the Issues of Currency Substitutes During the Panic of 1907

• In Event: 265 - Regular Session. Economic Sociology: Regulatory and Local Responses to Financial Crisis: Discursive, Cultural and Social Structural Foundations

Abstract

This paper develops a theory of elite-driven community collective action. I argue that mobilizing community collective action is an effective way for elites to protect their interests when the state is weak and they face competition from elites in other areas. But their efforts to mobilize community collective action face the barrier of distrust from the rest of the community. Structures that nurture intra-community solidarity and legitimize elites’ actions help elites to overcome this barrier. In particular, elites’ mobilization efforts are more likely to lead to community collective action in places where the economic inequality is low, disparate groups can be bonded by a collective identity, and elites are able to align their proposed institutional programs with the political environment. I find broad support for these propositions in a study of the issues of small denomination currency substitutes during the Panic of 1907. Moreover, supplementary analyses show that elites who occupy central network positions benefit more from community collective action. These elites’ advantages are further strengthened by religious homogeneity and favorable ideologies but are reduced by community inequality.

Author

• Lori Qingyuan Yue, University of Southern California