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RadioWaves and Ballot Boxes: How Conservative Broadcasting Influenced Southern Electoral Behavior
by Ian Carlson Bailey
Abstract
This study examines how conservative talk radio influenced electoral behavior in the American South during the postwar era. Focusing on Carl McIntire’s “Twentieth Century Reformation Hour” program, I exploit exogenous variation in radio signal strength driven by topographical differences to identify causal effects on voting patterns. Using a novel dataset combining archival records with technical broadcasting data, I find that exposure to McIntire’s broadcasts significantly reduced support for Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election by 1.4 percentage points while increasing Republican candidate Richard Nixon’s vote share by 0.9 percentage points, with negligible effects on voter turnout. These effects were strongest in counties with the lowest proportions of Protestant residents, suggesting a ceiling effect in areas already predisposed toward conservatism. Furthermore, exposure to McIntire’s program increased the probability Democratic congressmen would vote against Kennedy’s 1962 Trade Expansion Act, demonstrating that partisan media influence extended beyond electoral outcomes to shape legislative behavior.
Professor Grace Kim, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: D72; L82; N42
Keywords: Media Effects; Political Economy; Electoral Behavior; Conservative Radio; Partisan
Realignment
The Pen or the Sword: Determining the Effects of Different Types of Coups D’état on Income Inequality
By Jie Wei Chia
Existing literature on the relationship between income inequality and coup d’états focus on how the former cause the latter. No research has yet been done on how coup d’états affect income inequality after their occurrence. This study uses cross–country panel data and fixed effects with instrumental variables models to examine the impact of successful armed coups, successful unarmed coups, failed armed coups and failed unarmed coups. I find that, on average, none of these coups have a significant impact on the Gini coefficient and the income share of the poorest quintile of a population relative to the richest quintile, save for successful armed coups when the sub–sample of data from 1991–2013 was used.
Advisor: Duncan Thomas, Timur Kuran | JEL Codes: D7, D74 | Tagged: Coups, Inequality, Political Economy
Faith in the Future and Social Conflict: Economic Growth as a Mechanism for Political Stabilization
By Alexander Bloedel
This paper studies the mechanisms that link sociopolitical conflict and (expectations about) economic prosperity. Motivated by a large body of empirical and historical work on the correlation between economic development and democratization, I develop a game-theoretic model of economic growth with political economy constraints. In an economy where low income agents are credit constrained, rapid and robust economic growth leads to increasing inequality early on, but provides the means to mitigate civil conflict when inequality becomes suciently large. The rate and persistence of growth similarly determines the stability of extant political institutions and the ability to transition from dictatorship to democracy.
Advisor: Curtis Taylor | JEL Codes: D72, D74, O11, O43 | Tagged: Civil Conflict, Economic Growth, Expectations, Political Economy
