Interracial status competition and southern lynching, 1882–1930

Smångs, Mattias

doi:10.1080/01419870.2015.1110610

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…It does, though, suggest the importance of cross-class coalitions for lynching. Reliance on cotton farming, in particular, led to "common material stakes" that brought whites together across class lines (Smångs 2016(Smångs , 1860. deference and tides of courtesy" not granted to Black Southerners of similar economic backgrounds (Du Bois 1935).…”

Section: Status and Economic Inequalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Slavery, Reconstruction, and Bureaucratic Capacity in the American South

Suryanarayan

White

2020

Am Polit Sci Rev

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Conventional political economy models predict taxation will increase after franchise expansion to low-income voters. Yet, contrary to expectations, in ranked societies—where social status is a cleavage—elites can instead build cross-class coalitions to undertake a strategy of bureaucratic weakening to limit future redistributive taxation. We study a case where status hierarchies were particularly extreme: the post-Civil War American South. During Reconstruction, under federal oversight, per capita taxation was higher in counties where slavery had been more extensive before the war, as predicted by standard theoretical models. After Reconstruction ended, however, taxes fell and bureaucratic capacity was weaker where slavery had been widespread. Moreover, higher intrawhite economic inequality was associated with lower taxes and weaker capacity after Reconstruction in formerly high-slavery counties. These findings on the interaction between intrawhite economic inequality and pre-War slavery suggest that elites built cross-class coalitions against taxation where whites sought to protect their racial status.

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Section: Status and Economic Inequalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Slavery, Reconstruction, and Bureaucratic Capacity in the American South

Suryanarayan

White

2020

Am Polit Sci Rev

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“…By changing or threatening to change the distribution and allocation of political and economic resources across social groups and eliminating or limiting ingroup's ability to control other social groups, revolutionaries and out-group members threaten or reduce in-group members' relative status (Brewer 1999;Quillian 1995). The loss of status or the threat thereof in turn fuels privileged community sentiments of revenge and resentment toward the upwardly mobile social out-group (Quillian, 1995;Smångs, 2016aSmångs, , 2016bWells, 2012). Feelings of resentment and revenge are sufficient psychological motivators for political violence that can range from low-level inter-personal intimidation or bodily harm, such as hate crimes, or full scale insurgencies that culminate in ethnic cleansing or genocide (Acharya et al, 2016;Petersen, 2002).…”

Section: Theory: Social Transformation and Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, the improvement in the lives of social out-groups and corresponding reduction (but not necessarily elimination) of social inequities provokes resentment and hostility among privileged in-groups toward the gainful out-groups (Brewer, 1999; Petersen, 2002; Quillian, 1995; Smångs, 2016b; Wells, 2012). In places where reductions in social inequities are greater, this resentment is more likely to manifest as political violence from privileged in-groups who seek to maintain or reclaim their dominant status (Smångs, 2016b; Wells, 2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Transformation and Violence: Evidence from U.S. Reconstruction

Stewart

Kitchens

2021

Comparative Political Studies

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How do political actors create and institutionalize revolutionary social transformation, and what are the consequences of their efforts? In this paper, we provide a framework for understanding the conditions under which revolutionary social transformation unfolds and becomes institutionalized over time. We argue that a direct consequence of social transformation and the institutionalization thereof, however, is violence against the revolution’s beneficiaries which can likewise endure over the long-term. We test our arguments using historical, county-level data on post-U.S. Civil War Reconstruction and we supply both quantitative and qualitative evidence for our mechanisms. We ultimately demonstrate that social transformation and violence are often causally linked, not mutually exclusive outcomes, thereby expanding our understanding of how social orders are created and maintained.

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“…Their arguments therefore remain more conjectural than conclusive (for a similar view, see Bailey, Tolnay, Beck, and Laird, ). That said, it should be noted that a number of sociological studies (Smångs, , , , ; Stovel, ) have been heavily informed conceptually as well as empirically by Brundage () and Pfeifer ().…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a complementary line of analysis, Smångs (, ), drawing on the same data, demonstrates how White social identities rooted in racialized notions of personal honor and status were conducive to the interpersonal intergroup violence of private lynchings but not to the collective intergroup violence of public lynchings.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The lynching of African Americans in the U.S. South: A review of sociological and historical perspectives

Smångs

2017

Sociology Compass

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Research in sociology and history on the lynching of African Americans by White mobs in the U.S. South around 1900 has in recent decades grown and matured into a substantive research area in its own right. This article has four purposes. The first purpose is to review dominant sociological and historical approaches in the lynching literature. One key feature of this literature is its bifurcation into one strand of social scientific sociological lynching research and one strand of culturalist historical lynching research. As a consequence of this bifurcation, the study of lynching long lacked sustained interdisciplinary dialogue between sociology and history. The second purpose of this article is to review recent sociological studies that attempt to bridge the disjuncture between sociological and historical approaches otherwise characterizing lynching scholarship. The third purpose of this article is to review other recent studies moving sociological lynching scholarship beyond dominant approaches and foci, including investigations of averted lynchings and investigations of the individual-level characteristics that made African Americans more or less vulnerable to White lynch mobs. The last purpose is to suggest how the contributions of lynching research have implications for understanding present-day racial injustices and inequalities.

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Interracial status competition and southern lynching, 1882–1930

Cited by 8 publications

References 32 publications

Slavery, Reconstruction, and Bureaucratic Capacity in the American South

Slavery, Reconstruction, and Bureaucratic Capacity in the American South

Social Transformation and Violence: Evidence from U.S. Reconstruction

The lynching of African Americans in the U.S. South: A review of sociological and historical perspectives

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