Research Catalog

Title

Deep roots : how slavery still shapes Southern politics / Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, Maya Sen.

Author

Acharya, Avidit

Publication

• Princeton, New Jersey ; Oxford : Princeton University Press, [2018]
• ©2018

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Blackwell, Matthew
• Sen, Maya

Description

xiv, 280 pages : illustrations, maps; 25 cm.

Summary

"Despite dramatic social transformations in the United States during the last 150 years, the South has remained staunchly conservative. Southerners are more likely to support Republican candidates, gun rights, and the death penalty, and southern whites harbor higher levels of racial resentment than whites in other parts of the country. Why haven't these sentiments evolved or changed? Deep Roots shows that the entrenched political and racial views of contemporary white southerners are a direct consequence of the region's slaveholding history, which continues to shape economic, political, and social spheres. Today, southern whites who live in areas once reliant on slavery--compared to areas that were not--are more racially hostile and less amenable to policies that could promote black progress. Highlighting the connection between historical institutions and contemporary political attitudes, the authors explore the period following the Civil War when elite whites in former bastions of slavery had political and economic incentives to encourage the development of anti-black laws and practices. Deep Roots shows that these forces created a local political culture steeped in racial prejudice, and that these viewpoints have been passed down over generations, from parents to children and via communities, through a process called behavioral path dependence. While legislation such as the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act made huge strides in increasing economic opportunity and reducing educational disparities, southern slavery has had a profound, lasting, and self-reinforcing influence on regional and national politics that can still be felt today. A groundbreaking look at the ways institutions of the past continue to sway attitudes of the present, Deep Roots demonstrates how social beliefs persist long after the formal policies that created those beliefs have been eradicated."--Dust jacket.

Series Statement

Princeton studies in political behavior

Uniform Title

Princeton studies in political behavior.

Alternative Title

How slavery still shapes Southern politics

Subjects

• Southern States
• Since 1951
• Politics and government
• Slavery > Political aspects > United States
• United States
• Southern States > Politics and government > 1951-
• Slavery > Political aspects > Southern States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-271) and index.

Contents

Introduction -- A Theory of Behavioral Path Dependence -- I. Slavery's Contemporary Effects. How Slavery Predicts White Political Attitudes Today -- An Alternative Account : Contemporary Demographics and Racial Threat -- II. The Origins of Divergence. Antebellum Politics of Slavery and Race in the South -- Emancipation as a Critical Juncture and the Timing of Divergence -- III. Mechanisms of Persistence and Decay. Persistence and the Mechanisms of Reproduction -- Interventions and Attenuation -- Conclusion : What Lessons Can We Draw from Southern Slavery?

Call Number

Sc E 18-832

ISBN

• 9780691176741
• 0691176744

LCCN

2017963019

OCLC

1005117567

Author

Acharya, Avidit, author.

Title

Deep roots : how slavery still shapes Southern politics / Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, Maya Sen.

Publisher

Princeton, New Jersey ; Oxford : Princeton University Press, [2018]

Copyright Date

©2018

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Princeton studies in political behavior

Princeton studies in political behavior.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-271) and index.

Chronological Term

Since 1951

Added Author

Blackwell, Matthew, author.

Sen, Maya, author.

Research Call Number

Sc E 18-832