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| Format | Dissertation |
|---|---|
| Creator | Resch, Tobias Sebastian |
| Title | Legacies of Participation: How Civil Society and Petitions Shape Legislative Institutions, Public Policy, and Representation |
| Dissertation Note (type -- academic institution) | Ph.D -- Harvard University |
| Date | 2022 |
| Extent of Work | 201 pages, tables, figures |
| View Online | |
| Abstract | Explores how mass civil society and political activism have helped shape legislative institutions, public policy, and representation. Leverages newly created datasets to investigate the historical links between mass political behavior, particularly by exercise of the right to petition enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the U.S. Congress. The first essay, co-authored with Benjamin Schneer (Harvard Kennedy School), examines the link between mass civil society groups and policy outcomes by analyzing the opposition to national prohibition by German American associations in the early twentieth century. Using historical club directories, petitioning activity, and newspaper directories to measure German American civil society across time and geography, we find a rapid decline in organizational strength that coincided with anti-German hysteria and state-sponsored suppression efforts related to U.S. entry to World War I. We then compare two crucial votes on near identical proposed constitutional amendments in the U.S. House of Representatives—the narrow defeat of the 1914 Hobson Prohibition amendment and the successful passage of the eventual Eighteenth Amendment in 1917—and find that efforts at suppression mattered most in districts where German American organizational strength had previously been pivotal. We estimate that, without the suppression of German American organizations, the Prohibition Amendment would not have passed the House of Representatives. Our findings add to an understanding of when and under what circumstances groups and organizations successfully influence public policy and provide a new explanation for the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. |
| Notes | Includes bibliographical references. |
| Call Number | Digital file (PDF) |
| MKI Terms | Politics/ German Americans/ Prohibition/ Government/ Societies, etc. |