Dyadic Representation in the American North and South: The Case of Prohibition

• Published in: The Journal of politics 2021-07, Vol.83 (3), p.1030-1045
• Main Authors: Olson, Michael P., Snyder, James M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Legislative districts; Legislatures; North and South; Political history; Political parties; Prohibition; Referendums; Responsiveness; Roll call; State legislatures; Voting
• ISSN: 0022-3816; 1468-2508
• DOI: 10.1086/711179

A persistent question in the study of American political history has been the capacity of one-party government in the American South to represent its voting citizens. In this article, we use county-level returns from prohibition referendums to create measures of citizen preferences for prohibition at the legislative district level for both the South and the non-South. We then examine the relationship between these preferences and roll call votes on alcohol-related issues in the US House and on votes to ratify the Eighteenth Amendment in state legislatures. We find strong relationships between preferences and roll call voting in both the North and South and find no consistent evidence that responsiveness is higher or lower in the South than the North. This indicates that, on at least one salient issue, a competitive party system was not a precondition for legislative representation in the one-party South.