War Widows and the Construction of Political Order in the Postbellum American South

Hyunku Kwon, Johns Hopkins University
Joshua Byun, Boston College

Social scientists widely agree that war can precipitate the rise of a new political order, but much remains to be learned on the factors that determine the character of that order. We break new ground by theorizing how some individuals and groups become political entrepreneurs in the wake of a major war and successfully promote their preferred vision of the political order over those of their rivals. Among other things, this theory explains how Confederate widows and other elite white women who had experienced personal loss during the American Civil War came to spearhead the construction of a white supremacist political order in the postbellum American South. Digitizing historical database on Confederate civil associations and harnessing the full count census data, we find that areas of the South that saw larger intrawar spikes in the number of war widows were more likely to become bases for women - led white supremacist associations in the postbellum period. Our arguments offer important takeaways for the study of political order in various subfields and levels of analysis.

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 Presented in Session 215. Abolitionism, Coalition Formation, and Mobilization