Scott Gehlbach (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Scott Gehlbach (University of Chicago), "Violent Backlash to Political Reform: Evidence from Anti-Jewish Pogroms in the 1905 Russian Revolution" (w/Paul Castañeda Dower, Scott Gehlbach, Dmitrii Kofanov, and Steven Nafziger)

Abstract

Local violence often accompanies moments of momentous political change, as feelings of political threat intersect with preexisting prejudice to endanger ethnic or religious groups popularly associated with that change. We identify four channels through which the composition of the local population might increase or decrease the risk of such violence. We examine these possibilities in the context of the 1905 Russian Revolution, which triggered numerous anti-Jewish pogroms. We show that the sharp increase in pogroms after October 1905, when publication of the October Manifesto and accompanying antisemitic propaganda increased feelings of political threat among many non-Jews, was smaller in settlements with relatively large Jewish populations. We extend the Esteban-Ray model of conflict to show that this relationship is consistent with greater capacity for self-defense in settlements where Jewish communities were comparatively large. We also find that pogroms were also more common when Jews lived close to settlements with non-Jews, though this effect is muted in settlements with relatively large Jewish populations.

Co-sponsored by FAS and IQSS, the Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies.

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See the seminar's full schedule at the Alesina Seminar page.

All interested faculty and students are invited to attend.