UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles American Ethnocracy: Origins and Development of Legal Racial Exclusion in Comparative Perspective, 1600s to 1900s A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology by Wesley Hiers 2013 © Copyright by Wesley Hiers 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION American Ethnocracy: Origins and Development of Legal Racial Exclusion in Comparative Perspective, 1600s to 1900s by Wesley Hiers Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Andreas Wimmer, Chair This dissertation directs sociology’s political-institutional turn to the puzzle of legal racial exclusion (LRE)—a social phenomenon wherein states classify their populations by race and assign unequal rights to dominants and subordinates on this basis. Spanning from colonial times to the civil rights era, this dissertation offers a long-run perspective on how political institutions—modes of imperial rule, party systems and coalitions, and legislative arrangements—have shaped the emergence, endurance, and demise of LRE. Chapter one uses a macro-comparative analysis to explain why LRE emerged in some former European settlement colonies but not others. The basic argument links the emergence of LRE in the independence era to colonial legacies of settler self-rule: where European settlers established autonomous, representative governments during the colonial period, LRE later developed. Focusing on the United States, the next three chapters then examine the political ii institutions and alliances that sustained LRE until the 1960s. Compared to other cases of LRE, the United States is the only one where LRE became an object of significant political contestation several decades before this exclusion was actually overcome. This contestation produced changing patterns of legal racial exclusion over time and space during the nineteenth century. The second chapter examines how the dynamics of the party system produced this contestation, shaped these patterns of LRE, and ensured that exclusion would endure well into the next century. The Democratic Party’s century-long, inter-regional alliance for white supremacy lies at the heart of chapter two’s analysis. Once this exclusionary alliance broke apart in the 1930s, LRE returned to the national political agenda. Based on an analysis of political developments at the national, state, and local levels, the third chapter explores the break-up of this alliance. Chapter four then examines how, even after this dissolution, the structure of coalitions and legislative arrangements in the Senate prolonged LRE and fundamentally shaped the process by which it was eventually overcome. Chapter four’s analysis is based to a large degree on a new roll call data set compiled by the author. In relation to explanatory approaches that emphasize working class competition, elite conflict, racial demography, or public opinion, this dissertation demonstrates the indispensable explanatory contribution that a political-institutional approach makes to our understanding of the emergence, endurance, and demise of LRE. iii The dissertation of Wesley Hiers is approved. Rogers Brubaker Michael Mann Michael Ross Andreas Wimmer, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2013 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Tables vi List of Figures vii Acknowledgements viii-ix Vita x Introduction: Racial Ethnocracy and Political Institutions 1 Chapter 1 The Colonial Roots of Racial Ethnocracy 22 Chapter 2 Party Matters: Legal Racial Exclusion in the Nineteenth-Century 64 United States Chapter 3 Shifting Alliances: The Break-Up of the Democratic Party’s Inter-Regional 131 Alliance for White Supremacy Chapter 4 Perpetuating Racial Ethnocracy: The Senate and Civil Rights, 1938-1964 178 Conclusion 269 Appendices 284 References 291 v LIST OF TABLES Page Table I Overview of Chapters 21 Table 1.1 The Universe of Cases: Former European Settlement Colonies around the World 24 Table 1.2 Percentage of Maori Seats in the House of Representatives Compared to 60 Percentage of Maori in Total Population Table 2.1 Legal Racial Exclusion in the Antebellum North 80 Table 2.2 Racial Exclusion and Party Dominance in the Antebellum North 81 Table 2.3 Racial Exclusion and Working Class Organizing Potential 86 Table 2.4 Voter Referenda on Racial Exclusion in the North, 1837-1869 89 Table 2.5 Republican Presidential Election Performance in Northern States, 1868-1888 114 Table 3.1 African Americans as a Percentage of the Total Population in Large States and 157 Major Cities of the Non-South, 1910-1950 Table 4.1 Relative State Population and Percent Pro-Civil Rights 211 Table 4.2 State Size and Share of Non-South’s Anti-Rights Votes as Compared to Share of 213 Non-South’s Population Table 4.3 Independent Variables and Their Measurement 223 Table 4.4 Percent Pro-Civil Rights by Explanatory Variables 224 Table 4.5 Correlation Matrix for Independent Variables 225 Table 4.6 Selected Logistic Regression Models of Civil Rights Voting among non- 226 Southern Senators Table 4.7 Relative Effects of Independent Variables on Civil Rights Voting: Standardized 237 Coefficients and Odds Ratios for Models 1 and 4 from Table 4.6 Table 4.8 Republican and Non-Southern Democratic Voting on 44 Roll Calls, 1938-1964 247 Table A4.1 Civil Rights Roll Calls in the Senate That Did Not Yield Non-South Unanimity, 287 1938-1964 vi LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 2.1 Percent of Senate Seats Won by Democrats, by Region, 1856-1894 115 Figure 2.2 Percent of House Seats Won by Democrats, by Region, 1856-1894 118 Figure 4.1 Percent Pro-Civil Rights Voting among All Senators on Direct Votes, 217 Regular vs. Population-Weighted Roll Calls vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is a great pleasure to thank the organizations and individuals that have provided support for this project. I first and foremost would like to thank my committee, Rogers Brubaker, Michael Mann, Michael Ross, and Andreas Wimmer. Throughout this long process, I have been the very fortunate beneficiary of their generous intellectual, emotional, and bureaucratic support. Andreas Wimmer has done far more for me than one could ever reasonably ask of a dissertation supervisor. In addition to my committee members, many individuals provided valuable feedback and/or guidance on different portions of this dissertation, in particular the following: Anthony Alvarez, Ron Aminzade, Joshua Bloom, Rob Jansen, Hazem Kandil, Robert Mare, Mark Petracca, and two anonymous reviewers at Social Science History , which will publish a shortened version of chapter two in its July 2013 issue. Various versions of this dissertation were presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association (2007, 2008, 2011), the Annual Meetings of the Social Science History Association (2008, 2011), the Third Annual Graduate Student Conference hosted by the UC-Irvine’s Center for the Study of Democracy (2007), and the Comparative Social Analysis Workshop in UCLA’s Department of Sociology (2007, 2008). I thank all of the participants for their feedback. For providing financial support while at UCLA, I thank the Department of Sociology, the Graduate Division, the International Institute, and the Division of Undergraduate Education. viii Finally, I want to acknowledge the extraordinary contribution that M. Neil Browne, Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus of Economics at Bowling Green State University, has been making to undergraduate education for nearly half a century. Without Dr. Browne’s formative influence, this first-generation college kid who once thought that academic honors programs were for snobs never would have pursued a Ph.D. ix VITA 1994 B.A., History Bowling Green State University 1998 M.S., Industrial and Labor Relations Cornell University 1999-2004 Teacher, Grades 6-8 Washington, D.C. 2006 M.A., Sociology University of California, Los Angeles PUBLICATIONS “Transcending the Limited Educational Vision Implied by the Consumer Metaphor.” Journal of General Education 44(4):201-222 [1995] (co-authored with M. Neil Browne and J. Kevin Quinn) "From Ostensible Voluntarism to Interventionism in Malaysian Industrial Relations: the Colonial Experience as an Important Variable," in Sarosh Kuruvilla and Bryan Mundell, eds., Colonialism, Nationalism, and the Institutionalization of Industrial Relations in the Third World . Monographs in Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations, Volume 25. Stamford, CT: JAI Press, 1999 (co-authored with Ponniah Arudsothy). Globalization and Industrial Relations in India: A Study of Industries and Firms . Bangkok: ILO, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, 2000 (co-authored with Sarosh Kuruvilla). “Is Nationalism the Cause or Consequence of the End of Empire?” in John Hall and Sinisa Malesevic, eds., Nationalism and War . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013 (first author, with Andreas Wimmer). “Party Matters: Racial Closure in the Nineteenth-Century United States.” forthcoming in Social Science History 37(2) [2013]. x INTRODUCTION RACIAL ETHNOCRACY AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS This dissertation examines the origins, endurance, and demise of racial ethnocracy. Chapter one uses a comparative analysis of 25 countries in order to address the question of racial ethnocracy’s colonial-era origins. The subsequent three chapters focus on the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. All four chapters endeavor to show the explanatory payoff of directing sociology’s political-institutional turn (Amenta 2005) toward