Historical narratives and political behavior in the US

Diego Ramos-Toro and Elsa Voytas

No 381, Working Papers from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State

Abstract: We examine how people think and speak about the history of race in the United States. Based on 14,033 surveys, we document substantial ideological divides in views about the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, and slavery's legacy, with pronounced differences among white respondents. The structure of historical narratives also varies by ideology: Conservatives, particularly white conservatives, emphasize individual agency and detach the past from the present, while liberals tend to portray the present as the continuation of the past. Evidence from two survey-embedded interventions suggests that historical narratives about race can deepen polarization in institutional satisfaction.

JEL-codes: D63 D72 D83 J15 P16 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/342449/1/1969746661.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:342449

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().