Collaborative Research: Social Movements and Policy Impact

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How do social movements build broad popular support and secure sweeping policy changes? This study focuses on demographic, economic, and institutional factors, as well as movement-specific organizational dynamics, to examine under which conditions movement support thrives and results in policy changes. Moreover, this study examines whether movement support and policies diffuse across neighboring states and counties, and how these trends shape one another. As a case in point, this project focuses on the U.S. Prohibition movement, which was one of the largest, longest-lasting, and most successful movements in U.S. history.The analysis involves an original dataset that contains information about the legal status of prohibition at the county and state level between 1890 and 1919, the year the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was enacted. The dataset includes measures regarding population change, urbanization, economic trends, and interest groups. In addition, the dataset incorporates information from archival materials regarding relevant social movement organizations and activity, electoral context, and media communication that may have shaped movement growth and success. These data allow us to examine the organization and outcomes of the movement both across space and at the state and local level.This project provides training and research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students at two institutions. Undergraduate research assitants at Christopher Newport University, primarily a teaching college, will be trained in data collection and coding. At UNC, graduate student training will revolve around systematic data collection, coding, and spatial modeling. In addition, the project will result in a large, publically available dataset of use to social scientists and historians. Findings from this study may be of interest to multiple stakeholders, such as legal experts, non-profit organizations, policy makers, and the general public, in addition to an interdisciplinary group of researchers.