Political Symbols and Social Order: Confederate Monuments and Performative Violence in the Post-Reconstruction U.S. South

Violent conflicts are often accompanied by symbols commemorating past violence. I argue that political symbols exert a causal effect on future violence. Such symbols generate shared understandings of the prevailing social order. Symbols that affirm this order may act as substitutes for performative violence motivated by status concerns, while their removal may signal contestation, increasing violence. I test this theory by examining the effect of Confederate monument construction on lynchings and public executions in the postbellum U.S. South. Using a difference-in-differences design and original archival work, I find that Confederate monuments reduced violence, acting as a substitute for performative violence in constructing a white supremacist social order. Effects are concentrated in counties where racial threat is higher. I then test the effects of Confederate monument removals in the present-day US and find that removals increased the likelihood of anti-Black hate crimes.