From Politics to Process: Evidence from Progressive Era Naturalizations

States that delegate governance to local officials face a trade-off between the benefits of local knowledge and the costs of biased administrators. Can imposing federal standards discipline bias and improve uniformity? We study this question by examining the introduction of federal standards to apply for citizenship under the 1906 Naturalization Act. Using newly-digitized census records covering over five million immigrants and a 30-year period, we show that standardizing adjudication of citizenship applications resulted in rapid convergence of naturalization practices across cities. While naturalizations were around 30% higher in election years pre-reform, this electoral cycle disappeared after the introduction of federal standards. Exploiting the staggered adoption of municipal civil service reforms aimed at removing patronage during the Progressive Era, we find that the reduction in political cycles was strongest in unreformed cities. Finally, the contraction in election year naturalizations changed the composition of new citizens. Affected cohorts earned 7% more, were more likely to enter citizenship-restricted occupations, and gave children more Americanized names. Our results thus show that standardizing administrative procedures can discipline politically-biased policy implementation.