IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/cbscwp/342449.html

Historical narratives and political behavior in the US

Author

Listed:
  • Ramos-Toro, Diego
  • Voytas, Elsa

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Ramos-Toro, Diego & Voytas, Elsa, 2026. "Historical narratives and political behavior in the US," Working Papers 381, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:342449
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/342449/1/1969746661.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Armando Miano & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2023. "Immigration and Redistribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(1), pages 1-39.
    2. Anderson, Michael L., 2008. "Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103(484), pages 1481-1495.
    3. Desmond Ang, 2023. "The Birth of a Nation: Media and Racial Hate," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(6), pages 1424-1460, June.
    4. Roland G FryerJr & Philipp Harms & Matthew O Jackson, 2019. "Updating Beliefs when Evidence is Open to Interpretation: Implications for Bias and Polarization," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(5), pages 1470-1501.
    5. Sergei Guriev & Nikita Melnikov & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2021. "3G Internet and Confidence in Government," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(4), pages 2533-2613.
    6. Benjamin Enke & Ricardo Rodríguez-Padilla & Florian Zimmermann, 2023. "Moral Universalism and the Structure of Ideology," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(4), pages 1934-1962.
    7. Logan, Trevon D., 2023. "Whitelashing: Black Politicians, Taxes, and Violence," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(2), pages 538-571, June.
    8. Elizabeth U. Cascio, 2014. "Valuing the Vote: The Redistribution of Voting Rights and State Funds following the Voting Rights Act of 1965," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(1), pages 379-433.
    9. Fouka, Vasiliki & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2023. "Collective Remembrance and Private Choice: German–Greek Conflict and Behavior in Times of Crisis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 117(3), pages 851-870, August.
    10. Diego Ramos-Toro, 2023. "Social Exclusion and Social Preferences: Evidence from Colombia's Leper Colony," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(5), pages 1294-1333, May.
    11. Christian Ochsner & Felix Roesel, 2024. "Activated History: The Case of the Turkish Sieges of Vienna," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 76-112, July.
    12. Ro'ee Levy, 2021. "Social Media, News Consumption, and Polarization: Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(3), pages 831-870, March.
    13. Stefano DellaVigna & Ethan Kaplan, 2007. "The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1187-1234.
    14. Logan, Trevon D., 2020. "Do Black Politicians Matter? Evidence from Reconstruction," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(1), pages 1-37, March.
    15. Ceren Baysan, 2022. "Persistent Polarizing Effects of Persuasion: Experimental Evidence from Turkey," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(11), pages 3528-3546, November.
    16. Elena Esposito & Tiziano Rotesi & Alessandro Saia & Mathias Thoenig, 2023. "Reconciliation Narratives: The Birth of a Nation after the US Civil War," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(6), pages 1461-1504, June.
    17. Samuel Bazzi & Martin Fiszbein & Mesay Gebresilasse, 2020. "Frontier Culture: The Roots and Persistence of “Rugged Individualism” in the United States," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2329-2368, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hassan Afrouzi & Carolina Arteaga & Emily Weisburst, 2022. "Can Leaders Persuade? Examining Movement in Immigration Beliefs," CESifo Working Paper Series 9593, CESifo.
    2. Frédéric Docquier & Hillel Rapoport, 2025. "The vicious circle of xenophobia: immigration and right wing populism," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 40(122), pages 551-573.
    3. Taylor, Alexander N., 2025. "Monumental effects: Confederate monuments in the Post-Reconstruction South," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    4. repec:hal:cdiwps:hal-05056150 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Sarah Schneider-Strawczynski & Jérôme Valette, 2025. "Media Coverage of Immigration and the Polarization of Attitudes," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 337-368, January.
    6. Frédéric Docquier & Stefano Iandolo & Hillel Rapoport & Riccardo Turati & Gonzague Vannoorenberghe, 2024. "Populism and the skill content of globalisation," PSE Working Papers halshs-04960427, HAL.
    7. Shaun P. Hargreaves Heap & Aikaterini Karadimitropoulou & Eugenio Levi, 2021. "Narrative based information: is it the facts or their packaging that matters?," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2021-08, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    8. Ottinger, Sebastian & Posch, Max, 2022. "The Political Economy of Propaganda: Evidence from US Newspapers," IZA Discussion Papers 15078, IZA Network @ LISER.
    9. Diego Ramos-Toro, 2026. "Legacies of liberation: political dynamics in Civil War refugee camps," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 179-203, June.
    10. Oleg Firsin, 2026. "Social networks and spread of immigration attitudes," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 64(2), pages 434-453, April.
    11. Jeremy Bowles & Horacio Larreguy & Shelley Liu & Ahmet Akbiyik, 2025. "Polarization and Exposure to Cross-Partisan Media in an Electoral Autocracy," CESifo Working Paper Series 12260, CESifo.
    12. Francesco Capozza & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Studying Information Acquisition in the Field: A Practical Guide and Review," CEBI working paper series 21-15, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    13. Marco Manacorda & Guido Tabellini & Andrea Tesei, 2022. "Mobile internet and the rise of political tribalism in Europe," CEP Discussion Papers dp1877, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    14. Barrera, Oscar & Guriev, Sergei & Henry, Emeric & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2020. "Facts, alternative facts, and fact checking in times of post-truth politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    15. Felix Chopra & Ingar Haaland & Fabian Roeben & Christopher Roth & Vanessa Sticher, 2025. "News Customization with AI," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 372, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    16. Biavaschi, Costanza & Facchini, Giovanni, 2020. "Immigrant Franchise and Immigration Policy: Evidence from the Progressive Era," IZA Discussion Papers 13195, IZA Network @ LISER.
    17. Cattaneo, Cristina & Grieco, Daniela, 2021. "Turning opposition into support to immigration: The role of narratives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 785-801.
    18. Ester Faia & Andreas Fuster & Vincenzo Pezone & Basit Zafar, 2024. "Biases in Information Selection and Processing: Survey Evidence from the Pandemic," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(3), pages 829-847, May.
    19. Lergetporer, Philipp & Piopiunik, Marc & Simon, Lisa, 2021. "Does the education level of refugees affect natives’ attitudes?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    20. Francesco Ferlenga, 2025. "Symbols of Oppression: The Role of Confederate Monuments in the Great Migration," Working Papers 1520, Barcelona School of Economics.
    21. Miloš Fišar & Tommaso Reggiani & Fabio Sabatini & Jiří Špalek, 2022. "Media negativity bias and tax compliance: experimental evidence," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(5), pages 1160-1212, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:342449. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gsuchus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.