Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP17874
Authors: Nicolas Berman; Bjrn Brey; Jeremy Laurent Lucchetti
Abstract: This study shows that military attacks — through fear and panic — can distort political behavior and create a "conservative shift" in subsequent elections. Using the distance to the Ellwood bombardment in 1942, a shelling of civilian installations on the US mainland during WW2 which caused minimal damage but that created a large wave of panic, we find that support for Republican candidates increased in subsequent Gubernatorial, Presidential and House elections in Californian counties in the vicinity of the incident. Interestingly, the effect appears to persist for a long time, even after WW2 ended. Using a large corpus of articles from Californian newspapers and text analysis, we provide evidence that the event led to a persistent shift in conservative beliefs of local communities. We conclude that attacks, through their psychological effects, might have long-run consequences through preference-shifting and changes in voting behaviors.
Keywords: attack; bombing; elections; conservatism; World War II
JEL Codes: D72; D74; D91; N42
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Ellwood bombardment (Y50) | psychological impact (E71) |
| psychological impact (E71) | conservative shift in voting behavior (K16) |
| conservative shift in voting behavior (K16) | support for Republican candidates (K16) |
| Ellwood bombardment (Y50) | increase in Republican voting in elections (K16) |
| fear generated by bombardment (H56) | change in language used in newspapers (O14) |
| psychological impact (E71) | enduring consequences on political preferences (D72) |