Policy Consequences of Civil Society: Evidence from German-American Counter-Mobilization to Prohibition

Abstract

What shapes whether civil-society organizations influence policy? We study this question through German-American counter-mobilization to national Prohibition, before and after the state-sponsored suppression that followed U.S. entry into World War I. Combining new district-level measures of German-American civil society with a measure of pre-WWI prohibition preferences, we compare two near-identical House votes: the defeated 1914 Hobson Amendment and the successful 1917 Eighteenth Amendment. Holding district preferences fixed, German-American civil society explains member votes on Prohibition in 1914 - most strongly in districts where constituents were evenly divided, not in districts that overwhelmingly favored or opposed Prohibition. By 1917, after suppression had hollowed out German-American organizations, that relationship had weakened, and districts with the strongest pre-WWI civil society shifted the most toward Prohibition. We estimate that the observed decline in German-American civil society accounts for somewhere between 16 and 37 percent of the votes Prohibition gained between 1914 and 1917. Our findings add to the understanding of when groups and organizations successfully influence public policy.