Policy consequences of civil society: evidence from German-American counter-mobilization to prohibition

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 US entry into the First World War (WWI). 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% of the votes Prohibition gained between 1914 and 1917. Our findings add to the understanding of when groups and organizations successfully influence public policy.