Megan Stewart is an Associate Professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Her research interests focus on explaining variation in how changes to social, economic, and political hierarchies—especially across racial, gender, class, or religious/ethnic lines—are attempted and achieved, and how war or political violence is often the context or consequence of such endeavors. She explores questions related to this topic using quantitative, qualitative, and experimental methods.
Redistribution after War: Evidence from “Contraband Camps” in the U.S. Civil War
Abstract: What explains redistribution after war? Most existing research focuses on nationwide perceptions of fairness to the wartime effort, or post-war democratization processes. In contrast to these works, we offer a new, subnational mechanism focusing on wartime experiences. During interstate and civil wars, some combatants favor redistribution. We argue that in the territories these combatants control, they socialize individuals about their pro-redistribution ideology and work with civilians to create and administer new institutions to facilitate redistribution. Due to this socialization and institution building, in the post-war period, civilians under combatant control seek to maintain these institutions, have knowledge about how to do so, and prefer and comply with more redistributive policies. We focus on the case of contraband camps during the U.S. Civil War and test our arguments using new full-count census data from a forty-year period supplemented with archival data. Results strongly support expectations and contribute to research on economic inequality, war, and post-conflict reconstruction.
