Published Work

Email me at susanneschwarz(at)princeton.edu if you want a copy of the papers listed below.

“‘The Spawn of Slavery’? Race, State Capacity, and the Development of Carceral Institutions in the Postbellum South” (May 2023, Studies in American Political Development)

Abstract: The end of the Civil War brought freedom to 3.9 million formerly enslaved people. Yet, almost immediately following the war, Southern states started to incarcerate freedpeople at unprecedented rates in an effort to reinstate racial hierarchies in the post-Emancipation era. Not before long, Southern states introduced new carceral institutions, most notably the convict lease system under which prisoners were leased out to private contractors for the duration of their sentence. The emergence of convict leasing has often been portrayed as a programmatic attempt by the Southern whites to find an alternative to antebellum chattel slavery. I revisit this story by highlighting the role that state capacity and public finance played in the introduction of the policy. As conviction numbers swelled after Emancipation, the carceral capacity of Southern penitentiaries was quickly overwhelmed, prompting Reconstruction legislatures and governors to search for alternatives to conventional imprisonment. I argue that convict leasing emerged from these challenges as a cost-effective solution that initially enjoyed broad bipartisan support. Over time, however, leasing grew more profitable, both for the state governments and the lessees, and abolition efforts were stalled for decades, even when the system became increasingly abusive. Using a range of archival materials, I illustrate these carceral developments in an in-depth case study of the origins of convict leasing in Georgia.

“Officially Mobilizing: Iterative Mailings From A Local Government Increase Voter Turnout” (April 2023, Journal of Politics)

—WITH DANIEL HOPKINS & ANJALI CHAINANI

Abstract: In the U.S., voter turnout in many subnational elections is concerningly low. Campaigns and organizations have tested various interventions to increase turnout, but many are resource-intensive and not feasible for local governments to implement equitably at scale. Here, we report a pre-registered experiment with 1 million Philadelphia registered voters that is one such feasible intervention. Partnering with city officials, we sent postcards to some registrants before and after the spring 2019 municipal primary and before the November election, with the post-primary postcards thanking recipients for voting or saying “sorry we missed you.” Others received postcards only before the November election. Receiving four postcards throughout the cycle increased November turnout by 1.5 percentage points; the two pre-general postcards increased turnout by 0.8 percentage points. Importantly, these increased turnout without also exacerbating racial inequalities, providing scalable, easy-to-implement techniques for local governments to adopt.

“What Have We Learned About Gender From Candidate Choice Experiments? A Meta-analysis of 67 Factorial Survey Experiments” (2022, Journal of Politics)

—with Alexander Coppock

Abstract: Candidate choice survey experiments in the form of conjoint or vignette experiments have become a standard part of the political science toolkit for understanding the effects of candidate characteristics on vote choice. We collect 67 such studies from all over the world and reanalyze them using a standardized approach. We find that the average effect of being a woman (relative to a man) is a gain of approximately 2 percentage points. We find some evidence of heterogeneity across contexts, candidates, and respondents. The difference is somewhat larger for white (versus non-white) candidates, and among survey respondents who are women (versus men) or, in the U.S. context, identify as Democrats or Independents (versus Republicans). Our results add to the growing body of experimental and observational evidence that voter preferences are not a major factor explaining the persistently low rates of women in elected office.

“(Sex) Crime and Punishment in the #MeToo Era: How the Public Views Rape” (May 2020, Political Behavior)

—with Matthew Baum & Dara Kay Cohen

Abstract: The provision of fair and adequate criminal justice is one of the central projects of a well-functioning state. Recent events have raised concerns that the US exhibits a “culture of rape,” wherein victims are often disbelieved and blamed. Scholars have not yet examined how the public understands rape and how it should be punished, despite the important role that public pressure plays in the #MeToo movement. We present an empirical conceptualization of rape culture to generate predictions for how various attributes of rape incidents affect the likelihood they are perceived as punishable crimes. In a series of conjoint experimental studies involving approximately 5,400 US adults, we demonstrate that details relating to the victim’s consent and credibility significantly decrease participants’ propensities to support reporting to police or a severe punishment for the perpetrator. The results show that emphasizing certain features of rape strongly affect whether the public views rape as severe or worthy of punishment.

***Note that this paper is part of a larger research agenda, in which we explore biased news reports on rape and sexual assault and their effect on rape reporting and responses of law enforcement.

Media Coverage:

• Monkey Cage Article summarizing our research on rape culture and its implications for how the Kavanaugh allegations were perceived

Supplementary Materials

• Online Appendix (version: March 2020)

• Replication Data Files (version: March 2020)