ETHNIC CONFLICT AND THE RISE AND FALL OF ETHNIC NEWSPAPERS.

The article analyzes the effects of ethnic conflict, fluctuations in the economy, and organizational density on the rates of founding and failure of white immigrant and African-American newspaper organizations in a system of U.S. cities, and in New York and Chicago, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Contemporary research on collective action claims that organizations play a central role in facilitating many kinds of collective actions. The authors reverse the causal link and ask whether ethnic conflict affects the life chances of social movement organizations. Results indicated that hostility and violence encouraged white immigrants to found ethnic newspapers, whereas racial attacks significantly deterred the founding of African-American newspapers. Existing immigrant newspapers thrived under attack, whereas African-American newspapers did not. Thus, the results suggest that the consequences of repressive attacks on ethnic and racial communities depend on the levels of collective violence in addition to the resources controlled by the victimized group.