The Reintroduction of the Elephas Maximus to the Southern United States

Abstract

Over the last half-century, the South has undergone a radical transformation. One aspect of this transformation, the growth of the Republican Party, has produced a viable and competitive twoparty system in the region. Contrary to other studies examining this phenomenon, this study offers an explicitly political explanation—the theory of relative advantage—for the growth of Southern Republicanism. Using a pooled time series methodology to simultaneously examine the implications of this theory, as well as the effect of economic and demographic factors traditionally associated with GOP growth, it is shown that the observed pattern mirrors the expectations of relative advantage theory. In contrast to the existing literature, little support was found for economic or demographic explanations of Republican growth.