THE PROHIBITION-REPEAL AMENDMENTS - A NATURAL EXPERIMENT IN INTEREST GROUP INFLUENCE

The pattern of state support for Prohibition (18th Amendment, 1919) an d Repeal (21st Amendment, 1933) is analyzed and compared, This compari son is important because Prohibition is the only amendment ever to be repealed, The main thesis is that there was no wholesale change in pre ferences of citizens. Instead, producer interests failed to mobilize e ffectively in 1919, and the coupling of moral and economic arguments t hat worked in 1919 broke apart in 1933. Regression analysis is conduct ed on state legislatures (for Prohibition) and state referenda on conv ention delegates (for Repeal), so states are observations in the cross -sectional regression analysis. The results broadly support the main t hesis.