Elizabeth Elder

Hoover Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and political scientist studying American politics, public opinion, political economy, trust, efficacy, and the role of place and social context in political attitudes. She is the author of Company Towns: Industry Power and the Historical Foundations of Public Mistrust.

Coal Company Towns Left a Legacy of Weak Government and Public Mistrust

Hoover fellow Elizabeth Elder argues in her book Company Towns that mistrust of government in former coal communities is rooted less in abstract anti-government ideology than in generations of local experience with weak, captured, or corrupt public institutions. In her account, coal companies often kept local governments small, blurred public authority with company power, and substituted private provision for public capacity. When coal declined, those towns were left not only with job losses but with governments many residents had little reason to see as competent, independent, or democratically accountable.

Hoover InstitutionMay 15, 202621 min read