Violent backlash to political reform: Evidence from anti-Jewish pogroms in the 1905 Russian Revolution

Unpublished

Paul Castañeda Dower, Scott Gehlbach, Dmitrii Kofanov, Steven Nafziger, Vladimir Novikov
2026

Cite

APA Click to copy
Dower, P. C., Gehlbach, S., Kofanov, D., Nafziger, S., & Novikov, V. (2026). Violent backlash to political reform: Evidence from anti-Jewish pogroms in the 1905 Russian Revolution. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/eakus_v3

Chicago/Turabian Click to copy
Dower, Paul Castañeda, Scott Gehlbach, Dmitrii Kofanov, Steven Nafziger, and Vladimir Novikov. “Violent Backlash to Political Reform: Evidence from Anti-Jewish Pogroms in the 1905 Russian Revolution,” 2026.

MLA Click to copy
Dower, Paul Castañeda, et al. Violent Backlash to Political Reform: Evidence from Anti-Jewish Pogroms in the 1905 Russian Revolution. 2026, doi:10.31235/osf.io/eakus_v3.

BibTeX Click to copy

@unpublished{paul2026a,
  title = {Violent backlash to political reform: Evidence from anti-Jewish pogroms in the 1905 Russian Revolution},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.31235/osf.io/eakus_v3},
  author = {Dower, Paul Castañeda and Gehlbach, Scott and Kofanov, Dmitrii and Nafziger, Steven and Novikov, Vladimir}
}

Abstract

Local violence often accompanies momentous political change. We examine this phenomenon during the 1905 Russian Revolution, when backlash to reform contributed to a spike in anti-Jewish pogroms. Adjudicating between work tying conflict to ethno-religious polarization, and historical accounts of a simpler relationship between group size and violence, we show that the increase in pogroms after the October Manifesto was smaller where Jews were relatively numerous. We rationalize this empirical pattern with Esteban and Ray's (2008) model of diversity and conflict, demonstrating that a group adversely affected by reform is less likely to resort to violence when comparatively small.