The Transformation of the Southern Racial State: Class and Race Determinants of Local-State Structures
研究指出地方种族国家由种植园主和白人农场主设计并维护，其制度符合这些阶级的利益，并在1960年代阻碍了全国性种族国家的解体，强调地方阶级结构而非种族竞争决定选举权差异。
Theories of the state are unable to explain intrastate variation in policy implementation because they tend to focus on the highest levels of the state hierarchy and ignore local-state institutions. Race-relations theories ignore the state entirely. This research views the local state as constrained by the superordinate national state and by local class structures. The racial nature of the local state, here termed the racial state, was designed and defended by plantation operators and white farm owners. Institutional features of the racial state conformed to the interests of planters and white farmers. These two classes also impeded the national state's dismantling of the racial state during the 1960s. Racial differences in enfranchisement were closely articulated with the local class structures typical of labor-intensive cotton agriculture rather than with competition and status variables suggested by race-relations theories.