Store wars: The enactment and repeal of anti-chain-store legislation in America

Competition between organizational forms manifests itself in political contention over the law. The authors analyze the political strength and organization of the groups that supported and opposed state anti-chain-store laws. The enactment of these laws depended on intrastate political activity and the interstate diffusion of anti-chain-store legislation. The repeal process relied on suprastate activity, as nationally organized pro-chain-store forces shifted the arena of contention to the Supreme Court and forged national alliances with labor unions and agricultural cooperatives. In both enactment and repeal, the political resources and strategies of organziational forms interacted with existing institutions to determine the trajectory of institutional change.