Civil Liberty in America: The Diffusion of Municipal Bill of Rights Resolutions after the Passage of the USA PATRIOT Act

Abstract

In the years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some 400 local governments passed "Bill of Rights" resolutions in opposition to the USA PATRIOT Act. Event history analyses show that cities with progressive profiles were markedly quicker to pass such resolutions. These effects are strongest in the early phase of the Bill of Rights campaign, a period for which there is also robust evidence of contagious influence among nearby cities. The authors argue that the campaign's success lies in the miscibility of multiple movementsthe ability of groups with different beliefs, agendas, and traditions to combine around a common goal. The case is used to distinguish between strong and weak forms of miscibility and to develop insight into strategic, organizational, and political conditions that promote the construction of movement-spanning coalitions. Conflict over the scope of individual rights is fundamental to democratic politics, most sharply when the nation is threatened. While freedoms of speech, assembly, due process, and other constitutional rights receive nearly unanimous assent in the abstract (McClosky and Brill 1983), concrete liberties are politically negotiated. National crises restructure the balance between individual rights and collective security, leading the state to withdraw freedoms that in other times appear inviolable. Civil liberties

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