The Persistent Effect of U.S. Civil Rights Protests on Political Attitudes

Abstract

Protests can engender significant institutional change. Can protests also continue to shape a nation's contemporary politics outside of more formalized channels? I argue that social movements can not only beget institutional change, but also long-run, attitudinal change. Using the case of the U.S. civil rights movement, I develop a theory in which protests can shift attitudes and these attitudes can persist. Data from over 150,000 survey respondents provide evidence consistent with the theory. Whites from counties that experienced historical civil rights protests are more likely to identify as Democrats and support affirmative action, and less likely to harbor racial resentment against blacks. These individual-level results are politically meaningful-counties that experienced civil rights protests are associated with greater Democratic Party vote shares even today. This study highlights how social movements can have persistent impacts on a nation's politics.

Unpopular Protest: Mass Mobilization and Attitudes to Democracy in Post-Mubarak Egypt

“…Here we contribute to a new body of scholarship that seeks to understand protest not simply as an outcome to be explained, but as a phenomenon that is itself generative of political attitudes (see e.g. Branton et al 2015;Mazumder 2018;Wallace, Zepeda-Millan, and Jones-Correa 2014). To conduct our analysis, we combine an in-person survey fielded in Egypt after the ousting of Husni Mubarak in 2011, with a geo-referenced catalogue of protest events reported in Arabic-language publications.…”

“…Looking at the effects of historic mobilization, Andrews at al (2015) find that white Southerners held more positive attitudes to anti-segregation protests in areas that saw a sit-in during the civil rights movement. Similarly, Mazumder (2018) argues that counties became more politically liberal as a consequence of hosting a civil rights protest. Tertytchnaya and Lankina (forthcoming) find that Russians living in regions with more anti-regime protests held more negative attitudes towards the opposition if they received their news from statecontrolled media outlets.…”

Protests, Pandemics, and Political Participation: Voter Turnout in Georgia in the 2020 Elections

“…Gillion (2020) finds that even though Black voter turnout declined across the nation in 2016 when compared to prior presidential election, congressional districts that experienced higher numbers of BLM protests also saw higher voter turnout. A related literature, which has noted the power of protest to agenda-set and influence public opinion, has also indicated the ways in which minority-led protest has long-term (Mazumder 2018) and shorter-term (Enos, Kaufman and Sands 2019;Gillion 2020;Lee 2002; Wallace, Zepeda-Millán and Jones-Correa 2014; Wasow 2020) consequences for the attitudes and behaviors of those proximate.…”

Strukturell rasisme: et statsvitenskapelig perspektiv

“…Mer spesifikt finner for eksempel Wasow (2020) at ikke-voldelige borgerrettighetsprotester på 60-tallet bidro positivt til å endre holdninger til svarte i USA og stemmemønstre. Mazumder (2018) finner også betydelige effekter av borgerrettighetsprotester på holdninger til rasisme. Foreløpig upublisert forskning av Nyeki (2020) finner at ikke-voldelige borgerrettighetsprotester også førte til betydelig endring i adferd hos poliske eliter i lovgivende organer.…”