Protest and Bargaining

Abstract

Protest has become an increasingly common mode of political expression. Although the literature is replete with case studies and theories about the causes, processes, and structure of protest, little attention has been given to the relationship between changes engendered by protest and the bargaining structure and the political culture of the community in which protest occurs. Wilson and Lipsky have provided two important models of protest and change. Wilsonl saw protest as a bargaining resource which enabled the politically powerless to mobilize resources and apply negative sanctions to decision-makers. Without the conventional capabilities necessary to gain access to the political system and bargain effectively there, the powerless relied on unorthodox measures to create disorder and thereby apply pressure on their opponents. From Wilson's perspective, when protest resulted in change, it was not so much because the opposition was converted, as Gandhi had thought, but because the targets found policy-persistence too costly. However, many direct action conflicts have usually levied inconvenience rather than substantial sanctions, and decision-makers have rarely changed policy simply to reduce irritants. Lipsky2 saw that the authorities were responsive to those who already had access and bargaining power within the political system. According to Lipsky's model, protests attracted media attention, and the publicity stimulated sympathetic but previously inactive liberal groups which had political resources to intervene on behalf of the politically powerless. Indeed, what induces change in one political setting is often inadequate in another. This paper offers a model for incorporating the intensity of conflict, pluralist structures, and political culture in a general model of protest. In this paper, protest refers to public group activity utilizing mass confrontation politics to apply stress to specific targets for the purpose of affecting public policy.3 Aggregate data from the civil rights protests in the South during the early 1960s are used to examine various elements of the model.4