Protest and Congressional Behavior: Assessing Racial and Ethnic Minority Protests in the District

Abstract

Although minority protest is often characterized as an effective form of political participation, previous research has been unsuccessful in establishing a direct link between protest activity and congressional support for minority interests. However, the shortcoming of the existing literature is related to an analytical focus at the aggregate level, where only the passage of congressional legislation and national-level protest events are considered. By linking district-level minority protest actions to individual roll-call votes on race, I hypothesize that minority activism can indicate constituency preferences and inform legislators’ votes. This analytical approach provides a more nuanced understanding of the influence that citizens’ behavior has on congressional policy. Using protest data and congressional roll-call votes from the 87th to the 101st Congress, the empirical analysis demonstrates that representatives are attuned to the social conditions of their district and use minority protest as an informative cue that shapes their congressional voting behavior.