The Patterning of Repression: FBI Counterintelligence and the New Left

Abstract

While the social movement literature recognizes the interactive nature of collective action, models almost uniformly focus on protestors themselves. Consequently, we know a great deal about how social movement organizations recruit participants, mobilize resources, and initiate activity, but have considerably less understanding of how authorities allocate repression in response to (and sometimes in anticipation of) protest events. Here, I use memosfrom the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) against the New Left between 1968 and 1971 to understand the patterning of repression against protest groups. COINTELPRO is a unique data source; the program was autonomous from other government agencies and was organized solely to covertly expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of FBI targets. The level of tangible threat proxied by New Left groups' size, level of activity, or propensity for violence did not directly structure FBI activity. Instead, these target group characteristics were mediated by organizational processes endogenous to the FBI itself. Specifically, central actors in the FBI allocated organizational controls that ensured that visible (i.e., nonlocal) targets were repressed independent of the targets' local activities. The literature on social movements and collective action usefully recognizes that protest is an interactive clash between authorities and challengers. Most work in this area, however, has dealt with one side of this equation, focusing squarely on the challengers themselves. Consequently, we know a lot about how