Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting

Abstract

How do stigmatized minorities advance agendas when confronted with hostile majorities? Elite theories of influence posit marginal groups exert little power. I propose the concept of agenda seeding to describe how activists use methods like disruption to capture the attention of media and overcome political asymmetries. Further, I hypothesize protest tactics influence how news organizations frame demands. Evaluating black-led protests between 1960 and 1972, I find nonviolent activism, particularly when met with state or vigilante repression, drove media coverage, framing, congressional speech, and public opinion on civil rights. Counties proximate to nonviolent protests saw presidential Democratic vote share increase 1.6–2.5%. Protester-initiated violence, by contrast, helped move news agendas, frames, elite discourse, and public concern toward “social control.” In 1968, using rainfall as an instrument, I find violent protests likely caused a 1.5–7.9% shift among whites toward Republicans and tipped the election. Elites may dominate political communication but hold no monopoly.

Threat, emboldenment, or both? The effects of political power on violent hate crimes*

“…Other scholars measure racial threat through mobilization, such as rioting or protest, and find it associated with spending on corrections (Jacobs & Helms, 1999), support for establishing “law and order” (Wasow, 2020), and police expenditures (Jackson & Carroll, 1981). Behrens, Uggen, and Manza (2003) measured minority threat by the percentage of the size of the prison population, based on the logic that dominant group mobilization is measured by felon disenfranchisement laws.…”

From self-defense to violent protest

“…Indeed, my view can help us see why certain acts of resistance may be justified even when they are strategically counterproductive. These conclusions add an important normative dimension to recent scholarship on the effectiveness of violent protest (Enos et al, 2019;Muñoz & Anduiza, 2019;Simpson et al, 2018;Stephan & Chenoweth, 2008;Wasow, 2020) as well as a counterpoint to other work on the political morality of non-violence (Mantena, 2012(Mantena, , 2020. 8…”

Badge of Courage or Sign of Criminality? Experimental Evidence for How Voters Respond to Candidates Who Were Arrested at a Protest

“…These results have two important implications for understanding the intersection of contentious and conventional politics (Farrer, 2017; Farrer and Klein, 2019; Fraussen and Halpin, 2018; Gause, 2020; Gillion, 2013; Vráblíková and Císař, 2019; Wasow, 2020). First, by establishing these empirical benchmarks, our article reduces the uncertainty activists face.…”

“…The second section describes our research methods and reports our results. Our third and final section is a conclusion that discusses the broader implications of our findings (Bolleyer and Correa, 2020; Farrer, 2017; Fraussen and Halpin, 2018; Gause, 2020; Gillion, 2013; Vráblíková and Císař, 2019; Wasow, 2020).…”