Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-vmclg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-27T12:00:51.944Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Opinion-Mobilizing Effect of Social Protest against Police Violence: Evidence from the 2020 George Floyd Protests

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2021

TYLER T. RENY Open the ORCID record for TYLER T. RENY [Opens in a new window]  and
BENJAMIN J. NEWMAN Open the ORCID record for BENJAMIN J. NEWMAN [Opens in a new window]
TYLER T. RENY*
Affiliation:
Claremont Graduate University
BENJAMIN J. NEWMAN*
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside
*
Tyler Reny, Assistant Professor, Department of Politics and Government, Claremont Graduate University, ttreny@gmail.com.
Benjamin J. Newman, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Department of Political Science, University of California, Riverside, bnewman@ucr.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Does social protest following the police killing of unarmed Black civilians have a widespread “opinion-mobilizing” effect against the police? Or, does the racialized nature of these events polarize mass opinion based on standing racial and political orientations? To answer these questions, we use a large dataset comprised of weekly cross sections of the American public and employ a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) approach leveraging the random timing of the police killing of George Floyd and ensuing nationwide protests. We find that the Floyd protests swiftly decreased favorability toward the police and increased perceived anti-Black discrimination among low-prejudice and politically liberal Americans. However, attitudes among high-prejudice and politically conservative Americans either remained unchanged or evinced only small and ephemeral shifts. Our evidence suggests that the Floyd protests served to further racialize and politicize attitudes within the domain of race and law enforcement in the U.S.

Type
Letter
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 115 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 1499 - 1507
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

APSR Editors. 2020. “Notes from the Editors.” American Political Science Review 114 (4): v–vii.Google Scholar
Arora, Maneesh, and Stout, Christopher T.. 2019. “Letters for Black Lives: Co-ethnic Mobilization and Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement.” Political Research Quarterly 72 (2): 389–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banks, Chloe. 2018. “Disciplining Black Activism: Post-racial Rhetoric, Public Memory and Decorum in News Media Framing of the Black Lives Matter Movement Movement.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 32 (6): 709–20.Google Scholar
Barreto, Matt A., Manzano, Sylvia, Ramírez, Ricardo, and Rim, Kathy. 2009. “Mobilization, Participation, and Solidaridad: Latino Participation in the 2006 Immigration Protest Rallies.” Urban Affairs Review 44 (5): 736–64.Google Scholar
Birkland, Thomas A. 1998. “Focusing Events, Mobilization, and Agenda Setting.” Journal of Public Policy 18 (1): 53–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, Bradford H. 2014. “Focusing Events and Public Opinion: Evidence from the Deepwater Horizon Disaster.” Political Behavior 36: 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonilla, Tabitha, and Tillery, Alvin B.. 2020. “Which Identity Frames Boost Support for and Mobilization in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement? An Experimental Test.” American Political Science Review 114 (4): 947–62.Google Scholar
Boudreau, Cheryl, Mackenzie, Scott A., and Simmons, Daniel J.. 2019. “Police Violence and Public Perceptions: An Experimental Study of How Information and Endorsements Affect Support for Law Enforcement.” Journal of Politics 81 (3): 1101–10.Google Scholar
Branton, Regina, Martinez-Ebers, Valerie, Carey, Tony E. Jr., and Matsubayashi, Tetsuya. 2015. “Social Protest and Policy Attitudes: The Case of the 2006 Immigrant Rallies.” American Journal of Political Science 59 (2): 390–402.Google Scholar
Cattaneo, Matias D., Idrobo, Nicolas, and Titiunik, Rocio. 2020. A Practical Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Drake, Bruce. 2014. “Ferguson Highlights Deep Divisions between Blacks and Whites in America.” Pew Research Center, FacTank, November 26. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/11/26/ferguson-highlights-deep-divisions-between-blacks-and-whites-in-america/.Google Scholar
Enos, Ryan D., Kaufman, Aaron R., and Sands, Melissa L.. 2019. “Can Violent Protest Change Local Policy Support? Evidence from the Aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Riot.” American Political Science Review 113 (4): 1012–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerring, John, and Cojocaru, Lee. 2016. “Selecting Cases for Intensive Analysis: A Diversity of Goals and Methods.” Sociological Methods & Research 45 (3): 392–423.Google Scholar
Gillion, Daniel Q. 2012. “Racial and Ethnic Minority Protests in the District.” Journal of Politics 74 (4): 950–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hager, Anselm, Krakowski, Krzysztof, and Schaub, Max. 2019. “Ethnic Riots and Prosocial Behavior: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan.” American Political Science Review 113 (4): 1029–44.Google Scholar
Hangartner, Dominik, Dinas, Elias, Marbach, Moritz, Matakos, Konstantinos, and Xefteris, Dimitrios. 2019. “Does Exposure to the Refugee Crisis Make Natives More Hostile?” American Political Science Review 113 (2): 442–55.Google Scholar
Hausman, Catherine, and Rapson, David S.. 2018. “Regression Discontinuity in Time: Considerations for Empirical Applications.” Annual Review of Resource Economics 10: 533–52.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Juliana Menasce, and Livingston, Gretchen. 2016. “How Americans View the Black Lives Matter Movement.” Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/08/how-americans-view-the-black-lives-matter-movement/.Google Scholar
Huddy, Leonie, Feldman, Stanley, Taber, Charles, and Lahav, Gallya. 2005. “Threat, Anxiety, and Support of Antiterrorism Policies.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (3): 593–608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, Hakeem, Neuner, Fabian G., and Pasek, Josh. 2020. “Seeing Blue in Black and White: Race and Perceptions of Officer-involved Shootings.” Perspectives on Politics 1–19. doi:10.1017/S1537592720003618.Google Scholar
Jeffries, Vincent, and Ransford, H. Edward. 1969. “Interracial Social Contact and Middle-class White Reactions to the Watts Riot.” Social Problems 16 (3): 312–24.Google Scholar
Jones, Jeffrey M. 2015. “In U.S., Confidence in Police Lowest in 22 Years.” Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/183704/confidence-police-lowest-years.aspx.Google Scholar
Kilgo, Danielle, and Mourão, Rachel R.. 2019. “Media Effects and Marginalized Ideas: Relationships Among Media Consumption and Support for Black Lives Matter.” International Journal of Communication 13: 1287–305.Google Scholar
Krosnick, Jon A. and Petty, Richard E.. 1995. “Attitude Strength: An Overview.” In Attitude Strength: Antecedents and Consequences, eds. Petty, Richard E. and Krosnick, Jon A., 247–82. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Eribaum.Google Scholar
Lebron, Christopher J. 2020. The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Taeku. 2002. Mobilizing Public Opinion: Black Insurgency and Racial Attitudes in the Civil Rights Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lodge, Milton, and Taber, Charles S.. 2005. “The Automaticity of Affect for Political Leaders, Groups, and Issues: An Experimental Test of the Hot Cognition Hypothesis.” Political Psychology 26 (3): 455–82.Google Scholar
Margalit, Yotam. 2013. “Explaining Social Policy Preferences: Evidence from the Great Recession.” American Political Science Review 107 (1): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazumder, Soumyajit. 2018. “The Persistent Effect of U.S. Civil Rights Protests on Political Attitudes.” American Journal of Political Science 62 (4): 922–35.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug, McCarthy, John, Olzak, Susan, and Soule, Sarah. 2021. “Dynamics of Collective Action.” Dataset, Stanford University. https://web.stanford.edu/group/collectiveaction/cgi-bin/drupal/.Google Scholar
Nam, Taehyun. 2006. “What You Use Matters: Coding Protest Data.” PS: Political Science & Politics 39 (2): 281–87.Google Scholar
Parker, Christopher S., and Barreto, Matt A.. 2013. Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center. 2019. Why Americans Don’t Fully Trust Many Who Hold Positions of Power and Responsibility. Technical Report. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/09/19/why-americans-dont-fully-trust-many-who-hold-positions-of-power-and-responsibility/.Google Scholar
Politico Magazine. 2020. “It Really Is Different This Time.” Politico Magazine, June 4. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/04/protest-different-299050.Google Scholar
Porter, Ethan V., Wood, Thomas, and Cohen, Cathy. 2018. “The Public’s Dilemma: Race and Political Evaluations of Police Killings.” Politics, Groups, and Identities 9 (1): 1–28.Google Scholar
Reny, Tyler T., and Newman, Benjamin J.. 2021. “Replication Data for: The Opinion-Mobilizing Effect of Social Protest against Police Violence: Evidence from the 2020 George Floyd Protests.” Harvard Dataverse. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/A2XDZP.Google Scholar
Sears, David O. 1993. “Symbolic Politics: A Socio-psychological Theory.” In Explorations in Political Psychology, eds. Shanto Iyengar and William J. McGuire. 113–49. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Tausanovitch, Chris, Vavreck, Lynn, Reny, Tyler, Hayes, Alex Rossell, and Rudkin, Aaron. 2019. “Democracy Fund & UCLA Nationscape Methodology and Representativeness Assessment” Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. https://www.voterstudygroup.org/uploads/reports/Data/NS-Methodology-Representativeness-Assessment.pdf.Google Scholar
Tausanovitch, Chris, and Vavreck, Lynn. 2020. “Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape.” Dataset. July 2019-September 2020. https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/nationscape-data-set. Google Scholar
Tesler, Michael. 2016. Post Racial or Most Racial. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Updegrove, Alexander H., Cooper, Maisha N., Orrick, Erin A., and Piquero, Alex R.. 2020. “Red States and Black Lives: Applying the Racial Threat Hypothesis to the Black Lives Matter Movement.” Justice Quarterly 37 (1): 85–108.Google Scholar
Wallace, Sophia J., Zepeda-Millán, Chris, and Jones-Correa, Michael. 2014. “Spatial and Temporal Proximity: Examining the Effects of Protests on Political Attitudes.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (2): 433–48.Google Scholar
Warshaw, Christopher, Vavreck, Lynn, and Baxter-King, Ryan. 2020. “Fatalities from COVID-19 are Reducing Americans’ Support for Republicans at Every Level of Federal Office.” Science Advances 6: 1–4.Google Scholar
Wasow, Omar. 2020. “Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting.” American Political Science Review 114 (3): 638–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wing, Coady, and Cook, Thomas D.. 2013. “Strengthening the Regression Discontinuity Design Using Additional Design Elements: A Within-study Comparison.” Methods of Policy Analysis 32 (4): 853–77.Google Scholar
Zaller, John. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Reny and Newman Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/A2XDZP
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Reny and Newman supplementary material

Appendices A-C

Download Reny and Newman supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 1.7 MB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.