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Protest as a Political Resource*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Michael Lipsky
Michael Lipsky*
Affiliation:
The University of Wisconsin
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Extract

The frequent resort to protest activity by relatively powerless groups in recent American politics suggests that protest represents an important aspect of minority group and low income group politics. At the same time that Negro civil rights strategists have recognized the problem of using protest as a meaningful political instrument, groups associated with the “war on poverty” have increasingly received publicity for protest activity. Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation, for example, continues to receive invitations to help organize low income communities because of its ability to mobilize poor people around the tactic of protest. The riots which dominated urban affairs in the summer of 1967 appear not to have diminished the dependence of some groups on protest as a mode of political activity.

This article provides a theoretical perspective on protest activity as a political resource. The discussion is concentrated on the limitations inherent in protest which occur because of the need of protest leaders to appeal to four constituencies at the same time. As the concept of protest is developed here, it will be argued that protest leaders must nurture and sustain an organization comprised of people with whom they may or may not share common values. They must articulate goals and choose strategies so as to maximize their public exposure through communications media. They must maximize the impact of third parties in the political conflict. Finally, they must try to maximize chances of success among those capable of granting goals.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , December 1968 , pp. 1144 - 1158
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1968

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Footnotes

*

This article is an attempt to develop and explore the implications of a conceptual scheme for analyzing protest activity. It is based upon my studies of protest organizations in New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, and Mississippi, as well as extensive examination of written accounts of protest among low-income and Negro civil rights groups. I am grateful to Kenneth Dolbeare, Murray Edelman, and Rodney Stiefbold for their insightful comments on an earlier draft. This paper was developed while the author was a Staff Associate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin. I appreciate the assistance obtained during various phases of my research from the Rabinowitz Foundation, the New York State Legislative Internship Program, and the Brookings Institution.

References

1 “Relatively powerless groups” may be defined as those groups which, relatively speaking, are lacking in conventional political resources. For the purposes of community studies, Robert Dahl has compiled a useful comprehensive list. See Dahl, , “The Analysis of Influence in Local Communities,” Social Science and Community Action, Adrian, Charles R., ed. (East Lansing, Michigan, 1960), p. 32Google Scholar. The difficulty in studying such groups is that relative powerlessness only becomes apparent under certain conditions. Extremely powerless groups not only lack political resources, but are also characterized by a minimal sense of political efficacy, upon which in part successful political organization depends. For reviews of the literature linking orientations of political efficacy to socioeconomic status, see Lane, Robert, Political Life (New York, 1959)Google Scholar, ch. 16; and Milbrath, Lester, Political Participation (Chicago, 1965)Google Scholar, ch. 5. Further, to the extent that group cohesion is recognized as a necessary requisite for organized political action, then extremely powerless groups, lacking cohesion, will not even appear for observation. Hence the necessity of selecting for intensive study a protest movement where there can be some confidence that observable processes and results can be analyzed. Thus, if one conceives of a continuum on which political groups are placed according to their relative command of resources, the focus of this essay is on those groups which are near, but not at, the pole of powerlessness.

2 See, e.g., Rustin, Bayard, “From Protest to Politics: The Future of the Civil Rights Movement,” Commentary (February, 1965), 25–31Google Scholar; and Carmichael, Stokely, “Toward Black Liberation,” The Massachusetts Review (Autumn, 1966.)Google Scholar

3 On Alinsky's philosophy of community organization, see his Reveille for Radicals (Chicago, 1945)Google Scholar; and Silberman, Charles, Crisis in Black and White (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, ch. 10.

4 See, e.g., Walker, Jack L., “Protest and Negotiation: A Case Study of Negro Leadership in Atlanta, Georgia,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 7 (May, 1963), 99–124CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walker, Jack L., Sit-Ins in Atlanta: A Study in the Negro Protest, Eagleton Institute Case Studies, No. 34 (New York, 1964)Google Scholar; Ehle, John, The Free Men (New York, 1965)Google Scholar [Chapel Hill]; Thompson, Daniel C., The Negro Leadership Class (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963)Google Scholar [New Orleans]; Burgess, M. Elaine, Negro Leadership in a Southern City (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1962)Google Scholar [Durham].

5 Killian, Lewis and Grigg, Charles, Racial Crisis in America: Leadership in Conflict (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1964)Google Scholar.

6 Keech, William, “The Negro Vote as a Political Resource: The Case of Durham,” (unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1966)Google Scholar; Strange, John H., “The Negro in Philadelphia Politics 1963–65,” (unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 1966)Google Scholar.

7 Matthews, Donald and Prothro, James, Negroes and the New Southern Politics (New York, 1966)Google Scholar. Considerable insight on these data is provided in Orbell, John, “Protest Participation among Southern Negro College Students,” this Review, 61 (June, 1967), 446–456Google Scholar.

8 Clark, Kenneth, Dark Ghetto (New York, 1965)Google Scholar.

9 Negro Politics (New York, 1960)Google Scholar.

10 A complete list would be voluminous. See, e.g., Hentoff, Nat, The New Equality (New York, 1964)Google Scholar; Waskow, Arthur, From Race Riot to Sit-in (New York, 1966)Google Scholar.

11 “The Strategy of Protest: Problems of Negro Civic Action,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 3 (09, 1961), 291–303Google Scholar. The reader will recognize the author's debt to this highly suggestive article, not least Wilson's recognition of the utility of the bargaining framework for examining protest activity.

12 Ibid., p. 291.

13 Ibid., p. 291–292.

14 See E. E. Sohattschneider's discussion of expanding the scope of the conflict, The Semisovereign People (New York, 1960)Google Scholar. Another way in which bargaining resources may be “created” is to increase the relative cohesion of groups, or to increase the perception of group solidarity as a precondition to greater cohesion. This appears to be the primary goal of political activity which is generally designated “community organization.” Negro activists appear to recognize the utility of this strategy in their advocacy of “black power.” In some instances protest activity may be designed in part to accomplish this goal in addition to activating reference publics.

15 For an example of “direct confrontation,” one might study the three-month Negro boycott of white merchants in Natchez, Miss., which resulted in capitulation to boycott demands by city government leaders. See The New York Times, December 4, 1965, p. 1Google Scholar.

16 A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago, 1956), pp. 145–146Google Scholar.

17 Ibid.

18 The Governmental Process (New York, 1951), p. 104Google Scholar.

19 See Dahl, , A Preface to Democratic Theory, p. 146Google Scholar.

20 Observations that all groups can influence public policy at some stage of the political process are frequently made about the role of “veto groups” in American politics. See Ibid., pp. 104 ff. See also Reisman, David, The Lonely Crowd (New Haven, 1950), pp. 211 ff.Google Scholar, for an earlier discussion of veto-group politics. Yet protest should be evaluated when it is adopted to obtain assertive as well as defensive goals.

21 See Edelman, Murray, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana, Ill., 1964)Google Scholar, ch. 2.

22 See Dahl, , Who Governs? (New Haven, 1961), pp. 305 ff.Google Scholar

23 In a recent formulation, Dahl reiterates the theme of wide dispersion of influence. “More than other systems, [democracies] … try to disperse influence widely to their citizens by means of the suffrage, elections, freedom of speech, press, and assembly, the right of opponents to criticize the conduct of government, the right to organize political parties, and in other ways.” Pluralist Democracy in the United States (Chicago, 1967), p. 373Google Scholar. Here, however, he concentrates more on the availability of options to all groups in the system, rather than on the relative probabilities that all groups in fact have access to the political process. See pp. 372 ff.

24 See Banfield, Edward, Political Influence (New York, 1961), p. 263Google Scholar. The analysis of organizational incentive structure which heavity influences Banfield's formulation is Barnard, Chester, The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, Mass., 1938)Google Scholar.

25 In the following attempt to develop the implications of this conceptualization of protest activity, I have drawn upon extensive field observations and bibliographical research. Undoubtedly, however, individual assertions, while representing my best judgment concerning the available evidence, in the future may require modification as the result of further empirical research.

26 As Edelman suggests, cited previously.

27 Negro Politics, p. 290.

28 The Governmental Process, p. 513.

29 But cf. Schelling's, Thomas discussion of “binding oneself,” The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), pp. 22 ff.Google Scholar

30 “The Strategy of Protest,” p. 297.

31 This is suggested by Wilson, , “The Strategy of Protest,” p. 298Google Scholar; Drake, St. Clair and Cayton, Horace, Black Metropolis (New York, 1962, rev. ed.), p. 731Google Scholar; Walker, , “Protest and Negotiation,” p. 122Google Scholar. Authors who argue that divided leadership is dysfunctional have been Clark, p. 156; and Cothran, Tilman, “The Negro Protest Against Segregation in the South,” The Annals, 357 (January, 1965), p. 72Google Scholar.

32 This observation is confirmed by a student of the Southern civil rights movement:

Negroes demand of protest leaders constant progress. The combination of long-standing discontent and a new-found belief in the possibility of change produces a constant state of tension and aggressiveness in the Negro community. But this discontent is vague and diffuse, not specific; the masses do not define the issues around which action shall revolve. This the leader must do.

Killian, Lewis, “Leadership in the Desegregation Crises: An Institutional Analysis,” in Sherif, Muzafer (ed.), Intergroup Relations and Leadership (New York; 1962), p. 159Google Scholar.

33 Significantly, southern Negro students who actively participated in the early phases of the sit-in movement “tended to be unusually optimistic about race relations and tolerant of whites [when compared with inactive Negro students]. They not only were better off, objectively speaking, than other Negroes but felt better off.” Matthews and Prothro, op. cit., p. 424.

34 This is particularly the case in cities such as Washington, D.C., where landlord-tenant laws offer little protection against retaliatory eviction. See, e.g., Schoshinski, Robert, “Remedies of the Indigent Tenant: Proposal for Change,” Georgetown Law Journal, 54 (Winter, 1966), 541 ff.Google Scholar

35 Wilson regarded this as a chief reason for lack of protest activity in 1961. He wrote: “… some of the goals now being sought by Negroes are least applicable to those groups of Negroes most suited to protest action. Protest action involving such tactics as mass meetings, picketing, boycotts, and strikes rarely find enthusiastic participants among upper-income and higher status individuals”: “The Strategy of Protest,” p. 296.

36 See The New York Times, February 12, 1966, p. 56Google Scholar.

37 On housing clinic services provided by political clubs, see Wilson, James Q., The Amateur Democrat: Club Politics in Three Cities (Chicago, 1962), pp. 63–64, 176Google Scholar. On the need for lawyers among low income people, see e.g., The Extension of Legal Services to the Poor, Conference Proceedings (Washington, D.C., n.d.), esp. pp. 51–60Google Scholar; and “Neighborhood Law Offices: The New Wave in Legal Services for the Poor,” Harvard Law Review, 80 (February, 1967), 805–850CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 An illustration of low income group protest organization mobilized for veto purposes is provided by Dahl, in “The Case of the Metal Houses.” See Who Governs?, pp. 192 ff.Google Scholar

39 Long, Norton, “The Local Community as an Ecology of Games,” in Long, , The Polity, Press, Charles, ed. (Chicago, 1962), p. 153Google Scholar. See pp. 152–154. See also Martin, Roscoe C., Munger, Frank J., et al., Decisions in Syracuse: A Metropolitan Action Study (Garden City, N.Y., 1965) (originally published: 1961), pp. 326–327Google Scholar.

40 See, e.g., Thompson, op. cit., p. 134, and passim; Oppenheimer, Martin, “The Southern Student Movement: Year I,” Journal of Negro Education, 33 (Fall, 1964), p. 397CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cothran, op. cit., p. 72; Murray, Pauli, “Protest Against the Legal Status of the Negro,” The Annals, 357 (January, 1965), p. 63Google Scholar; Sindler, Allan P., “Protest Against the Political Status of the Negroes,” The Annals, 357 (January, 1965), p. 50Google Scholar.

41 See Banfield, op. cit., p. 275.

42 For a case study of the interaction between protest leaders and newspaper reporters, see Lipsky, Michael, “Rent Strikes in New York City: Protest Politics and the Power of the Poor,” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1967), pp. 139–49Google Scholar. Bernard Cohen has analyzed the impact of the press on foreign policy from the perspective of reporters' role requirements: see his The Press and Foreign Policy (Princeton, N.J., 1963), esp. chs. 2–3Google Scholar.

43 An example of a protest condvicted by middle-class women engaged in pragmatic protest over salvaging park space is provided in Keeley, John B., Moses on the Green, Inter-University Case Program, No. 45 (University, Ala., 1959)Google Scholar.

44 This was the complaint of Floyd McKissick, National Director of the Congress of Racial Equality, when he charged that “… there are only two kinds of statements a black man can make and expect that the white press will report…. First … is an attack on another black man…. The second is a statement that sounds radical, violent, extreme—the verbal equivalent of a riot…. [T]he Negro is being rewarded by the public media only if he turns on another Negro and uses his tongue as a switchblade, or only if he sounds outlandish, extremist or psychotic.” Statement at the Convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 20, 1967, Washington, D.C., as reported in The New York Times, April 21, 1967, p. 22Google Scholar. See also the remarks of journalist Ted Poston, ibid., April 26, 1965, p. 26.

45 Matthews and Prothro found, for example, that in their south-wide Negro population sample, 38 percent read Negro-oriented magazines and 17 percent read newspapers written for Negroes. These media treat news of interest to Negroes more completely and sympathetically than do the general media. See pp. 248 ff.

46 See footnote 31 above.

47 Wilson, , Negro Politics, p. 225Google Scholar.

48 See Sayre, Wallace and Kaufman, Herbert, Governing New York City (New York, 1960), pp. 257 ff.Google Scholar Also see Banfield, op. cit., p. 267.

49 See Wilson, The Amateur Democrats, previously cited. These groups are most likely to be characterized by broad scope of political interest and frequent intervention in politics. See Sayre and Kaufman, op. cit., p. 79.

50 Another approach, persuasively presented by Wilson, concentrates on protest success as a function of the relative unity and vulnerability of targets. See “The Strategy of Protest,” pp. 293 ff. This insight helps explain, for example, why protest against housing segregation commonly takes the form of action directed against government (a unified target) rather than against individual homeowners (who present a dispersed target). One problem with this approach is that it tends to obscure the possibility that targets, as collections of individuals, may be divided in evaluation of and sympathy for protest demands. Indeed, city agency administrators under some circumstances act as partisans in protest conflicts. As such, they frequently appear ambivalent toward protest goals: sympathetic to the ends while concerned that the means employed in protest reflect negatively on their agencies.

51 Sayre and Kaufman, op. cit., p. 253.

52 See ibid., pp. 253 ff.

53 See Lipsky, op. cit., chs. 5–6. The appearance of responsiveness may be given by city officials in anticipation of protest activity. This seems to have been the strategy of Mayor Richard Daley in his reaction to the announcement of Martin Luther King's plans to focus civil rights efforts on Chicago. See The New York Times, February 1, 1966, p. 11Google Scholar.

54 See Edelman, op. cit., p. 23.

55 See Lipsky, op. cit., pp. 156, 249 ff.

56 On the strategy of appearing constrained, see Schilling, op. cit., pp. 22 ff.

57 Clark, op. cit., pp. 154 ff.

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