The Political Power of Protest: Minority Activism and Shifts in Public Policy (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics)
"Dan Gillion's new book makes an important contribution to several fields, including race and ethnic studies, social movements, agenda-setting, and representation. The analysis is novel in many ways, including its systematic treatment of the effect of protest on all three branches of government, its analyses of the particular targets of protest activities within Congress and the Supreme Court, its long time coverage, its coverage of several minority protest movements, and its attention to the public opinion context within which protests occur. These distinctive features ensure a wide audience and a lasting impact. It is a major contribution to several fields."Frank R. Baumgartner, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"The Political Power of Protest offers a compelling new theoretical and empirical account of minority agenda setting in the post-civil rights era. For years, scholars and practitioners alike have looked to descriptive representation and conventional electoral politics as the primary vehicles for advancing minority political interests. What Gillion reveals is that protest remains a powerful tool. With direct political action, minority Americans can motivate greater policy responsiveness from all branches of government. Gillion's research is a welcome arrival to the literature on democratic accountability, and it demands to be read."Claudine Gay, Harvard University"While a generation of scholarship in minority politics has documented that 'protest is not enough' for minorities to have a voice in the political system, this insightful books provides a long overdue correction to that adage. As this book illuminates, protest is key to agenda setting in national political institutions. With empirically rich details and theoretical sophistication, The Political Power of Protest will reenergize the debate about whether political incorporation in the electoral-representative system is sufficient enough for minorities to have their policy preferences acted on. In an age where the incorporation of minorities in the political system is triumphantly celebrated, this book is a reminder that continuous agitation outside of electoral politics is a crucial mechanism for pushing the policy agenda of minority groups."Fredrick Harris, Columbia University"The Political Power of Protest is a welcome addition to scholarship on the question of how social protest impacts the state. Rather than focusing narrowly on the effect of protest on policy, this ambitious book expands our scholarly horizons by also focusing on its effect on judicial and presidential outcomes. Gillion's novel and masterful analysis of data on protest and these various outcomes pushes this literature in new and exciting directions. This is a 'must-read' book for scholars interested in the effects of social movements on the policy process and other state outcomes. But it will also be of interest to sociologists and political scientists interested in how lawmakers interpret signals about their constituents' wishes. Finally, it should also be of interest to scholars of minority politics who are interested in the mechanisms by which minority rights legislation is passed."Sarah A. Soule, Stanford University"Gillion tackles a large question in a slim volume: "Do protest actions truly influence the behavior of public official?" The research presented in this book shows that government action at the national level can be influenced by minority group protests ... Summing up: recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, research and professional collections."J. D. Rausch, Choice