Emory University | The Advantage of Disadvantage: Legislative Behavior following Costly Protest @emoryuniversity | Uploaded March 2021 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
A growing literature demonstrates that protest influences legislators’ behavior. A new book by LaGina Gause, University of California, San Diego, tentatively titled “The Advantage of Disadvantage,” adds to this literature with a provocative claim: protests are most effective for disadvantaged populations. Following protest, lower resource groups (namely White, affluent, and well-organized groups) are more likely than their counterparts (racial and ethnic minorities, low-income communities, and those not mobilized by formal interest groups) to see their interests supported in legislation. This argument emerges from a formal model, an original survey of policymakers, data on protests reported in “The New York Times” from 1991 through 1995, and a new dataset of protests covered in 20 U.S. newspapers in 2012. This work provides new insights into inequalities in political representation by exposing circumstances in which legislative behavior favors the political participation of disadvantaged groups. [March 29, 2021]
The James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference supports research, teaching, and public dialogue that examine race and intersecting dimensions of human difference including but not limited to class, gender, religion, and sexuality.
http://www.jamesweldonjohnson.emory.edu
A growing literature demonstrates that protest influences legislators’ behavior. A new book by LaGina Gause, University of California, San Diego, tentatively titled “The Advantage of Disadvantage,” adds to this literature with a provocative claim: protests are most effective for disadvantaged populations. Following protest, lower resource groups (namely White, affluent, and well-organized groups) are more likely than their counterparts (racial and ethnic minorities, low-income communities, and those not mobilized by formal interest groups) to see their interests supported in legislation. This argument emerges from a formal model, an original survey of policymakers, data on protests reported in “The New York Times” from 1991 through 1995, and a new dataset of protests covered in 20 U.S. newspapers in 2012. This work provides new insights into inequalities in political representation by exposing circumstances in which legislative behavior favors the political participation of disadvantaged groups. [March 29, 2021]
The James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference supports research, teaching, and public dialogue that examine race and intersecting dimensions of human difference including but not limited to class, gender, religion, and sexuality.
http://www.jamesweldonjohnson.emory.edu
