Book contents
- Can America Govern Itself?
- SSRC Anxieties of Democracy
- Sponsored by the Social Science Research Council
- Can America Govern Itself?
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Anxieties of American Democracy
- Part I Anxieties of Power, Influence, and Representation
- 2 In the Private Interest?
- 3 The Interest Group Top Tier
- 4 Developments in Congressional Responsiveness to Donor Opinion
- 5 Minority Protest and the Early Stages of Governmental Responsiveness in the Electoral Process
- 6 The Hollow Parties
- Part II Procedural Anxieties
- Part III Anxieties of Governance
- Index
- Index Authors
- References
5 - Minority Protest and the Early Stages of Governmental Responsiveness in the Electoral Process
from Part I - Anxieties of Power, Influence, and Representation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2019
- Can America Govern Itself?
- SSRC Anxieties of Democracy
- Sponsored by the Social Science Research Council
- Can America Govern Itself?
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Anxieties of American Democracy
- Part I Anxieties of Power, Influence, and Representation
- 2 In the Private Interest?
- 3 The Interest Group Top Tier
- 4 Developments in Congressional Responsiveness to Donor Opinion
- 5 Minority Protest and the Early Stages of Governmental Responsiveness in the Electoral Process
- 6 The Hollow Parties
- Part II Procedural Anxieties
- Part III Anxieties of Governance
- Index
- Index Authors
- References
Summary
Does minority political protest lead to governmental responsiveness? Although minority protest has played a large role in conveying minority grievances to government since the civil rights era, little is known of how marginalized voices navigate a majoritarian political system to influence the behavior of political officials. Using protest data that spans across several decades into a post–civil rights era, we show that minority protests have a large effect on the early stages of governmental responsiveness, but the influence of minority protest actions are heavily linked to the party system. Placing protests on an ideological scale, we find that protests that express liberal issues increases vote share for Democratic candidates, while protests that espouse conservative issues offer Republican candidates a greater share of the two-party vote. However, minority protests, which often express liberal concerns, uniquely lead to a greater percentage of the two-party vote share for Democratic candidates. In addition, this study shows that minority protest produces a “vulnerability effect,” which leads quality candidates to enter subsequent races to challenge incumbents.
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- Information
- Can America Govern Itself? , pp. 14Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019