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Inequalities in representation persistently disadvantage racial and ethnic minorities, but this disadvantage is not absolute. My research proposes a context in which legislative behavior favors historically excluded groups.
I demonstrate that protest characterizes an exceptional circumstance in which reelection-minded legislators are motivated to represent low-resourced groups more often than their higher-resourced counterparts (Gause Reference Gause2020). Although the argument applies to a wide range of protesters’ resource disparities, this article focuses on those that assist in understanding the representation of racial and ethnic minority groups.
Protest is an opportunity for aggrieved populations to express their concerns. It is especially valuable for politically marginalized groups that do not find traditional, institutional channels responsive to their needs.
Protest is an opportunity for aggrieved populations to express their concerns. It is especially valuable for politically marginalized groups that do not find traditional, institutional channels responsive to their needs.
Whereas a growing literature finds that protest effectively influences legislative behavior (Gillion Reference Gillion2013; Wouters and Walgrave Reference Wouters and Walgrave2017), my work demonstrates that who is protesting matters for whether legislators support protesters’ preferences. Indeed, I find that legislative behavior following protest advantages the groups with the most to gain from representation. Why might this be the case when US legislatures generally underrepresent the interests of racial and ethnic minorities?
Reelection-minded legislators are concerned that citizens with salient concerns will punish them during the next election for their (in)action regarding their salient preferences. Whereas public opinion polls and elections can inform legislators about the direction of their constituents’ preferences, these tools are insufficient in conveying the intensity of those preferences. Protest is remarkable. It can inform legislators when issues are salient, even when protesters do not focus their efforts on legislators. For example, employment strikes for increased wages may not directly target legislators, but they can communicate to legislators the salience of minimum-wage increases for their constituents at the time of the protest.
Nevertheless, legislators’ ability to discern issue salience from protest varies with the protesting group. Some groups can protest regardless of issue salience because their protest costs are sufficiently low. Others can protest only when they have high issue salience because their protest costs are relatively high (Banks, White, and McKenzie Reference Banks, White and McKenzie2018; Klandermans Reference Klandermans1984). In general, white protesters are among the former group and protesters from a racial and ethnic minority group are among the latter.
For racial and ethnic minorities, protest is exceptionally costly. They tend to pursue representation on issues that challenge the status quo, such as equal-employment opportunities, criminal-justice reforms, and anti-discrimination policies. Protest by racial and ethnic minorities also is more likely to be discouraged than protest by white groups. For example, public support for protest issues decreases with the presence of a foreign flag (Wright and Citrin Reference Wright and Citrin2011). Furthermore, demonstrations of white anger are encouraged whereas Black anger is dissuaded or delegitimized (Phoenix Reference Phoenix2019). To be sure, Black protest is more likely than white protest to encounter police presence and arrests (Davenport, Soule, and Armstrong Reference Davenport, Soule and Armstrong2011).
Consequently, members of racial and ethnic minority groups must be motivated by salient issue preferences, and they must have an intense desire for representation to overcome the protest costs that are unique to their social and political marginalization. Conversely, protest by white groups is possible even if issue salience is low because their protest costs are relatively low. Reelection-minded legislators, therefore, are more likely to legislatively support interests communicated during protest by racial and ethnic minorities than by white groups because it provides a more credible signal of issue salience than white protest.
This argument emerges from a formal theory. I empirically evaluate it using the roll-call votes of US House of Representatives members in the 102nd through 104th Congresses, along with data on protests reported in the New York Times from 1991 through 1995. The empirical findings confirm that legislative behavior after protest supports protesting racial and ethnic minorities’ interests more often than the interests of white protesters.
Book Project
I expand on this argument in my book, The Advantage of Disadvantage: Costly Protest and Political Representation for Marginalized Groups (Gause Reference Gause2022). The book explores various protester resource disparities, but in this article, I focus on what the book reveals about minority representation.
In the 2020 article, I assess the difference in the probability of legislative support for nonwhite protesters compared to their white counterparts. Although protest by Black, Latino, Asian American, and other racial and ethnic minority groups is more costly, on average, than protest by white groups, the circumstances defining their protest costs differ. Consequently, the book theoretically and empirically disaggregates racial and ethnic minority groups to ascertain legislative behavior following protest.
Even when evaluating racial and ethnic minority groups separately, legislators remain more likely to legislatively support the interests of Black, Latino, and Asian American protesters than those of white protesters. These findings suggest that no one racial or ethnic minority group is driving the relative legislative advantage associated with racial and ethnic minority protesting groups on protest-related legislation.
After establishing the pervasiveness of minority representation following protest, the book explores the role of descriptive representation in improving the representation of racial and ethnic minorities. Indeed, one reason for the underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities is a lack of descriptive representation in Congress. Constituents are more likely to be represented by legislators who share their race or ethnicity, but there are fewer racial and ethnic minorities in Congress than in the general population. However, the book demonstrates that the strategic representation of protesters’ interests is different. The empirical findings suggest that Black and white Democrats are motivated to legislatively support Black protesters’ preferences more often than white protesters’ interests. Moreover, although the coefficient size is smaller than for Democrats of any race, white Republicans also are more likely to support Black protesters than white protesters.
The book then engages an original dataset of protests reported in newspapers in 2012 from 20 major US cities to understand how digital technologies might complicate the ability of legislators to discern the salient interests of their constituents revealed during protest. Since the advent of the Internet, protests have increasingly shifted from marching in the streets and picketing in front of storefronts to signing online petitions and sharing hashtags on social media pages. Digital technologies also facilitate the ability to attend in-person protests, such as when websites share information about when and where protests will occur or provide space for people to discuss their grievances and preferences.
Nevertheless, even with digital technologies, protest is more costly for racial and ethnic minorities than for white groups. Racial and ethnic minorities have relatively less access to the Internet, which impedes their ability to benefit from the reduced costs of participation as a result of digital technologies. Furthermore, whether in physical or virtual spaces, racial and ethnic minorities continue to encounter efforts to delegitimize and criminalize their protest.
Accordingly, the book demonstrates that legislators still find the costly protest of racial and ethnic minorities informative—and that costly protest demands representation, particularly when compared to relatively less costly protest by white groups. After offline and online protests, legislators are more likely to vote in support of the interests of Black protesters than white protesters. They also are more likely to support the preferences of offline protests by Latinos than by white protesters.
Discussion
As a whole, my research suggests that legislators are likely to support protest by racial and ethnic minorities more often than protest by white groups. However, this strategic support is secondary to legislative behaviors that contribute to the underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities.
To be sure, many legislators strategically support protesters’ interests on a roll-call vote only so they can appear responsive to constituents with salient concerns. They may give some support to protesters’ concerns, but they are unlikely to champion the protesters’ goals beyond strategically placed roll-call votes. Some legislators are sympathetic supporters of protesters’ efforts. They demonstrate their support for protesters’ concerns in public statements and by introducing and (co)sponsoring legislation, among other activities. They also are likely to vote in support of protesters’ preferences long before and after specific protest events.
Although this research highlights the agency of racial and ethnic minorities who participate in protest, it simultaneously underscores the struggles that minorities must endure to receive even marginally improved representation. Indeed, even as racial and ethnic minorities brave costly protest to increase their representation, they remain underrepresented by US legislatures.
