Race, Violence, and the Effectiveness of Protest

Protests constitute a primary way that members of the public express their preferences and seek to change public policy. Focusing on policy protests in the United States, we develop hypotheses about the impact of protesters’ race (Black or white) and violent disruptive tactics on the effectiveness of protests. We test our predictions with parallel experiments that expose citizens, individuals affiliated with civic organizations, and public officials to protest scenarios. We find that violent protests generate disapproval but also, perhaps surprisingly, policy responsiveness. These relationships hold regardless of the race of the protesters. When it comes to nonviolent protests, however, race fundamentally matters and in countervailing ways. Black nonviolent protesters receive less approval than white nonviolent protesters, but they also are the only ones to generate policy responsiveness. These findings suggest that assertions about the relative impact of violent or nonviolent protests need to consider the identity of the protesters given that not all nonviolent protests are treated equally.