The power of protest
By Arie Dekker
October 02, 2007

As Capitol Police escorted three middle-aged protesters in pink  
tiaras out of the Senate hearing in which Gen. David Petraeus  
recently delivered his Iraq progress report, Code Pink headquarters  
in D.C. experienced a sudden spike in phone calls.

Just a few blocks from the Capitol, full-time Code Pink activist  
Midge Potts, sporting long pink-streaked hair, watched the hearing on  
national television in a small living room festooned with pink  
paraphernalia. Within minutes, there was a flurry of phone calls of  
two types: immediate updates from eyewitnesses on the arrests of Code  
Pink colleagues and inquiries from around the country by those  
interested in joining up.

“We have an impact on the apathy of people in America,” Potts said.

A new study declares that rights-related protests that out-shouted  
their competition consistently influenced the congressional agenda  
from 1960 to 1986, possibly lending some legitimacy to disruptive  
protests like those of Code Pink.

And let’s face it, Washington, D.C., attracts protesters from across  
the nation.

Appearing in this month’s issue of Social Forces, an academic journal  
published by the University of North Carolina Press, the study  
suggests a link between public demonstrations about rights-related  
issues and subsequent congressional hearings on those topics.

“Activists need to know how and why they have an influence,” said  
Brayden King, assistant professor of sociology at Brigham Young  
University and the paper’s principal author. “Innovation oftentimes  
comes from the fringe, the margins — these people that don’t have a  
place at the table, but still want to have their voices heard.”

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) says he loves seeing protesters, even  
when they gather to oppose him, because they garner attention,  
attract the media, and thus grant him a louder voice for expressing  
his own policy goals. Barring a march on Washington by several  
hundred thousand people, protesters simply have no influence on  
Congress, he says, adding that the most efficient way to change minds  
in Washington is to elect someone else.

“They have a right to do what they’re doing, but they have no  
impact,” Tancredo said. “Their time is better spent trying to throw  
you out.”

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said protesters often have the opposite  
effect of the one they intend. “Members only become more hardened in  
their position [when people protest against them],” he said.

Stupak said some Code Pink anti-war protesters have screamed in his  
face, calling him a killer for supporting the Iraq war, even though  
he has never voted to support the war.

“No matter what you do, you don’t satisfy them,” he said.

To make a definitive impact on his thinking, Stupak said,  
constituents should just call him and clearly express their opinions.
“Flood my office with phone calls,” he said. “That’s more effective.”

Researchers have been unable to establish a definitive connection  
between protest and policy outcomes. The new study suggests that, to  
make a difference, protesters must assert their claims early while  
lawmakers are still gathering information about new issues and before  
they make policy decisions.

King and his colleagues — Keith Bentele from the University of  
Arizona and Sarah Soule from Cornell University — concluded that  
protesters who out-shout other demonstrators and catch the attention  
of the national media can succeed in convincing lawmakers to convene  
hearings to address new issues.

“What protesters need to worry about is how prominent they are among  
other protests,” King said. “The threshold is out-protesting your  
competitors.”

The anti-war feminist group Code Pink has consistently made headlines  
since its founding in 2002 for its creative and frequently disruptive  
demonstrations. Adorned in their signature pink attire, members break  
legislative rules and risk arrest to communicate with lawmakers who,  
they say, are insulated from common citizens.

Code Pink member Leslie Angeline, who was escorted out of the  
Petraeus hearing but not arrested for shouting during the testimony,  
commanded the spotlight last summer when she protested Sen. Joe  
Lieberman’s (I-Conn.) statements about Iran with a 24-day hunger  
strike outside his Senate office. She said she won a small victory  
when Lieberman agreed to meet with her for five minutes.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), a leader of the Out of Iraq caucus who  
has participated in many public demonstrations, said protesters who  
break the law to draw attention to themselves are no more or less  
influential than other protesters. She added that while thousands of  
people marching down the street would get her attention, modern  
protests tend to be electronic. She said her office gets several  
hundred e-mails from constituents every day expressing positive and  
negative reactions to her policy positions.

“Protest is important because it’s freedom of speech,” she said. “It  
should have an influence on all of us.”

King said previous studies have tended to find that successful  
activism has less to do with public demonstrations and more to do  
with organizational strength and the recruitment of allies within the  
legislature. These studies were, however, limited to assessing one  
issue at a time, using roll call votes to measure lawmakers’ sympathy  
to a particular protest. The new study looks at demonstrations and  
their relative influence on the legislative agenda.

Researchers compared the assortment of 13 rights-related issues  
addressed in congressional hearings from 1960 to 1986 and the  
composition of public protests during the same period. There was a  
strong correlation between protest and subsequent consideration in  
Congress, so long as the protest made enough noise to get noticed.

“It gives some hope for the little people — people traditionally seen  
as outsiders to Washington,” King said. “Protest is one of the few  
channels that ordinary people have to influence decisions.”

The study used protest data from a project, led by Soule of Cornell  
and funded by the National Science Foundation, to document protest  
coverage in The New York Times. Though not exhaustive, the Times is  
the standard source for sociological studies about national trends.

“This is very, very exciting for academics because we’re making the  
case that social movements matter,” Soule said.

Research seems to confirm that the team’s findings are consistent  
across a variety of issues and are not limited to rights-related  
topics, though only research using more recent data can prove that  
such trends continue today, Soule said.
                 
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