Antiwar Protests and Congressional Voting, 1965 to 1973 Author(S): Doug Mcadam and Yang Su Source: American Sociological Review, Vol
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The War at Home: Antiwar Protests and Congressional Voting, 1965 to 1973 Author(s): Doug McAdam and Yang Su Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 67, No. 5 (Oct., 2002), pp. 696-721 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3088914 Accessed: 09/08/2009 16:11 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa. 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Using protest event data coded from The New York Times and counts of roll-call votes generated from congressional voting data, we test for three specific mechanisms: disruptive protest, signaling, and public opinion shift. Extreme forms of disruptive protest are hypothesized as having a direct positive effect on congressional voting. Lohmann's signaling model posits exactly the opposite relationship between protest and policy. Especially extreme protests are expected to have a negative effect on both the pace and pro-peace direction of congressional action. Conversely, large (and more mod- erate) protests are expected to have a positive effect on House and Senate voting. The final mechanism, public opinion shift, depicts the relationship as indirect, with protest encouraging public opinion change, which, in turn, encourages increasingly favorable congressional voting. The results are somewhat mixed with respect to all three mechanisms, but suggest an interesting general pattern. The most extreme or threatening forms of protest (e.g., those featuring violence by demonstrators and/or property damage) simultaneously increase pro-peace voting while depressing the overall pace of congressional action. The reverse is true for more persuasive forms of protest (e.g., large demonstrations), which appear to increase the pace of voting while depressing the likelihood of pro-peace outcomes. A lthough the study of power and poli- in point. Over the past two decades, political tics is central to both political science sociologists have made social movements a and sociology, sharp disciplinary divisions central object of study. Political scientists, on persist with regard to a host of topics that fall the other hand, have paid comparatively little under these general headings. The study of attention to social movements. No doubt social movements affords an interesting case much of this discrepancy is due to the central importance accorded formal political institu- tions within political science. Sociology, by Direct correspondence to Doug McAdam, De- partment of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 ([email protected]). received two collaborative research grants (SBR- This article is part of a larger collaborative re- 9709356, SES-991296), and Penn State one search project investigating the dynamics of col- (SES-9911431). We also acknowledge the gradu- lective protest. With four principal investiga- ate students who have given so much of their tors-Doug McAdam, John McCarthy, Susan time and energy to the project. The key graduate Olzak, and Sarah Soule-and three research students at each site include: Jennifer Earl, Alan sites-Arizona, Penn State, and Stanford-the Schussman, and Nella Van Dyke (Arizona); project has benefited from six separate National Assata Richard and Andrew Martin (Penn State); Science Foundation grants. The work at Arizona and Maya Beasley, Kyra Greene, Yang Su, Noah has been supportedby two collaborative research Uhrig, and Simon Weffer (Stanford). Finally, we awards (SBR-9709337 and SBR-9709356) and a thank Andrew Martin, John McCarthy, Assata young investigator award to Sarah Soule (SES- Richard, Sarah Soule, and Susan Olzak for their 9874000). In addition, Stanford University has helpful comments on early drafts of the article. 696 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICALREVIEW, 2002, VOL. 67 (OCTOBER:696-72 1) THE POLITICAL IMPACT OF ANTIWAR PROTESTS 697 contrast, has long been interested in informal Burstein's (1979, 1998; Burstein and or emergent social and political processes. Freudenburg 1978) and Lohmann's (1993) But we suspect there is another influence at work is especially promising in this regard, work here. From the outset, social-movement as both theorize the complex relationships scholars within sociology appear to have as- between protest activity, public opinion, and sumed the efficacy of movements as vehicles policy outcomes. We draw heavily on their of social and political change, whereas po- work while also seeking to extend it. Spe- litical scientists have tended to view social cifically, we identify three mechanisms- movements as politically ineffectual, stress- disruptive protest, signaling, and public ing instead the role of elections and public opinion shift-that we believe may help ac- opinion as the main popularmechanisms me- count for the variable impact social move- diating policy shifts. ments have on policy processes. It is time, in our view, to broaden the study Besides this theoretical contribution, the of social movements by incorporating in- empirical focus of our work bears mention sights from both disciplines. Some of this is as well. We seek to understand the predic- already happening. For example, sociolo- tive mechanisms that account for social- gists have taken to systematically assessing movement impacts in one of the most sig- the impact of social movements on specific nificant, yet curiously understudied, move- policy outcomes, rather than simply assum- ments in recent U.S. history. Although the ing effects. Still, with few exceptions, soci- Vietnam era antiwar movement remains one ologists continue to evince little interest in of the most intense, large-scale, and divisive the popular policy mechanisms of concern to movements in American history, it has been political scientists. The disregard for public almost totally ignored by social-movement opinion is especially regrettable in our view. scholars. One of the few exceptions is More specifically, the links between protest Burstein and Freudenburg's(1978) article on activity, shifts in public opinion, and policy the impact (or lack there of) of antiwar dem- change should be of central concern to so- onstrations on Senate voting on Vietnam cial-movement scholars. War-relatedmeasures. Alas, the Burstein and If sociologists assume the impact of move- Freudenburg article did not inspire other ments without testing for effects, political similar efforts. Instead, it remains a singular scientists, with few exceptions (Fording piece topically and ahead of its time in its 1997; Lohmann 1993; Rochon 1998; Tarrow creative use of systematic quantitative data 1998), continue to make the opposite error: to address the issue of movement outcomes. assuming the ineffectuality of movements. This lack of systematic research on the anti- Some of this rests on a stereotypic-and war struggle by social-movement scholars is somewhat outdated-view of social move- in marked contrast to the voluminous litera- ments as small collections of marginal out- tures on the civil rights struggle and moder siders, easily ignored by policy elites. But women's movement. So while extending our some movements are neither small (e.g., understanding of the dynamics of'social- women's, environment, civil rights, etc.) nor movement outcomes, we hope as well to properly conceived of as outside of main- shed empirical light on the dynamics of con- stream institutions. The work of Katzenstein tention associated with this neglected social (1990, 1998), McCann (1994), Meyer and movement. We begin by offering a brief his- Tarrow (1997), and others represents an im- tory of the Vietnam War and the domestic portant corrective to the simplified insider/ struggle it set in motion. outsider view of formal institutions and so- cial movements. The institution- increasing VIETNAM: THE WAR ABROAD alization of the social-movement form in the AND AT HOME United States and other Western democra- cies makes it all the more important for po- Our research focuses on antiwar protests, litical scientists to take social movements Congressional voting, and public opinion seriously as a potential influence on policy during