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WORK TITLE: Governing with Words
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1979
WEBSITE: http://web.sas.upenn.edu/dgillion/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/polisci/people/standing-faculty/daniel-gillion * https://asam.sas.upenn.edu/people/daniel-gillion * https://www.sas.upenn.edu/polisci/sites/tengu.sas.upenn.edu.psci-test/files/Gillion_Daniel_CV%2004.2017.pdf *
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1979.
EDUCATION:Florida State University, B.A., 2002, M.A., 2004; University of Rochester, M.A., 2007, Ph.D., 2009.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. University of Rochester, NY, Provost Fellow; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, assistant professor, 2009-15, associate professor, 2015—, Presidential Associate Professor, 2016—; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, Ford Foundation Fellow, 2012-14, Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar, 2012-14; Princeton University, NJ, visiting research scholar, 2017-18.
AWARDS:Sammy Younge Award, National Conference of Black Political Scientists, 2009; Best Book Award, American Political Science Association, Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section, 2014, for The Political Power of Protest; W.E.B. Du Bois Book Award, National Conference of Black Political Scientists, 2017, for Governing with Words.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles to publications, including the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, Social Science Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Electoral Studies, and the Journal of Politics. Contributor of chapters to books, including the Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior.
SIDELIGHTS
Daniel Q. Gillion is a writer and educator. He holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Florida State University, as well as a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. Gillion served as a Provost Fellow at the University of Rochester. In 2009, he joined the University of Pennsylvania as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 2015 and became the Presidential Associate Professor the following year. From 2012 to 2014, Gillion was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar and a Ford Foundation Fellow at Harvard University. He has also been named a visiting research scholar at Princeton University. Gillion has written articles that have appeared in publications, including the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, Social Science Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Electoral Studies, and the Journal of Politics. He has also written chapters that have been featured in books, including the Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior.
The Political Power of Protest
In 2013, Gillion released The Political Power of Protest: Minority Activism and Shifts in Public Policy. The volume received the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section. In it, Gillion examines the effectiveness of protests organized by minority groups. The first chapter of the book introduces theoretical approaches to analyzing protests’ affects on public policy. Next, Gillion discusses the chronology of the protests he analyzes, as well as their respective physical locations. He goes on to identify changes in public policy that were made in response to some of the protests. Protesters he profiles include Asian Americans, Latinos, and African Americans. Gillion concludes by highlighting trends in minority protests, noting that they have decreased in recent years. He notes that improvements in equality have also decreased.
J.D. Rausch, reviewer in Choice, remarked: “Gillion … tackles a large question in a slim volume.” Rausch concluded by describing The Political Power of Protest as “recommended.” Referring to Gillion, Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller, critic on the Law and Politics Book Review website, suggested: “His book brilliantly expands upon the behaviorist tradition, marshaling evidence for the causal importance of protest. But it is also in this liminal theoretical space that the book fails to sharpen a critical edge that might demonstrate not only how protest creates progressive politics, but also how it often fails.” Goldberg-Hiller concluded: “Integrating symbolic, strategic and discursive histories into our studies of political behavior is long overdue, and I hope that Gillion’s fine analysis of disruption will spur such studies and allow us to refine what it may take to further racial justice. Gillion has shown us that protest matters at the aggregate level, and that we can find its influence throughout the branches of American government.” Goldberg-Hiller continued: “As Gilliom notes in his conclusion, we still desperately need to understand what will best bring critical attention to the growing hegemony of the colorblind society. This urgent task requires a wide and more integrated inquiry.”
Governing with Words
In Governing with Words: The Political Dialogue on Race, Public Policy, and Inequality in America, Gillion emphasizes the importance of rhetoric with regard to changing public policy, focusing on issues related to racial inequality. He sets up various models as examples of how public policy can be affected by race speech. Gillion finds that including race speech in all steps of the policy process will also increase awareness of racial issues among constituents. This volume is the winner of the W.E.B. Du Bois Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.
“This is an incisive work that is a necessary piece of scholarship,” asserted K. Anderson in Choice. Anderson also categorized the book as “highly recommended.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice, December, 2013, J.D. Rausch, review of The Political Power of Protest: Minority Activism and Shifts in Public Policy, p. 728; October, 2016, K. Anderson, review of Governing with Words: The Political Dialogue on Race, Public Policy, and Inequality in America, p. 292.
States News Service September 25, 2014, “Penn Professor Daniel Gillion Received APSA Best Book Award,” article about author; May 26, 2016, “Researcher at Penn Looks at Healthy Changes Through a Political Lens,” article about author.
ONLINE
Daniel Q. Gillion Website, http://web.sas.upenn.edu/ (August 22, 2017).
Law and Politics Book Review Online, http://www.lpbr.net/ (September 13, 2017), Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller, review of The Political Power of Protest.
University of Pennsylvania, Asian American Studies Program Website, https://asam.sas.upenn.edu/ (August 22, 2017), author faculty profile.
University of Pennsylvania, School of Arts and Sciences Website, https://www.sas.upenn.edu/ (August 22, 2017), author faculty profile.*
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Daniel Q. Gillion,Presidential Associate ProfessorDepartment of Political ScienceVoice:(215) 898-6187The University of PennsylvaniaFax:(215) 898-6187Stiteler Hall 227E-mail:dgillion@sas.upenn.eduPhiladelphia, PA 19104 USAWWW:sas.upenn.edu/ ̃dgillion/ContactInformationAppointmentsUniversity of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania•Presidential Associate Professor,Political Science, July 2016–present•Associate Professor,Political Science, July 2015–present•Assistant Professor,Political Science, July 2009–July 2015Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey•Visiting Research Scholar, September 2017–July 2018Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts•Ford Foundation Fellow, July 2012–December 2014•Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar, August 2012–July 2014EducationUniversity of Rochester, Rochester, New York•Ph.D,Political Science, May 2009•M.A,Political Science, 2007Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida•M.A.,Applied American Politics and Policy, 2004•B.A.,International Political Affairs, 2002Books•Gillion, Daniel Q. 2016.Governing with Words: The Political Dialogue onRace, Public Policy, and Inequality in America.Cambridge University Press.**Winner of the 2017W.E.B. Du Bois Book Awardfrom the National Conferenceof Black Political Scientists–Findings referenced in theNew York Times,Washington Post,Chicago Tribune,Boston Globe,The Huffington Post,Slate,U.S. News and World Report,WashingtonMonthly, andThe Atlantic•Gillion, Daniel Q. 2013.The Political Power of Protest: Minority Activismand Shifts in Public Policy.Cambridge University Press**Winner of the 2014Best Book Awardfrom the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Sec-tion of the American Political Science Association–Discussed inThe Washington Post–Reviewed byPerspectives on Politics,Journal of Politics,Law and Politics Review,Choice, andJournal of American History–Subject ofAuthor Meets Critics(Midwest Political Science Association Conference2015 and National Conference of Black Political Scientists 2014)JournalArticles•Gillion, Daniel Q., Jonathan M. Ladd, and Marc Meredith. “Party Polarization,Ideological Sorting and the Emergence of the Partisan Gender Gap.”British Journalof Political Science, Conditionally Accepted.1 of 3
•Gillion, Daniel Q. 2017 “Words and Deeds: Presidential Discussion of MinorityHealth, Public Policies, and Minority Perceptions.”Journal of Health Politics, Pol-icy and Law, Forthcoming.•Gillion, Daniel Q. and Sarah A. Soule. 2017. “The Impact of Protest on Electionsin the US.”Social Science Quarterly, Forthcoming.•Gillion, Daniel Q. 2017. “Obama’s Discussion of Racial Policies and Citizens’ RacialResentment in the Experimental Setting.”Presidential Studies Quarterly, Forth-coming.•Gillion, Daniel Q. 2012. “The Influence of Protest Activity on Congressional Be-havior: The Scope of Minority Protests in the District.”Journal of Politics. 74(4)950-962•Gillion, Daniel Q., Valeria Sinclair-Chapman, and Robert Walker. 2009. “Explor-ing the Micro-Dynamics of Political Participation: Unpacking Trends inBlack andWhite Activism Over Time.”Electoral Studies. 28 (4) 550-561Book Chapters•Gillion, Daniel Q. and Fredrick Harris. 2010. “Expanding the Possibilities: AToolbox Theory of Political Participation.”Oxford Handbook of American Electionsand Behavior.ed. Jan Leighley. Oxford University Press. 144-161Articles UnderReview•“Race, Partisanship, and Attitudes toward Public Policy Commonalityand Legisla-tive Districts” with Sophia Wallace and Jason CasellasArticles inProgress•“Income Inequality and Governments Attention to Racial and Ethnic Minority Poli-cies”•“The Push and Pull of African Americans Support for the Democratic Party” withJonathan Ladd and Marc MeredithBooks inProgress•Policies that Matter: The Impact of Public Policies on Racial and Ethnic MinorityCommunities•The Ballot and the Banner: Minority Protest, Political Elections, and the Voicesthat Shape our DemocracyGrants andAwards•W.E.B. Du Bois Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Sci-entists, 2017•Penn Fellow 2017-2019•Best Book Award from the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the AmericanPolitical Science Association, 2014•Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2012-2014•Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar, 2012-2014•Distinguished Provost Fellowship, 2004-2009•Sammy Younge Best Paper Award, 20092 of 3
•Harrell Rodgers Travel Scholarship, 2009•The Prestage-Cook Award Grant, Southern Political Science Association, 2007•National Conference of Black Political Scientist Graduate Assistantship Grant, 2007•Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African American Studies Grant, 2007•Charles E. Lanni Research Fellowship, 2004-2007ConferencePresentations•SPIRE: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017•American Political Science Association: 2008-2017•Midwest Political Science Association: 2007-2017•Southern Political Science Association: 2008, 2010•National Conference of Black Political Scientists: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014,2017Harvard (Kennedy School of Government)(2017), Princeton (Woodrow Wilson SchoolInvited Talksof Public and International Affairs)(2017), Wesleyan (2017), Cornell University (2016),Princeton University (2016), Columbia University (2016), Oxford University (2016),Brown (2016), University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2016), University of Pennsyl-vania (Sociology)(2016), Columbia University (School of Journalism)(2016), PrincetonUniversity (2015), Berkeley (2015), Northwestern University (2015), Florida State Uni-versity (2015), University of Texas (2014), Harvard (2013), Columbia (2012), Cornell(2012), Brown (2012), MIT (2012), University of Michigan (2012), University of Virginia(2011), Temple (2011), Princeton University (2008), Saint Joseph’s University (2008),Texas A & M University (2008), University of Miami (2008), University of North Car-olina, Chapel Hill (2008), University of North Texas (2008)ReviewerAmerican Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal ofPolitics, Ethnic and Racial Studies, PGI (Politics, Groups, and Identities), PoliticalBehavior, American Politics Research, Social Forces, Perspectives on Politics, PublicOpinion Quarterly, Mobilization: An International Journal, NationalScience Founda-tion, Bloomsbury Academic Press, and Cambridge University PressProfessionalService•Executive Council Member for Southern Political Science AssociationJuly2017-2020•Steering Committee for APSA’s Section on Presidents and ExecutivePoliticsJuly2016-2019•Editorial BoardJournal of PoliticsJuly 2015-2017•Founding Organizer for Symposium on the Politics ofJuly 2012-presentImmigration, Race, and Ethnicity (SPIRE)•Member of the Bylaws Committee forAPSA’s Section of Race, Ethnicity, and PoliticsJune 2010-June 2011•Editorial Assistant forPerspectives on PoliticsMay 2008-June 20093 of 3
Daniel Gillion
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Ph.D., University of Rochester (Political Science). 2009
Daniel Q. Gillion completed his Ph.D. at the University of Rochester. His dissertation, which analyzes minorities’ political protest behavior, includes research that earned him the 2009 Sammy Younge award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. Professor Gillion’s research interest focuses on racial and ethnic politics, political behavior, public opinion, and the American presidency. Within these subfields, he addresses questions of political participation, institutional influences on citizens' behavior, and governmental responsiveness to citizens' concerns. His overall research agenda attempts to draw connections between citizens' political behavior and outcomes seen by national government institutions while at the same time providing insight into a greater incorporation of marginalized groups in the political process. Professor Gillion’s research has been published in the academic journal Electoral Studies and in the edited volumes of Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior. Before joining the University of Pennsylvania’s faculty, he was the distinguished provost fellow in the political science department at the University of Rochester. During his time at Rochester, he also served as assistant editor for Perspectives on Politics. In addition to being a faculty member in the political science department at Penn, Professor Gillion is also an affiliate faculty member with the Center for Africana Studies.
Office Location: 227 Stiteler Hall
Email: dgillion@sas.upenn.edu
Phone: 215-898-6187
Daniel Gillion
AMERICAN
Presidential Associate Professor
227 Stiteler Hall
By Appointment Only
898-6187
dgillion@sas.upenn.edu
Website
application/pdf iconCV
Daniel Q. Gillion completed his Ph.D. at the University of Rochester, where he was the distinguished Provost Fellow. He later went on to become the Ford Foundation Fellow and the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at Harvard University as well as the CSDP Research Scholar at Princeton. His research interests focuses on racial and ethnic politics, political behavior, political institutions, public policy, and the American presidency. Professor Gillion’s first book, The Political Power of Protest: Minority Activism and Shifts in Public Policy (Cambridge University Press), demonstrates the influential role of protest to garner a response from each branch of the federal government, highlighting protest actions as another form of constituent sentiment that should be considered alongside public opinion and voting behavior. The Political Power of Protest was the winner of the 2014 Best Book Award from the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. Professor Gillion’s recently completed book Governing with Words: The Political Dialogue on Race, Public Policy, and Inequality in America (Cambridge University Press) demonstrates that the political dialogue on race offered by presidents and congressional members alters the public policy process and shapes societal and cultural norms to improve the lives of racial and ethnic minorities, illustrating that mere words are a powerful tool for combating racial inequality in America. Governing with Words was awarded the 2017 W.E.B. Du Bois Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. Professor Gillion’s research has also been published in the academic journals Journal of Politics, Electoral Studies, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, and the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law as well as in the edited volumes of Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior. In addition to being a faculty member in the political science department at Penn, Professor Gillion is an affiliate faculty member with the Department for Africana Studies.
Home Page
Daniel Q. Gillion is the Presidential Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Gillion completed his Ph.D. at the University of Rochester, where he was the distinguished Provost Fellow. He later went on to become the Ford Foundation Fellow and the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at Harvard University as well as the CSDP Research Scholar at Princeton. His research interests focuses on racial and ethnic politics, political behavior, political institutions, public policy, and the American presidency. Professor Gillion’s first book, Political Power of Protest: Minority Activism and Shifts in Public Policy, demonstrates the influential role of protest to garner a response from each branch of the federal government, highlighting protest actions as another form of constituent sentiment that should be considered alongside public opinion and voting behavior. The Political Power of Protest was the winner of the 2014 Best Book Award from the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. Professor Gillion’s recently completed book Governing with Words: The Political Dialogue on Race, Public Policy, and Inequality in America (Cambridge University Press) demonstrates that the political dialogue on race offered by presidents and congressional members alters the public policy process and shapes societal and cultural norms to improve the lives of racial and ethnic minorities, illustrating that mere words are a powerful tool for combating racial inequality in America. Governing with Words was awarded the 2017 W.E.B. Du Bois Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. Professor Gillion’s research has also been published in the academic journals Journal of Politics, Electoral Studies, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, and the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law as well as in the edited volumes of Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior. In addition to being a faculty member in the political science department at Penn, Professor Gillion is an affiliate faculty member with the Department for Africana Studies.
This site allows you to view his CV, research, and courses.
QUOTED: "Gillion ... tackles a large question in a slim volume."
"recommended."
Gillion, Daniel Q.: The political power of protest: minority activism and shifts in public policy
J.D. Rausch
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 51.4 (Dec. 2013): p728.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
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Gillion, Daniel Q. The political power of protest: minority activism and shifts in public policy. Cambridge, 2013. 191 p bibl index ISBN 9781107031142, $85.00; ISBN 9781107657410 pbk, $27.99
51-2357
HN57
2012-33206 CIP
Gillion (Univ. of Pennsylvania) tackles a large question in a slim volume: "Do protest actions truly influence the behavior of public officials?" The research presented in this book shows that government action at the national level can be influenced by minority group protests. The author outlines his argument in an introductory chapter. The outline draws from sociology and political science. The minority groups examined include African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the continuum of information theory, the theoretical framework built to describe the role of minority group protest in the development of public policy. The geographical and chronological distribution of protests forms the focus of chapter 2. The next three chapters connect the minority protests to the governmental response across the three federal branches of government. The book concludes with a summary of the research's major contributions to the understanding of how protests influence governmental policy. Among the most significant findings is that a reduction in the number of minority group protests has decreased the ability of politicians to gain knowledge about policies affecting minority communities. With fewer protests, there has been less racial progress. Summing Up: Recommended. ** Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, research, and professional collections.--J. D. Rausch, West Texas A&M University
Rausch, J.D.
QUOTED: "This is an incisive work that is a necessary piece of scholarship."
"highly recommended."
Gillion, Daniel Q.: Governing with words: the political dialogue on race, public policy, and inequality in America
K. Anderson
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 54.2 (Oct. 2016): p292.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
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Gillion, Daniel Q. Governing with words: the political dialogue on race, public policy, and inequality in America. Cambridge, 2016. 189p bibl index ISBN 9781107127548 cloth, $89.99; ISBN 9781107566613 pbk, $29.99; ISBN 9781316590058 ebook, $24.00
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What is the role of rhetoric in the governing process in America? In this innovative work, Gillion (Univ. of Pennsylvania) argues that speech, especially speech that pertains to issues of race, has a powerful effect on the entire policy process. Gillion demonstrates through methodologically rigorous examples that rhetoric not only can frame the public policy agenda, it can create a ripple effect among policy makers and constituents. Prior emphasis in scholarly research on rhetoric and agenda setting misses the impact of speech on other aspects of the policy process, including implementation and analysis. If race speech is a continual part of the process, a model Gillion refers to as "discursive government," then issues have a broader context and increased relevance outside of narrow policy networks. This is an incisive work that is a necessary piece of scholarship for understanding agenda setting and democratic ideas of governance in African American politics. Summing Up: *** Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.--K. Anderson, Eastern Illinois University
Anderson, K.
PENN PROFESSOR DANIEL GILLION RECEIVES APSA BEST BOOK AWARD
States News Service. (Sept. 25, 2014):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2014 States News Service
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PHILADELPHIA, Penn. -- The following information was released by the University of Pennsylvania:
Daniel Gillion, University of Pennsylvania assistant professor of political science, has won the American Political Science Association Race, Ethnicity and Politics Section's 2014 Best Book Award for The Political Power of Protest: Minority Activism and Shifts in Public Policy.
Gillion's research interest focuses on racial and ethnic politics, political behavior, public opinion and the American presidency.
The Political Power of Protest demonstrates the influential role of protest to garner a response from each branch of the federal government, highlighting protest actions as another form of constituent sentiment that should be considered alongside public opinion and voting behavior.
His research has also been published in the academic journals Electoral Studies and Journal of Politics as well as in the edited volumes of Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior.
In addition to being a faculty member in the political science department at Penn, Gillion is an affiliate faculty member with the Department of Africana Studies and the Center for Asian American Studies Program. Gillion is also the Ford Foundation Fellow at Harvard University for 2012-2014.
RESEARCHER AT PENN LOOKS AT HEALTHY CHANGES THROUGH A POLITICAL LENS
States News Service. (May 26, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 States News Service
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PHILADELPHIA, Penn. -- The following information was released by the University of Pennsylvania:
Politicians' race-conscious speeches have broad, and sometimes unexpected, consequences, according to a new book from Daniel Gillion of the University of Pennsylvania.
In Governing With Words: The Political Dialogue on Race, Public Policy and Inequality in America, Gillion said politicians are sharers of health information with the potential to increase awareness of health issues and advise minorities on best practices.
Gillion, an associate professor of political science in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences, focuses his research on racial and ethnic politics, political behavior, public opinion and the American presidency.
Published in April, Governing With Words features Gillion's analysis of political discussions about health in African-American and Latino magazines including Essence, Ebony, Black Enterprise, Hispanic and Hispanic Times. He said that from 1991 to 2012 presidential race-conscious speeches on health were amplified by the minority media and influenced individual levels of health awareness.
Gillion, a former Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at Harvard University, found that political discussions shape societal norms by shifting the policy agenda, initiating dialogue and producing policies that remedy racial inequality.
The book documents the direct influence that politicians' race-conscious speeches have had on government productivity, on transforming societal behavior and on social change, especially in improving health disparities and awareness about health concerns that are prominent in the minority community.
In addition, Gillion examines how politicians, by being "race-neutral," unknowingly contribute to the persistent racial inequality that impacts issues from health to unemployment.
"Race-conscious political discussions in government must continue with either a race-based or class-based policy approach," Gillion said. "Otherwise, improvements in racial inequality in America stagnate."
QUOTED: "his book brilliantly expands upon the behaviorist tradition, marshaling evidence for the causal importance of protest. But it is also in this liminal theoretical space that the book fails to sharpen a critical edge that might demonstrate not only how protest creates progressive politics, but also how it often fails."
"Integrating symbolic, strategic and discursive histories into our studies of political behavior is long overdue, and I hope that Gillion’s fine analysis of disruption will spur such studies and allow us to refine what it may take to further racial justice. Gillion has shown us that protest matters at the aggregate level, and that we can find its influence throughout the branches of American government."
"As Gilliom notes in his conclusion, we still desperately need to understand what will best bring critical attention to the growing hegemony of the colorblind society. This urgent task requires a wide and more integrated inquiry."
THE POLITICAL POWER OF PROTEST: MINORITY ACTIVISM AND SHIFTS IN PUBLIC POLICY
by Daniel Q. Gillion. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 205pp. Hardcover $85.00 ISBN 978-1107031142. Paperback: $27.99 ISBN: 9781107657410.
Reviewed by Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller, Professor of Political Science, University of Hawai‘i
pp.73-76
Daniel Q. Gillion’s book argues that racial and ethnic protest actions influence federal politicians and policies, and it offers an innovative quantitative methodology to bring protest back into the viewfinder of political behaviorists. While behaviorists have long been debating the significance of protest, many other sociolegal scholars and historians, few of which are acknowledged in this book, have looked toward protest events as rich sources of political meaning, tracking the discursive transformations and rhetorical innovations that such events have caused (McCann 1994; Frymer 2008; Epp 1998), and examining the broad international contexts in which American governmental elites have operated (Skrentny 2002; Dudziak 2000). Gillion situates his research in between the study of protest mechanics and elite theories of response to social movements in order to explain the linkage mechanisms by which protests make a measurable difference. It is here that his book brilliantly expands upon the behaviorist tradition, marshaling evidence for the causal importance of protest. But it is also in this liminal theoretical space that the book fails to sharpen a critical edge that might demonstrate not only how protest creates progressive politics, but also how it often fails to bring about justice (Piven and Cloward 1978).
Gillion develops a theory of the “continuum of information” to explain how protest provokes government response. Information is expressed by protest movements in several ways: the levels of contention, organizational structures of protest movements, the “signals of ideological preference” (p.20), and political framing. While a number of these aspects involve expressive politics, Gillion aggregates them as the continuum of information responsible for “cueing” government actors into the concerns of ethnic and racial communities. What drops out in this amalgam of “information” are the rhetorical lifeworlds of protests. It is telling, for instance, that while Gillion notes that Rep. Maxine Waters called the 1991 Los Angeles protest following the Rodney King beating a “rebellion” (p.62) he retains the common moniker “riot” for such protests throughout the book. Information, for Gillion, reflects a cybernetic concern for the self-maintenance of social order, and protest events are quantified in sophisticated ways that model a neural network where sufficient stimulation of various sorts provokes a synaptic response. My analogies here are designed to highlight the tradeoffs of such an approach: on the one hand, the book casts a wide net that can assess the various modes in which disruptive protest politics matters. Gillion even accounts for the effects of counter-protests (which have been [*74] shown elsewhere to be a significant dynamic of contemporary minority-rights politics (Dudas 2008; Goldberg-Hiller 2004)) as though they are inhibitions on the signals sent to officials; only when minority protests surpass the intensity of anti-minority -rights signals do they come to matter. On the other hand, the interior of the “black box” opened by such an approach remains rather gray: we don’t learn much about how rights language or other rhetoric involved in minority protests, for instance, matter to government response, nor can we see the manner that government responses recursively condition protest environments.
In the central chapters of the book, Gillion examines the significance of protest in Congress, the Presidency and the Supreme Court, demonstrating statistical models of impact derived from interesting, spatialized and temporalized measures of protest events (Chapter 2: “Measuring Information in Minority Protest” is one of the best of the book.) Gillion demonstrates that protests make a difference at the congressional district level, even where collective responses are weak. One example of his findings: 50 or more racial or ethnic protest events in a representative’s district translates to a 5% greater likelihood of a liberal vote favoring minority issues, and protests matter even for encouraging minority representatives to take pro-minority positions. It is hard to know, absent detailed historical analyses, how substantively significant these finding are, but his study offers statistical support to other scholars wishing to bring more light to these relationships.
Like congressional representatives, the president is also “learning on the job” (p.86) in Gillion’s model, and can respond to protest information in numerous ways, including the issuing of presidential memoranda, public statements, press conferences, presidential letters, executive orders and official addresses. Gillion finds that protest mostly galvanizes public perceptions through press conferences, public statements and executive orders within several months of dissenting activity. His chapter on the presidency provides short synopses of Kennedy through Clinton, demonstrating their responses to minority protest. Even Reagan, who vetoed some civil rights legislation, responded to protests supporting South African sanctions with executive orders limiting some trade with that country, demonstrating for Gillion that protests made a difference.
Gillion shows that the Supreme Court is also responsive to the information delivered by protests, altering its agenda to include cases pertinent to minorities when protests are significant. Theorists of the Court may find most interesting Gillion’s robust findings that in years with a high number of minority protests, on average 90 percent (and sometimes as much as 100 percent) of minority cases received a favorable judgment. Liberal justices were most clearly influenced in this manner by protests; conservatives and moderates not at all. Here, perhaps, the findings are not surprising: as with congressional representatives, liberal proclivities are energized by protests, and in the Court this stimulation has made a difference.
The test of the continuum of information on the three branches of government shows that protests do have consequences, however small and [*75] localized these may be. Gillion’s broader point is a significant one: political scientists’ absorbed attention to electoral politics should be widened to look at protest anew. Knowing that protest makes a causal difference may turn some eyes in this direction, and this is a positive contribution of this research.
Nonetheless, something feels missing to me when the work of sociolegal scholars is not integrated into political behavior scholarship. The study of political behavior without grounded attention to the symbolic worlds of contentious politics and without a healthy skepticism of the progressive tenets of democratic theory loses something vital about politics. To my mind, the problem with information theory deployed in the fashion of this book is that it assumes a consistent code to create political meaning, whereas contentious politics is often all about that code. What will bring justice? Will rights or other legislation be advantageous to more struggle? In what frames will social movements best seek recognition? These questions are summarily flattened when it is the noise and not the meaning that is most appreciated. There is, of course, something valuable about disruption itself, especially for those who have few resources and who demand alternatives to the status quo (Piven and Cloward 1978, p.27ff.; Rancière 1999). Yet, as some scholars have shown, the voids cleared by disruption are often immediately filled in with new modes of white supremacy (Alexander 2010, p.39 and ff.) and other forms of hierarchy and control by elites in government and by some social movements. Many if not most protests are quickly regularized and agitators encouraged to accept symbolic rather than instrumental gains (Edelman 1964; Lipsky 1968). Noise and disruption remain evanescent.
Integrating symbolic, strategic and discursive histories into our studies of political behavior is long overdue, and I hope that Gillion’s fine analysis of disruption will spur such studies and allow us to refine what it may take to further racial justice. Gillion has shown us that protest matters at the aggregate level, and that we can find its influence throughout the branches of American government. As Gilliom notes in his conclusion, we still desperately need to understand what will best bring critical attention to the growing hegemony of the colorblind society. This urgent task requires a wide and more integrated inquiry.
REFERENCES:
Alexander, Michelle. 2010. THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS. The New Press.
Dudas, Jeffrey R. 2008. THE CULTIVATION OF RESENTMENT: TREATY RIGHTS AND THE NEW RIGHT. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Dudziak, Mary L. 2000. COLD WAR CIVIL RIGHTS : RACE AND THE IMAGE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Edelman, Murray J. 1964. THE SYMBOLIC USES OF POLITICS. Urbana,: University of Illinois Press.
Epp, Charles R. 1998. [*76] THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION : LAWYERS, ACTIVISTS, AND SUPREME COURTS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Frymer, Paul. 2008. BLACK AND BLUE: AFRICAN AMERICANS, THE LABOR MOVEMENT, AND THE DECLINE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. Princeton University Press.
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