The Trump Resistance's Repertoire of Contention and its Conception and Practice of Civil Disobedience and Nonviolent Direct Action (2016-2018): An Institutionalization of Protest?

Authors

  • Charlotte Thomas-Hébert Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Abstract

The Resistance, formed in opposition to Donald Trump, has seen progressive forces galvanize since November 2016. Groups have allied in marches and rallies all over the country (The Women's March, #MarchForOurLives), and thrown themselves into electoral politics (Indivisible). Yet one of the most striking features of the Trump Resistance is that there have been few acts of civil disobedience since the last Presidential election.

 

Using the tools of social movement studies and political sociology as well as ethnographic data, this paper investigates why breaking the law is not currently a more popular form of nonviolent direct action, and why activists seem to favor coordinated, permitted marches at a time when civil disobedience seems to have become if not legitimate, at least increasingly accepted as a democratic practice.

Author Biography

Charlotte Thomas-Hébert, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

PhD Candidate in Political Science

References

ALEXANDER, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow. New York: The New Press.

ARENDT, Hannah. 1972. Crises of the Republic. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

BRAY, Mark. 2017. Antifa. The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Brooklyn, London: Melville House.

BREINES, Wini. 1989. Community and Organization in the New Left, 1962-1968: The Great Refusal. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

BREWER, Rose M.; HEITZEG, Nancy A. 2008. "The Racialization of Crime and Punishment: Criminal Justice, Color-Blind Racism, and the Political Economy of the Prison Industrial Complex." American Behavioral Scientist, 51(5): 625-644.

CARNEY, Jordain. 10/09/2018. "McConnell Torches 'Far-left Mob' over Kavanaugh Fight." The Hill, https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/410624-mcconnell-torches-far-left-mob-over-kavanaugh-fight (accessed 12/12/2018).

CARTER, Alan. 1998. "In Defence of Radical Disobedience." Journal of Applied Philosophy, 15 (1): 29-47.

CELIKATES, Robin. 2014. "Civil Disobedience as a Practice of Civic Freedom." In On Global Citizenship. James Tully in Dialogue, edited by David Owen. London: Bloomsbury Press.

—— . 2015. "Learning from the Streets: Civil Disobedience in Theory and Practice." In Global Activism. Art and Conflict in the 21st Century, edited by Peter Weibel. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press: 65–72.

—— . 2016. "Democratizing Civil Disobedience." Philosophy and Social Criticism: 1-13.

CROWD COUNTING CONSORTIUM. 2018. "Crowd Counting Consortium. A Public interest Project to Document Crowds and Contention in the United States." Crowd Counting Consortium, https://sites.google.com/view/crowdcountingconsortium/home (accessed 12/12/2018).

DEBOUZY, Marianne. 2016. La désobéissance civile aux États-Unis et en France. 1970-2014. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes.

EPSTEIN, Barbara. 1993. Political Protest and Cultural Revolution. Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.

FALCIOLA, Luca. 2015. "A Bloodless Guerrilla Warfare: Why U.S. White Leftists Renounced Violence Against People During the 1970s." Terrorism and Political Violence, 28 (5): 928-949.

FEATHERSTONE, Liza. 2017. Divining Desire: Focus Groups and the Culture of Consultation. New York: OR Books.

FILLIEULE, Olivier. 2001. "Post scriptum : propositions pour une analyse processuelle de l'enga-gement individuel." Revue française de science politique, 51 (1-2): 199-218.

FISHER, Dana R. 2018a. "Chapter 2: Resistance in the Streets." American Resistance, https://theamericanresistancebook.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/chapter-2_resistanceinthestreets_final.pdf (accessed12/12/2018).

—— . 2018b. "Chapter 4: Organizing the Resistance in the Districts." American Resistance, https://theamericanresistancebook.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/chapter4_organizingresistanceinthedistricts_final.pdf, (accessed 12/12/2018).

FISHER, Dana; DOW, Dawn M.; RAY, Rashawn Ray. 09/20/2017. "Intersectionality Takes it to the Streets: Mobilizing Across Diverse Interests for the Women's March." Science Advances, 9 (3), http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/9/eaao1390.full (accessed 12/13/2018).

FRIEDMAN, Matthew. 11/17/2015. "Just Facts: As Many Americans Have Criminal Records as College Diplomas." Brennan Center for Justice, https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/just-facts-many-americans-have-criminal-records-college-diplomas (accessed 12/12/2018).

GRAEBER, David. 2002. "The New Anarchists." The New Left Review, 13, https://newleftreview.org/II/13/david-graeber-the-new-anarchists (accessed 05/16/2016).

—— . 2009. Direct Action. An Ethnography. Chico CA: AK Press.

HARCOURT, Bernard. 2012. "Political Disobedience." Critical Inquiry, 39 (1): 33-55.

HAYES, Graeme; OLLITRAULT, Sylvie. 2012. La désobéissance civile. Paris: Les Presses de Sciences Po.

HOISINGTON, Sam. 03/26/2018. "'March For Our Lives' Cost $5 Million; 'Several Million' Left For Lobbying." NPR, https://www.npr.org/2018/03/26/596973924/-march-for-our-lives-cost-5-million-several-million-left-for-lobbying (accessed 12/12/2018).

JASPER, James. 2006. "A Strategic Approach to Collective Action: Looking for Agency in Social-Movement Choices." Mobilization, 9: 1–16.

—— . 2018. The Emotions of Protest. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

JORDAN, Mary; CLEMENT, Scott. 04/06/2018. "Rallying Nation." The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/04/06/feature/in-reaction-to-trump-millions-of-americans-are-joining-protests-and-getting-political/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.dd229b5e8372 (accessed 12/01/2018).

KAUFFMAN, L.A. 05/06/2018. "We Are Living Through a Golden Age of Protest." The Guardian, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/06/protest-trump-direct-action-activism (accessed 06/26/2018).

——. 2016. Direct Action. Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism. London, New York: Verso Books.

KING, Martin Luther. August 1963. "Letter from Birmingham Jail." The Atlantic Monthly, 212 (2): 78-88.

LESBIAN AVENGERS. 07/24/2011. "The Lesbian Avenger Handbook. A Handy Guide to Homemade Revolution. Third Edition." Lesbianavengers.com, http://www.lesbianavengers.com/handbooks/Lesbian_Avenger_handbook3.shtml (accessed 12/10/2016)

LOVELL, Jarret S. 2009. Crime of Dissent. Civil Disobedience, Criminal Justice, and the Politics of Conscience. New York: NYU Press.

McADAM, Doug. 1988. Freedom Summer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McCARTHY, John D.; ZALD, Mayer N. 1977. "Ressource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory." The American Journal of Sociology 82 (6): 1212–1241.

McSWEENEY, Leah; SIEGEL, Jacob. 12/10/2018. "Is the Women's March Melting Down?." Tablet Magazine, https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/276694/is-the-womens-march-melting-down (accessed 12/15/2018).

MELLON, Christian. 2008. "Emergence de la question de la désobéissance civile." In La désobéissance civile. Approches juridiques et politiques, edited by David Hiez and Bruno Villalba: 37-50. Villeneuve d'Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.

MILLIGAN, Tony. 2013. Civil Disobedience. Protest, Justification, and the Law. London, New York: Bloomsbury.

OGIEN, Albert. 2011. "Avant-propos." In "La désobéissance civile", Problèmes politiques et sociaux, edited by Albert Ogien and Sandra Laugier: 989.

PERRY, Lewis. 2013. Civil Disobedience. An American Tradition. London, New Haven: Yale University Press.

PETITJEAN, Clément. 2017. "'Us career organizers': The making of Professional Community Organizers in Chicago." Revue Française d'Etudes Américaines, 151: 23-35.

PINEDA, Erin. 2015. "Civil Disobedience & Punishment: (Mis)reading Justification & Strategy from SNCC to Snowden." History of the Present, 5 (1): 1-30.

POLLETTA, Francesca. 2002. Freedom Is an Endless Meeting. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

PUTNAM, Lara; SKOCPOL, Theda. 02/20/2018. "Middle America Reboots Democracy", Democracy, https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/middle-america-reboots-democracy/ (accessed 12/11/2018)

RAWLS, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

SHARP, Gene. 1973. The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers.

SKOCPOL, Theda. 2016. "Introduction." PS: Political Science & Politics, 49 (30): 433-436.

SMITH, Andrea. 2007. "Introduction." In The Revolution Will Not Be Funded. Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, edited by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. Cambridge MA: South End Press.

THE WOMEN'S MARCH ORGANIZERS. 2018. Together We Rise: Behind the Scenes at the Protest Heard Around the World. New York: Dey Street Books.

TILLY, Charles. 2004. Social Movements, 1868-2004. Boulder, London: Paradigm Publishers.

WALKER, Edward T.; McCARTHY, John D.; BAUMGARTNER, Frank. 2011. "Replacing Members with Managers? Mutualism among Membership and Nonmembership Advocacy Organizations in the United States." The American Journal of Sociology, 116 (4): 1284-1337.

WILE, Joan. 2008. Grandmothers against the War. New York: Citadel Press.

Downloads

Published

2020-11-25