Our Theory

While the literatures on inter-ethnic relations and on Black-Jewish relations are of no help, there are two competing theories of contentious politics that can provide important insights into the interests-identities-institutions narratives (Lichbach 1997). The dominant theory derives from Tilly, Tarrow, and McAdam (1996) and is referred to here as SPOT - Synthetic Political Opportunity Theory. The alternative derives from the rational actor thinking of Olson (1965) as codified in Lichbach (1994, 1995, 1996) and is referred to here as CARP - the Collective Action Research Program.

SPOT views group protest and contentious politics from a very attractive mix of Weberian structural and strategic perspectives: the historically-rooted political, social, and cultural institutions of a social order define systems of stratification and set the contexts for historically concrete struggles over power, wealth, and status. The polity, society, and culture structures who is mobilized and who is demobilized and therefore who wins and who loses. To address his (1994: 189) key concern, “How movements become the focal points for collective action and sustain it against opponents and the state,” Tarrow (1994: 2) thus argues that three factors are crucial: protest is “triggered by the incentives created by political opportunities, combining conventional and challenging forms of action and building on social networks and cultural frames” (Tarrow 1994: 1). Hence, SPOT skillfully weaves several strands of resource mobilization and political process arguments into a “broad framework” (Tarrow 1994: 2) that explains “contentious politics”: political opportunities (PO), cultural frames (CF), and mobilizing structures (MS) are therefore the windows through which groups understand and attack one another. For example, Farrakan’s statements about Jews or Blacks’ complaints against Jewish storeowners will not provoke a Black-Jewish clash unless the city-wide electoral coalition between Blacks and Jews is weak (PO), liberal assimilationist values are challenged by militant ethnic separatisms (CF), and the interorganizational linkages between Black and Jewish institutions are frayed by radicals in each community (MS).

CARP, which focuses on the “Rebel’s Dilemma” or the problem of free-riding and nonparticipation in protest and rebellion (Moore 1995), was sparked by economists (Tullock 1971) and sociologists (Gamson [1975] 1990) who drew upon Olson’s (1965) idea that the norms of instrumental rationality, especially in the market-oriented structures of the modern world, promote self-interest and therefore could work against the collective good. Hence, the fundamental assumption of CARP is that collective endeavors often involve public good (non-excludable and non-rival) and Prisoner’s Dilemma (Pareto sub-optimal) elements. The collective action (CA) question for inter-ethnic conflict is therefore how both sides mobilize their forces for conflict and cooperation. Both the Black and the Jewish communities try to overcome their CA problem. With respect to conflict, for example, Farrakan’s statements about Jews will not provoke a Black-Jewish clash unless Jews mobilize and Blacks countermobilize. Similarly, Blacks’ complaints against Jewish storeowners do not result in an incident unless Blacks organize a boycott and Jews countermobilize. Cooperation between Blacks and Jews also generates a CA problem. Black-Jewish cooperation cannot occur unless Blacks mobilize their forces and Jews theirs for mutual endeavors. How, then, are the CA problems of Blacks and Jews overcome? We focus on four “nuts and bolts” of CARP – counter-mobilization, bandwagons, external patronage, and intra-community competition (Lichbach 1995: sects. 3.10, 4.1.2, 6.2, 6.4) - that we believe are part of a cycle (Tarrow 1994) of inter-ethnic contentious politics that connects anti-government protests by minorities to inter-ethnic conflict and cooperation.

The two theories of contentious politics - CARP and SPOT - place the three conventional explanations of Black-Jewish relationships in a larger theoretical perspective. CARP provides structure or the macro context and SPOT offers action or the meso causal mechanisms behind the interest, identity, and institution explanations of Black-Jewish relations. First, common interests have weakened because the breakdown of middle class Black-Jewish electoral coalitions have created the PO for conflicts of interest to play themselves out in countermobilization and bandwagons of lower-class anti-government protest. Second, common identities have weakened because the breakdown of liberal assimilationist values have created the CF for conflicts of identity to play themselves out in strategically constructed ethnic solidarities. Finally, common institutions have weakened because the breakdown of inter-organizational connections between Black and Jewish institutions have created the MS for conflicts of institutions to play themselves out in intra-community squabbles, for example over allies and patrons, that spill over to inter-community clashes. We will see that PO, MS, and CF, which are institutions that have been reconstructed by rational Blacks and Jews, have coalesced CA processes into cycles of contentious inter-ethnic politics.

Interests

SPOT helps us understand how interests influence Black-Jewish relations by exploring politics defined in terms of PO. Central political processes of cooperation, competition, contention, and conflict among groups for power influence local inter-group relations. Central political institutions affect these political processes and hence also set the context for local politics. However, CARP reminds us that rational political allies and enemies build and maintain cross-group governing and opposition alliances, coalitions, alignments, and pacts. Rational actors also shape and reshape political institutions. Political processes and institutions thus set the context for the strategic interaction of a movement with its allies and opponents in civil society and the state and, in turn, are constructed and reconstructed by the actors involved.

Consider PO as structure. PO are “consistent - but not necessarily formal or permanent - dimensions of the political environment that provide incentives for people to undertake collective action by affecting their expectations for success orfailure” (Tarrow 1994: 85). Four aspects of the polity’s processes and institutions create these incentives: “the relative openness or closure of the institutionalized political system,” “the stability of that broad set of alignments that typically undergird a polity,” “the presence of elite allies,” and “the state’s capacity and propensity for repression” (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996: 10). When a city’s political opportunities are “open,” provide “stable” “elite allies” for electoral mobilization by minorities and “repression” in response to protest mobilization by minorities, anti-government protest by minorities is minimized and contentious inter-ethnic politics less likely. On the other hand,

This is, of course, a very high level generalization.

A middle-class biracial electoral coalition reduces Black-Jewish clashes. On the one hand, its staid, predictable, inclusive, and reformist liberalism appeals to Jews. Such a coalition will govern in ways that are consistent with Jewish interests. On the other hand, its racial liberalism appeals to Blacks. Such a coalition will govern in ways that include Black interests in policy making. Moreover, the coalition will work hard to contain the extremists of both communities and thereby ensure inter-racial cooperation. For example, Sonenshein (1997: 44) writes that “the controversy over the forced resignation of United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young led to black-Jewish conflicts in numeorus cities. Only in Los Angeles was the preexisting leadership group able to find a way to diffuse the potentially deadly controversy.”

On the other hand, Rainbow and Rainbow II electoral coalitions of color and class polarize racial politics and hence encourage Black-Jewish clashes. For example, racially divisive campaign rhetoric mobilizes voters, but in a heated election. This sort of rhetoric also encourages lower-class group protest. Such protest groups will demand radical things that run counter to each other’s interests and hence will oppose interracial alliances. They generate backlash, polarization, and eventually Black-Jewish clashes.

CARP offers two nuts and bolts – counter-mobilization and bandwagons – that provide meso-foundations that explain how these two types of urban regimes are the institutions behind Black-Jewish conflict and cooperation.

This process is important in the case of Blacks and Jews because both groups have traditions of anti-government protest. The Black community is familiar with organizing protest, wielding symbols of protest, and actively engaging in dissent that is more or less successful. The Jewish community has the same sort of background of ethnic action, identity, and organization. This leads to a mobilization-countermobilization dynamic: ethnic identities, interests, and institutions beget counter-ethnic interests, identities, and institutions. As a group protests, the diffusion and contagion of protest therefore occurs among groups over both space and time. Protest brings groups into conflict with one another. Inter-ethnic clashes therefore result from the political and social construction of groups during the anti-government protest that occurs in the absence of a dominant Black-Jewish electoral coalition:

This mobilization-countermobilization dynamic of inter-ethnic struggles, moreover, generates two pathologies relevant to inter-ethnic relations. First, it leads to a radicalization of politics: By lending credence to the position of the most extreme factions within different communities, support is also provided for their preferred strategy of confrontation rather than cooperation (Della Porta 1995). Second, it produces authoritarianism: Dissident groups will become intolerant of internal opposition. This follows from the work of Coser (1956: 95-104) that suggests that as conflict grows more violent or intense, suppression of internal dissent increases.

The outcomes of anti-government protest has as much an impact on inter-ethnic relations as the level of protest. The reason is that when anti-government protest succeeds, it generates a spatial bandwagon. Hence, bandwagons are a second CA process relevant to inter-ethnic conflict. Those who arrive early to collective dissent influence the latecomers. Suppose, for example, that that most committed join at time t; this raises the probability of success (benefits) and lowers the probability of repression (costs) at time t+1. The less committed join at t+1; this, in turn, encourages those even less committed to join at t+2, and so on. Hence, it its theoretically possible for one person to join at time 1, a second person to join at time 2, a third person to join at time 3, and so on. The idea is that successful CA becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads to more CA and that unsuccessful CA becomes a self-denying prophecy that leads to less CA.

There are two major consequences of bandwagon models: 1) conflict will be temporally diffused among members of a single dissident community and 2) spatially diffused among dissident groups that are part of some larger community. The latter is particularly relevant here. The success of a tactic at time t increases the use of that tactic and other related tactics at time t+1 by some other group. Hence, as dissident group m with tactic i succeeds at time t, dissident group n will employ tactic i and related tactic j at time t+1. In this reaction function, one successful dissident group politicizes, organizes, and radicalizes other groups, as protest by group m correlates with protest by group n. This, in turn, brings another groups into the conflict. To a regime, these groups look like a set of dominoes ready to fall, with one dissident group the instigator for even more widespread collective dissent by other dissident groups. Correspondingly, when anti-government protest fails, it generates a different form of spatial bandwagon: groups seek allies against the government and hence become more open and conciliatory. Inter-ethnic clashes therefore result from the bandwagons of protest generated during the anti-government protest that occurs in the absence of a dominant Black-Jewish electoral coalition:

Now consider PO as structured. Rational actors create PO under constraints. What factors increase the probability that the middle-class biracial electoral coalition that encourages Black-Jewish cooperation will be constructed? First, there is the size and internal cohesion of Blacks and left-of-liberal progressive Jews. Where this coalition is tiny and hetereogeneous, progressive coalitions are less likely.

Second, how democracy is structured matters. Political cooptation of Blacks by machine politics and patronage generates lower-class protest that cannot be contained by a governing coalition. Thus, Stone (see Browning, Marshall and Tabb 1997: 289) argues that “In this scenario, black politicians control city government, but they are been co-opted by a white economic elite. An African-American economic and professional elite emerges that enriches itself but abandons low-income blacks, who are politically isolated and powerless.” Such a regime is not redistributive: it ignore the needs of ordinary lower-class citizens (neighborhood organizations, affordable-housing groups) and continues inequality and poverty which feeds the possibility of lower-class protest. Other more specific aspects of democratic institutions that probably matter include the nature of the electoral system, type of mayor and city council, and the existence of a professional civil service system.

Voting and elections are therefore important but in face of entrenched economic power, not decisive. Hence, a regime is broader than the political government coalition (elections and interest groups). A political coalition + economic coalition = governing coalition.

The market also constrains Black-Jewish electoral coalitions because it creates economic competition between Blacks and Jews. Prejudice and discrimination in job location often accompany differentiation and the division-of-labor. This results in inequality and stratification that is eventually perceived as absolute (poverty) and relative deprivation. Ecological theories of ethnic conflict have located several processes that increase economic competition: migration, immigration, invasion, internal colonialization, and niche overlap (for example, Blalock 1967; Olzak 1986; 1992; Tolnay and Beck 1992). These processes bring segregated ethnic groups into competition over the same economic resources (e.g., jobs). The increase in ecological competition upsets settled niches of production and disturbs previously quiescent ethnic boundaries. Ethnic interests, identities, and institutions become activated as groups compete for ethnic dominance and jobs. Hence,

We suspect that CF associated with ethnic nationalism work against Black-Jewish cooperation.

Assimilationist and melting-pot ideologies, on the other hand, should encourage Black-Jewish cooperation.

Now consider how rational actors create CF. Ethnic movements strategically frame meanings, symbols, and discourses so as to define grievances, pose solutions, and advance their “cognitive liberation” (McAdam 1982). Cultural framing therefore involves the “conscious strategic efforts by groups of people to fashion shared understandings of the world and of themselves that legitimate and motivate collective action” (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996: 6).

CARP elaborates SPOT’s arguments about strategic framing. While CA theories recognize that culture matters, the theories can offer more than the obvious depiction of culture as a deus ex machina that hovers over regimes and dissidents. They offer a uniquely political perspective on the question of culture and dissent. What dissidents think and believe are affected by strategic factors. Various political actors try to persuade dissidents about their interests and convince them about various aspects of their struggle. Preferences and cognitions are politics. Moreover, the themes and orientations of protest, or the articulation of dissidents' values, are driven by strategic considerations. Rhetoric is also politics.

More specifically, the strategic struggle among dissident groups within a dissident movement also influences how the themes of the protest are articulated. Dissident groups in a dissident movement try to “product differentiate” their goals and tactics, attempting to create their own niche (Lichbach 1995: sect. 6.4.3). It is particularly important for a new and smaller dissident group to do this. Often the new group tries to outflank and outbid its older and larger “ally” by charging that it is insufficiently radical (Lichbbach 1995: sect. 5.2.3.4). Inter-ethnic clashes therefore result from the political construction of cultural frames for anti-government protest that occurs in the absence of a dominant assimilationist culture:

In sum, CARP, with its resolutely political perspective on culture and dissent, can contribute to the interpretive turn in conflict studies, specifically, and in the social sciences, more generally. CA theorists can remind the culturalists that the origins of dissident preferences and cognitions, as well as the articulation of the values of protest and rebellion, involve strategic considerations.

Institutions

Finally, SPOT helps us understand how institutions influence Black-Jewish relations by looking at society defined in terms of mobilizing structures. Civil society is structured along class, status, gender, ethnic, religious, and racial lines. These partially overlapping systems of stratification “link leaders with the organization of collective action - center with periphery - permitting movement coordination and allowing movements to persist over time” (Tarrow 1994: 136). Elite-mass linkages include “informal as well as formal [vehicles] through which people mobilize and engage in collective action” (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996: 3). Dissident mobilizing structures thus include communities and associations rooted in civil society. When mobilizing structures exist, collective action is likely; when they are not, collective action is improbable.

While each community has its own organizations and institutions, the leaders of these institutions network in organizations of organizations and institutions of institutions. We suspect that

Now consider how rational actors create MS. Inter-community MS are of course constructed by Blacks and Jews. Leaders of both communities work hard to build long-standing informal and formal ties. This involves controlling selective incentives in the form of patronage, logrolling on issues of mutual concern, and long-run reputations established via Tit-For-Tat strategies.

SPOT --> CARP: Cycles of Contentious Inter-Ethnic Politics

When minorities protest, inter-ethnic conflict follows. Blacks and Jews offer a classic example of how the anti-government struggles of different minority groups in America become intertwined. Black-Jewish conflict and cooperation have grown out of Black and Jewish political protests. In particular, Black-Jewish relations have often emerged from the connections of Jews to Black protest and the connections of Blacks to Jewish protest. There are four common and often interrelated scenarios. First, one community mobilizes and another countermobilizes as government responds to the first community’s demands. Second, successful antigovernment protest by one community spreads to the other in a spatial bandwagon. Third, external patrons from one community come to the assistance of the other community. Finally, conflict and cooperation between Blacks and Jews is rooted in the conflict and cooperation within the Black and Jewish communities during their political struggles. These scenarios often compound into Black-Jewish clashes: mobilization begets countermobilization; government responds, spreading conflict even further; peacekeepers and external patrons emerge; finally, intra-Jewish and intra-Black conflicts fuel an inter-ethnic confrontation as Black-Jewish relations become hostage to the internal arguments of both communities as to whom are their real friends and allies. The opposite scenario of Black-Jewish cooperation also reveals an interesting dynamic: intra-Jewish and intra-Black cooperation leads to common agreement about external allies that facilitates economic and political interactions.

We suggest that these CA processes - the mobilization-countermobilization dynamic that occurs between Black and Jewish anti-government protests and state responses to them; the spatial bandwagons generated by one community’s successful anti-government protest; one community’s external patronage of another community’s anti-government protest; and the intra-community competition between moderates and radicals that occurs as the Black and Jewish communities solve their Rebel’s Dilemmas - are the “nuts and bolts” behind Tarrow’s (1994) “cycles of contention,” “generalized contention,” and “movement society,” Lichbach and Gurr’s (1982) conflict process, or Huntington’s (1968: 194) “praetorian society” and are responsible for inter-ethnic conflict and cooperation. In other words, anti-government protests by minority groups develop dynamic CA processes that become part of Tarrow’s (1994) “cycles of contention” and ultimately influence inter-ethnic relations.

Different types of urban regimes set these meso-level collective action processes into different trajectories. Some regimes produce cycles of contentious inter-ethnic politics, others cycles of cooperative inter-ethnic politics. Street-level inter-ethnic relations, in other words, are a function of city-wide governance structures. The “structural” part of our theory suggests, moreover, that a city’s governing regime consists of a combination of PO, MS, and CF for inter-ethnic relations. These political, social, and cultural structures reinforce one another and come in two ideal types: integrationist and separatist regimes.

An integrationist regime, such as Los Angeles, is characterized by three features. First, the city’s PO consists of a middle-class Black-Jewish coalition centered around the mayor. This city-level coalitional PO minimizes the countermobilization and bandwagon dynamics that generate lower-class Black and Jewish protest. Second, the city’s CF for inter-ethnic relations consists of a liberal melting-pot ideology. Assimilationist ideas delegitimize separatists and extremists in the Black and Jewish communities. Finally, the city’s MS consist of long-standing and dense Black-Jewish inter-community networks. Elites are thus moderates who have the power and influence to exclude Black and Jewish extremists from politics. Such an ideal-type governing regime tends, even in the face of a variety of potential flash-points, to have harmonious Black-Jewish relations.

A separatist regime, such as New York, is characterized by three alternative features. First, the city’s PO excludes Blacks and/or Jews from the governing coalition. The resulting struggle among Blacks and/or Jews for citywide political power creates a mobilization-countermobilization dynamic and bandwagons of lower-class Black and Jewish protest. Second, the city’s CF for inter-ethnic relations consists of anti-assimilationist ideas. Black and Jewish separatist ideologies create street-level Black-Jewish clashes. Finally, the city’s MS lack elite-level organizational connections between Blacks and Jews. Leaders of the Black and Jewish communities therefore tend to pander to Black and Jewish extremists. Such an ideal-type governing regime allows anti-government protests by Blacks and Jews to produce cycles of contentious inter-ethnic politics.

In sum, PO, MS, and CF are structural features that draw minorities into a cycle of contentious inter-ethnic politics that coalesces CA processes. Two ideal type cities – integrationist and separatist – have different combinations of these structural factors and hence generate different trajectories of cooperative and contentious inter-ethnic politics.

CARP --> SPOT: Solving The Regime’s CA Problem

In the post-modern world, political life is complex, heterogeneous, and chaotic and hence fragmented and loosely coupled. There is no consensus on values and ideals nor any common understandings or beliefs. Tensions, conflicts, contradictions, and struggles therefore abound. Under these circumstances, the key challenge of politics becomes the capacity to create governance.

A city’s governing or ruling regime or coalition is a formal and informal partnership and relationship among a set of actors which has the capacity for common action and hence governance (Stone 1989). Coalitions are built on mutually reinforcing (but not necessarily identical) interests or values and resources or capabilities of the different sectors of the community. Coalitions draw upon this variety of community groups to get things done. Hence, “A regime is empowering. Its supporters see it as a means for achieving coordinated efforts that might not otherwise be realized” (Stone 1989: 4). Regimes thus try to accomplish goals, not maintain social control (Stone 1989: chap. 11).

However, governing urban coalitions have a CA problem. The Regime’s Dilemma (referred to as the State’s Dilemma in Lichbach 1995) is that achieving cooperation is a major achievement and requires constant monitoring. Two problems are acute. First, internal centrifugal tendences, manifested as contradictions and inconsistencies, are strong. Second, social change – in the form of exogeneous but forseen trends and cycles and exogeneous but unforseen shocks – contribute to indifference and conflict and hence the breakdown of cooperation. For example, demographic change might increase the size of the Latino community and cultural changes associated with postmodernity might lead to the decline of assimilationist ideologies. Regimes will be politically weak and vulnerable to overthrow unless they solve their CA problem and mobilize their supporters.

Solutions to the regime’s CA problem requires the active building of bridges among members of the coalition. Cooperation or coordination is based on exchanges, transactions, bargains, and contractual arrangements among the different actors. Common solutions used by regimes include ongoing personal ties, reciprocity and deal making, the control over material selective incentives to coalitional membership, and trust (Stone 1989). In forging these solutions, the partners in the coalition have incentives to adjust its governing arrangments so as to make them more efficient.

Blacks and Jews therefore construct the PO, MS, and CF behind integrationist and separatist urban regimes. They build middle-class or rainbow coalitions (PO). They construct assimilationist or separatist identities (CF). Finally, they create formal and informal linkages between the Black and Jewish communities or they let such networks atrophy (MS).

In sum, PO, MS, and CF are not static structures but are continually transformed and adjusted by the existing and the new members of the regime’s coalition. As the regime continuously tries to solve its CA problem of cooperation-governance, CARP’s rational actors continuously shape and reshape, form and reform, work and rework, stabilize and restabilize SPOT’s structures. The “internal politics of coalition building” thus involves institution building (Stone 1989: 178).

Summary: CARP and SPOT

Our theory brings CARP and SPOT together in two important ways. First, structure ? action: SPOT provides structure that generates a set of CA processes that coalesce into cycles of contentious inter-ethnic politics. Second, action ? structure: CARP provides the rational actors that construct and reconstruct SPOT’s structures. Hence, there are consequences for inter-ethnic conflict and cooperation of solving the CA problem of urban regimes with various structures. There are, in turn, feedback effects: inter-ethnic conflicts help shape the context within which rational Blacks and Jews build and rebuild the city’s political, economic, social, and cultural institutions.