Protest and the Politics of Blame by Javeline Debra Lynn;

Author:Javeline, Debra Lynn; [Javeline, Debra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Furthermore, in nonpolitical settings one response, like moving a plant into the sunlight, often does not preclude or detract from the effectiveness of another, like increasing the water. In political contexts, multiple responses are often mutually exclusive and therefore impossible. For example, protesters physically cannot be in two places at once. They cannot blame the central authorities in Moscow and stage a rally or other political action in that city and simultaneously blame and take action in their hometowns.

Even in the rare instance when it is physically possible to protest against multiple targets and the unspecific attributors of blame are willing to incur the high costs of these protests, such attributors are still unlikely to do so because they realize the protests will probably fail. Blame and protest targeted toward one actor seem less likely to produce results if many other actors are similarly targeted. The aggrieved individuals themselves then open the door to finger-pointing and other blame-avoiding strategies on the part of those targeted. A politician or other actor is less likely to accept blame for a grievance if he knows that blame is also being assigned to many other actors. This predictable response most likely dissuades the aggrieved from protesting.

An alternative strategy for individuals who are unspecific in their attributions of blame could be to choose one target or a few targets at random, but this strategy is also unlikely because these individuals have little confidence that the selected target or targets are sufficiently blameworthy or competent to solve the grievance. By definition, lack of specificity in attributing blame reflects a belief that many actors are jointly involved in causing or solving a grievance or reflects an absence of information on who or what is involved. There is, therefore, less expectation that any single target has the ability to redress the grievance. Acts of protest that succeed in influencing the target still might not bring rewards, so unspecific attributors are unlikely to attempt them.

In contrast, specific attributors of blame face none of these problems. Their specificity reduces the organizational and opportunity costs of protest, since they target one not many actors, and increases their expectation that success in influencing the one target means success in redressing the grievance. For them, successful acts of protest will indeed bring rewards. Precision in blame attribution, or the lack thereof, should therefore be an important variable in determining whether an individual protests over a grievance or endures the situation passively.

Descriptive Statistics

The survey evidence supports this notion. Among individuals who have been affected by the arrears crisis, participation in acts of protest has been lower for those who had no opinion or only a somewhat vague opinion about who or what had caused the crisis than for those who had a relatively clear and specific opinion. Widespread ambiguity in blame for the wage arrears crisis helps explain why the level of protest in Russia as a whole has been relatively low compared to the number of people owed wages, stipends, and pensions.

table 4.3

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