The Strategies and Contexts of Social Protest: Political Mediation and the Impact of the Townsend Movement in California

Abstract

We contend that the collective action of state-oriented challengers is politically mediated, and that the impact of collective action will differ according to political contexts. More specifically, we argue that mobilization and limited protest will yield collective benefits in specified favorable political circumstances; more assertive action is required in specified less favorable circumstances. In addition to specifying these arguments, we go some distance toward appraising them, by examining the Townsend Movement, an American old-age pension challenger of the 1930s and 1940s, and the politics of old-age pensions in California. Historical, "similar systems," and regression analyses indicate that the movement had an impact on California old-age policy that varied according to the expectations of our political mediation arguments.