Date of Award
3-1-2022
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Degree Name
B.A. in Political Science
Organizational Unit
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Political Science
First Advisor
Seth Masket
Second Advisor
Sara Chatfield
Third Advisor
Gia Nardini
Keywords
Protest, George Floyd, Protest outcomes, Legislative outcomes, Police reform, Violence, Media, Protest size, Effective protest, Legislative reform from protests
Abstract
This thesis examines the relationship between the conditions of the George Floyd protests from May to August of 2020 to the impact they had state on policing reforms within state legislatures. I examine protests in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, looking at those protests’ size, media coverage, and violence and compare that to the degree of policy change achieved within each state. I find that, contrary to expectations, protest size was not associated with policy change, but that the party control of the state government was a strong predictor of how states responded to protests. Within some state subgroups, the presence of violence and media coverage of violence had a statistically significant effect in shaping policy change. These findings help us understand what conditions are needed to create a successful protest.
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Recommended Citation
Funk, Emily R., "No Justice, No Peace: An Examination of the Conditions of the George Floyd Protests to Determine How to Facilitate Successful State Legislative Outcomes" (2022). Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals. 9.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/undergraduate_theses/9