Does mass protest after the police killing of an unarmed Black civilian broadly mobilize anti-police opinion or instead deepen racial and political divides? This research leverages a natural timing shock to answer that question.
📆 Weekly National Surveys and a Natural Shock
A large dataset of weekly cross-sections of the American public is used alongside a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) design that exploits the essentially random timing of George Floyd's killing and the subsequent nationwide protests.
📊 How the evidence was identified
- Weekly cross-sectional public-opinion data capturing attitudes toward police and perceptions of anti-Black discrimination
- Regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) approach that treats the timing of Floyd's killing and the start of nationwide protests as an exogenous shock to opinion
🔎 Key Findings
- The Floyd protests produced rapid decreases in favorability toward the police and increases in perceived anti-Black discrimination among Americans who are low in racial prejudice and who are politically liberal.
- By contrast, attitudes among high-prejudice and politically conservative Americans either remained unchanged or showed only small, short-lived shifts.
⚖️ Why it matters
The evidence indicates that the 2020 protests did not produce a uniform opinion-mobilizing backlash against police; instead, they further racialized and politicized public attitudes about race and law enforcement in the United States.
