Protesters strategically provoke opponents to force third-party intervention and support.

Evidence

In addition to action aimed directly at a third party such as the general public or the government, politicized collective identity should also motivate strategic action that appears to target an immediate out-group or antagonist but that can meaningfully be understood only if its intended indirect effect on the third party is taken into account. Many social movement activities provide illustrative examples. Although militant civil rights activists have often selected their segregationist or racist opponents (e.g., all-White schools or companies) as immediate targets of their disruptive collective actions, the strategic or ultimate goal of such actions was obviously to provoke the attention of and intervention by third parties such as the general public, the media, or the federal government (McAdam, 1982). Moreover, in such scenarios, politicized group members not only plan and strategically implement their own behavior to involve a third party and to force it to take sides, they may also intentionally provoke and instrumentalize the reaction of the immediate target for the same purposes. Thus, striking workers can deliberately provoke an overreaction from their employers to induce the government to intervene or the general public to take sides with the workers. In a similar manner, protesters can provoke police brutality to win the support of the general public. In more extreme cases such as terrorism, activists have even tried to provoke authorities (e.g., the police or the government) to engage in oppressive action or legislation, hoping that such oppression will generate anger and solidarity on the part of potential allies or the general public. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4452

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely paradigm-shifting frame: it inverts the intuitive reading of protest violence by showing the immediate target is often a tool, not an audience — the real audience is a third party whose reaction radicals try to orchestrate through the target’s overreaction. This political ‘provocation-as-Machiavellian-strategy’ logic is dense enough to reshape how one reads civil rights, labor, and terrorist actions alike.
• XREF: Connects to McAdam’s political-process theory of social movements and to the famous Southern civil-rights strategy of provoking Bull Connor; also echoes the law-and-order backlash literature on provocation as an intentional tactic. — connects to: Provoked overreaction from antagonists is a deliberate tactic to enlist third-party allies. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 4452; A protest’s message can be hijacked by splinter crowds’ destruction. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 535; Protesters only reach targets when they go where audiences already are — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 67 (+1 more)
• SEED: Strong angle for an essay: the logic of ‘provoking the overreaction’ as a political technique — from civil rights and labor strikes to terrorism, showing the immediate antagonist is often an instrument aimed at a third party.
• SHARE: Good piece for someone working on social movements or political strategy — the police-brutality-as-recruitment-mechanism point is a sharp, citable observation.