Civil Disorder Participation: A Critical Examination of Recent Research

Explanations of civil disorder occurrence and participation have focused upon community and individual attributes and to a great extent have employed some variation of the deprivation-frustration-aggression (DFA) model. Spilerman's (1970) examination of community attributes concludes, "an explanation which identifies disorder-proneness as an attribute of the individual seems better able to account for (rioting)." Recent civil disorder research provides data relevant to this contention. An examination of the literature yielded 287 associations between five measures of participation and 24 categories of individual variables. Secondary analysis reveals that only 7% yield correlations of .30 or higher. Of the 173 associations bearing on the DFA explanation, only 8% yield correlations of .30 or higher. The variables in the moderate and high associations are critically examined. Independent variables have been static attributes and measures of participation have treated riot behavior as a monolithic phenomenon. An alternate focus for future studies is advocated which acknowledges variation in riot behavior and which focuses on interactional environments of individuals prior to and during civil disorders.