Assistant Professor of Sociology Jenny Irons published an article in the June 2006 issue of Mobilization: The International Quarterly Review of Research in Social Movements, Protest, and Contentious Politics. It is a special issue on repression and the social control of protest. Her article is titled "Who Rules the Social Control of Protest?: Variability in the State-Countermovement Relationship." It examines the variable relationship between a state organization that tried to maintain segregation during the Civil Rights Movement, the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, and a citizen-led countermovement that tried to do the same, the White Citizens' Councils.
The paper shows that while countermovements and local state authorities may share goals, the degree to which their interests are aligned in the social control of protest depends on the legitimacy imperatives of the multi-level federal state and multiple relevant audiences.
