Contested Legitimacy in Ferguson: Nine Hours on Canfield Drive

At noon on August 9, 2014 when Michael Brown was killed on Canfield Drive in Ferguson, there was little protest. But by 9 pm, dozens were nonviolently defying police armed with military style weapons, armored vehicles, helicopters, and snarling dogs. The structural situation alone cannot account for the emergence of insurgency in Ferguson. To explain mobilization, I advance a theory of Contested Legitimacy. The stakes of each action by insurgents, authorities, and third parties for mobiliza...