Boycott

A boycott is a way to protest offensive acts employed by an individual or a group. Boycotts typically involve abstaining from the use of products or services of the offending entity until a particular policy or behavior desists. The term apparently originates from actions taken against Charles Cunningham Boycott, a negligent landowner, during the late-19th-century Irish Land War. Boycotts continue to play an influential role in contemporary civil and political rights struggles worldwide. This entry describes characteristics of boycotts and briefly discusses boycotts undertaken during campaigns for equality.

Boycotts can take a commercial or political form. Commercial boycotts are directed at businesses or organizations whose practices offend a certain group and will oftentimes call for participants to not purchase certain products or services. These types of boycotts are most successful when the target produces visible products or when their business will suffer as a result of being a target of a boycott. An example of a commercial boycott is the United Farm Workers' grape and lettuce boycotts in the United States during the 1960s. Political boycotts are geared toward a nation or government and, like commercial boycotts, work to punish a political entity for unjust practices. The various boycotts of the Olympics were symbolic protests to unfavorable policies perpetrated by participating countries and are examples of political boycotts.

Boycotts can also take the form of a threat or call to boycott. A threat of a boycott can be just as damaging as an actual boycott in destroying the image of an organization and thus coercively encouraging a change in policy. Boycotts end when organizers believe they have met their goals or when this means of protest is no longer viewed as productive for advancing their cause. Occasionally, boycotts continue unofficially despite organizers calling them off.

As a protest strategy, boycotts face difficulty in clearly defining success. If a company decides to distance itself from an offensive behavior but doesn't change its practices entirely, boycotters must consider whether they have successfully convinced the business of its wrongdoing. Although boycotters hope that their actions will bring about awareness, their ultimate aim is to change behaviors altogether. Because this outcome is not guaranteed, there is much debate as to whether the boycott is an effective means of resistance. Another obstacle faced by boycotts is changing consumer behavior. The use of media is essential in order to make the boycott campaign more visible and thus steer consumer behavior.

Those targeted by boycotts are at great risk if they are unable to adequately respond to boycotters' claims. Offending agents must be able to defend their actions or at least attempt to change behavior in order to salvage their reputation from these attacks. If organizations are facing false accusations, they also must have the means to defend themselves. In addition, boycotts have the potential to affect those who might not be directly involved, such as workers, who can suffer job or wage loss as a result of a boycott campaign.

Within the United States, boycotts have been useful tactics in civil rights struggles. During the early 1800s, boycotts of slave-produced products were encouraged by those in opposition to slavery. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement was spurred on by boycott strategies. In Montgomery, Alabama, Blacks boycotted the bus system in order to demand equal treatment of riders. Bus boycotts were also carried out in other southern cities as a form of protest to policies of segregation. The Montgomery bus boycotts in particular gave national recognition to Blacks such as Rosa Parks and brought the civil rights struggle in the United States to the forefront of public consciousness; [Page 198]the boycotts are also credited with giving the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. a prominent role in the Civil Rights Movement.

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