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Participation and Legitimacy

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The reading this week seems to coincide with the discussion in my political sociology class about how political participation can be a way of showing allegiance to/reinforce legitimacy of the power structure. This connection of legitimacy and participation somewhat shapes my reading of Bennett (2008) about the two types of resistance, "pass" and "protest" concerning deferral policies against gay men in blood donation. They make me question the nature of resistance to the aforesaid deferral policies, and the external validity of such dual resistance in a different context.Bennett points out in the article, not without irony, that the patriarchal structure is reflected in the rhetoric of gay men interviewed, in the form of comparing "risk behaviors" of gay men and women. However, by attributing it to the gender composition of the blood center, Bennett seems to have overlooked the assumption underlying the comparison between gay men and female CSWers that has given legitimacy to the claim of relationship between "risk behavior" and susceptibility. By pointing out that there are people with "more risky behavior", legitimacy is given to the act of sanction against a group of people defined as of high risk, and the act of monitoring and surveillance built into the blood donation process.
Insofar as routine participation is encouraged in the power structure as an articulation of "good citizenship", as Anthony M. Orum and John G. Dale (2009) point out in Political Sociolgy, generosity and altruism is only part (and a small part) of the motive for participation. Thus it is important to put the whole discussion about deferral policy in the backdrop of Blood Drive as a structured, controlled and monitored activity while examine the resistive nature of acts of "pass" or "protest".
I think Shaunak is right in saying that the gay male population is far from being a typical "disadvantaged" group, and want to highlight the difference between the personal risks that they take in resisting (psychological, periodical, imaginary, low withdrawal cost) is in no way comparable to the ones taken by CSWers in Kolkata (physical, prolonged, real and irrevocable) (Basu & Dutta, 2009).

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