TIME OF GLOBAL UPRISING: Can Mass Protests Change Society
Banksy. Flower Thrower, 2003 / new-walls.com
The number of protests worldwide increases every year. We see thousands of people taking to the streets due to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Farmers in Germany, Belgium, India, and many other countries are protesting against new regulations imposed by their governments. In Paris, during the Olympics, demonstrators set the Olympic rings on fire, demanding higher wages. Scientists have decided to study the phenomenon of protests, exploring their typology, effectiveness, and unique impact on public opinion.
PROTEST PROTEST DIFFERENCE
According to Lisa Mueller, a sociologist at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, the current rise in activism has even eclipsed the turbulent 1960s. She believes we are living in an exceptional time — «a time of global protests». But how capable are they of becoming a driving force for change?
It depends on numerous factors that can either amplify the apparent impact of protests in the short term or shape long-term changes in public opinion, which are much harder to trace. Researchers have identified a whole set of such factors.
Large protests seem to be more effective than small ones. Nonviolent protests are more potent than violent ones. Clearly, articulated unified goals can achieve more than scattered demands. Repression can result in increased support for the protesters.
At the same time, Eric Schuman, a social psychologist at New York University, believes that not every protest leads to change…
TROUBLED TIMES
Researchers say that the protests we are witnessing around the world today are part of a broader trend. Back in 2013, four scientists came together to track news reports of protests from about 100 countries.
As a result, they created a global database and found that the number of annual protests from 2006 to 2020 increased more than threefold in all regions of the world. Although this number has slightly decreased since 2021, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project, the previous years brought us some of the largest protests in history.
The largest was the 2020 strike in India against agricultural reforms, with around 250 million participants! Equally significant were the global movements of the «Arab Spring» and Occupy in the early 2010s, as well as Black Lives Matter, which reached its peak in 2020.
NONVIOLENCE IS MORE EFFECTIVE
Sarah Burk, a political analyst at the New York think tank Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and co-author of a global study, views protests as a result of growing distrust in social institutions. However, renowned American political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan see them as part of revolutions.
They collected data on over 300 revolutionary campaigns from 1900 to 2006, including the overthrow of national leaders, nonviolent tactics, strikes, boycotts, and armed uprisings. As a result, it was found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to succeed as their armed counterparts.
A vivid example is the revolution in the Philippines that ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. However, Chenoweth found that the effectiveness of nonviolent revolutionary campaigns may decline over time: governments learn well from history and become more inventive in suppressing uprisings.
THE 3.5% RULE
Erica Chenoweth calculated that a movement needs to mobilize at least 3.5% of the population to be successful. Scientists have even established a sociological law based on this statistic, calling it the «3.5% rule». This level of participation is required for protests to guarantee change. However, the researcher herself warns about the conditionality of this figure.
A successful revolution is supported by a mass of people who do not visibly protest. A large number of supporters quickly transform into passive participants. Once movements gain sufficient support, they change the way elites address the issue, making the usual reactions politically impossible for them. According to Chenoweth, this is true for any protests, not just revolutionary campaigns.
THE RAIN EFFECT
For researchers studying protests, establishing cause-and-effect relationships is a significant challenge. How can one be sure that the protest itself, and not an accompanying factor, caused the subsequent event? Among such factors is the weather. For instance, rain can reduce the number of people participating in protest events.
The effect of demonstrations in areas where it suddenly rains will be less compared to those areas where there is no rainfall. Omar Wasow used this approach in his study. He established a connection between the amount of rainfall in U.S. counties in April 1968, when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and voter behavior in the November presidential elections.
Before the assassination, no connection was observed between rain and voting. But a week after the assassination, violent protests began in places with less rainfall.
As a result, there was a shift in white votes by 1.5-7.9% towards the Republican Party, which was more uncompromising on crime, and public opinion shifted in favor of Republican Richard Nixon.
The reaction to the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020 led to the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Peaceful protests in U.S. counties that experienced record rainfall at that time increased the share of Democratic votes in the November 2020 presidential election by 1.2-1.8%.
UNITY AND CLEAR MESSAGES
Lisa Mueller believes that activists are more likely to achieve concessions if their demands are as straightforward as possible. She compares two protests in London. In 2010, the «Take Back Parliament» campaign promoted electoral reform. The high level of organization of the 2011 protest spurred a referendum in which voters rejected the proposed reforms. However, Occupy London in 2011 had a much lower level of cohesion.
A mix of diverse demands made it difficult to understand what the group wanted. Nevertheless, Erica Chenoweth argues that Occupy sparked subsequent activist organizations and the inclusion of economic inequality in the governmental agenda. Thus, a protest movement can change society in the long term, even if its impact is not immediately apparent and is challenging to measure.
CONTEXT AND DISRUPTIVE TACTICS
An important factor often overlooked is the external context. James Ozden, founder of the London-based nonprofit Social Change Lab, believes that demands for change need the right moment when the authorities and society are ready to listen.
Nonviolent yet disruptive tactics can be an effective complement to timing. Such protests can have a significant impact on society. In April 2022, the U.K. was shaken by the movements Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.
Protesters blocked oil depots, government buildings, and oil company offices. Three surveys, each involving around 2,000 people, conducted during this period showed that while most opposed the disruptive actions, they nevertheless supported Just Stop Oil’s efforts to end fossil fuel projects.
REPRESSION AS A CATALYST FOR PROTEST
Another factor that can make protests more effective is repression by the authorities. According to Wasow, brutal suppression of civil rights struggles elicits sympathy from the media and the public, whereas violence by protesters shifts the focus to the unrest itself.
Nonviolent protests met with violent suppression are always effective. Wasow says that civil rights activists of the 1960s knew this well, which is why they chose cities where the police would act in the most repressive ways for their protests.
He also cites the recent attempt to suppress nonviolent protests by Columbia University students against Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip with police force. The repression led to a wave of sympathetic media coverage and an escalation of student protests in other parts of the U.S.
THE SCIENCE OF PROTEST
Thanks to the research discussed in this article, it becomes clear that protests are evolving from spontaneous expressions of public discontent into a kind of «science of influence». Books are dedicated to this science, and activists of various movements study it.
However, Wasow believes that scholars’ task is not just to draw academic conclusions. Their goal is to recognize the protesters’ right to anger, grief, and frustration, which drive people to seek change.
According to the researcher, protest is the platform people need to express their deep emotions. This need for expression is primary, so the question of effectiveness will, in a sense, remain secondary.
Original Research: The science of protests: how to shape public opinion and swing votes
