On social networks and social protest: Understanding the role of organizational and personal ties in large-scale protest events

Abstract

How do large-scale protest events differ across nation-states? Do social networks play different roles in different places and, if so, how do they matter? This paper compares the role that social networks play in mobilizing participants in large-scale domestic protest. Employing a paired comparison of large-scale domestic protests in the United States and France, I find that social ties play a differing role in each country. Although personal and organizational ties played almost equal roles in mobilizing participants at the protest-event in the United States, organizational ties played a much more significant role in mobilizing participants to protest in France. In addition, participants in these two events reported having very different levels of civic engagement at these two protests. I conclude by discussing how these differences are related to the characteristics of the mobilizations themselves.