Abstract
High levels of socio-economic dissatisfaction, persistent service delivery issues and increased political contestation necessitate closer monitoring of protest action. This article focuses on where and why protests happen. The findings draw on data collected by the Institute for Security Studies through its Protest and Public Violence Monitor (PPVM). Unlike other reporting systems, which tend to focus on specific types of protest, the PPVM seeks to provide comprehensive coverage and mapping of all forms of protest, including industrial strike action as well as political and group conflict. The findings highlight the wide-ranging nature of protests and illustrate how patterns of protests form over time in specific places. The article concludes by reflecting on how research into protest should not limit itself in scope. The ultimate aim of the research should be to inform the development of more appropriate responses by various role players to prevent violence and to encourage peaceful protests.
Highlights
Participation can, over time, transform into unconventional political participation like violent protest or political violence
Recent research by Bohler-Muller et al.[3] into attitudes towards different forms of protest in South Africa suggests that disruptive and even violent protest may be becoming more acceptable, given that a growing number of South Africans believe these forms of protest yield more successful results than peaceful protest action
If authorities turn down a request to protest and the police use forceful measures to disperse the group, the peaceful protest may escalate into violence.[6]
Summary
The PPVM’s data is collected by scrutinising reports from more than 100 local, national and international online news sources as well as newsletters and notices by trade unions, political parties, and universities. The CSC (in a separate study to its in-depth analysis of the SAPS’s IRIS data) collected 3 526 media-reported community protests (MRCPs) between 2005 and 2017, including all types of community protests and service delivery protests aimed at municipalities This database showed 375 incidents for 2017.25. With the exception of the IRIS database and the PPVM, none of the local data recording efforts covers a broad definition of protests or incidents of public violence These organisations measure either community-level protests or those targeting municipalities. Except for ACLED and the PPVM, none of the other databases offers freely available data, has a sufficiently wide scope, or provides the nuanced detail required to undertake an in-depth analysis on the location of protests, the number of protests over time in similar locations, or the socio-economic grievances leading to protests.[37] there is no agreement across the databases on what actions should be regarded as violent, disruptive or peaceful
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