Protest Participation Research Articles

Authoritarian Opposition? Authoritarian Disposition and Resistance to Public Health Mitigation Strategies During COVID-19

Government restrictions intended to mitigate the spread of COVID-19—such as “lockdowns,” mask mandates, and vaccine passports—produced intense resentment among some groups and led to resistance, defiance, and social unrest in many countries. To better understand the roots of this opposition, we examine the role of dispositional authoritarianism as a psychological motivator of participation in anti-restriction protests and support for the groups that engaged in such actions. Because obedience to authority is commonly identified as a core feature of authoritarianism, existing studies have suggested authoritarians should be more likely to endorse pandemic restrictions and oppose anti-government dissent. However, we propose the alternative hypothesis: individuals with authoritarian dispositions are more likely to oppose pandemic restrictions and more likely to express support for pandemic dissidents (e.g., anti-vax and anti-lockdown groups). Data from three surveys deployed in the United States and United Kingdom support our hypotheses, demonstrating a counterintuitive relationship between dispositional authoritarianism and opposition to public health authorities during the pandemic. We further find that dispositional authoritarianism produces an intriguing misalignment between ideology and support for pandemic restrictions among those on the left, leading liberals who score high in authoritarianism to mirror the attitudes and behaviors of their conservative counterparts.

Racism hurts, can antiracism heal?: Positive mental health correlates of antiracist engagement.

Racism can hurt by negatively impacting mental health. For instance, large-scale events tied to racism like the May 2020 police-involved murder of George Floyd have been linked to poor mental health indicators (e.g. depression and anxiety). Notably, racism can spark antiracist engagement-support for addressing systemic racism. For example, Floyd's murder sparked unprecedented antiracist engagement, including heightened Black Lives Matter (BLM) support and protest participation. The present research explored the potential that antiracist engagement can heal: be positively associated with well-being. First, study 1 found that state-level BLM engagement (i.e. protest numbers, antiracism information-seeking on Google/YouTube) during an 8-week period following Floyd's death was associated with positive mental health indicators (i.e. lower depression and anxiety, higher self-rated health). It found these effects among racial/ethnic minorities (e.g. Black/African Americans, Hispanics, N = 161,359) and Whites (N = 516,002). Then, study 2 examined social media data (i.e. tweets) and emotional well-being. It used a measure of happiness indexed across 144,649,285,571 tweets from 2019 through 2021. It found a positive correlation between the volume of tweets with antiracist engagement content (e.g. referenced efforts to address systemic racism) and the happiness measure. Finally, study 3 examined antiracism protest data/information-seeking and a sample of BLM tweets (N = 100,321) posted between April and July 2020. Conceptually replicating studies 1-2, study 3 found that antiracist engagement was associated with greater positive emotion/sentiment (e.g. happiness) relative to negative emotion/sentiment (e.g. anxiety). Relevant to theory and policy, the observed results suggest that antiracist engagement can be associated with benefits for well-being across racial/ethnic groups.

The Nexus between Protest and Electoral Participation: Explaining Chile's Exceptionalism

AbstractThe literature on political participation has consistently found that protest positively and significantly correlates with voting. However, Chile can be considered a deviant case to this pattern. During the last decade, Chileans who participated in street demonstrations were unlikely to participate in elections. What explains this anomaly? We argue that this rupture between participation in protest and in elections results from an effective distancing between social-movement organisations (SMOs) and institutional politics. However, this distancing of SMOs from party politics has not been homogeneous. To examine this heterogeneity, we conduct a comparative design of two cases: the labour and student movements. Based on a mixed-methods study that combines interviews with movement leaders and surveys of protest participants in marches, we seek to highlight the mediating role of SMOs in the promotion of different forms of political participation.

Dzieci podczas ulicznych protestów – szczeble i granice partycypacji

This article delves into the participation of children in street protests, an area of study that has received limited attention but is becoming increasingly significant. It examines their involvement in protests connected to local concerns such as school closures, air pollution, and violence, as well as their participation in broader movements like feminism and environmentalism. The article seeks to synthesize the limited existing knowledge regarding children’s participation in protests. While schools may sometimes turn protests into mere appearances, educators have the potential to mentor young protesters in understanding social change. The extent to which children are prepared for public participation and engaged in post-protest activities will ultimately determine the educational value derived from street protests.

Using social-media-network ties for predicting intended protest participation in Russia

Previous research has highlighted the importance of network structures in information diffusion on social media. In this study, we explore the role of an individual’s social network structure in predicting publicly announced intention of protest participation. Using the case of ecological protests in Russia and applying machine learning to publicly-available VKontakte data, we classify users into protesters and non-protesters. We have found that personal social networks have a high predictive power allowing user classification with an accuracy of 81%. Meanwhile, using all public VKontakte data, including memberships in activist groups and friendship ties to protesters, we were able to classify users into protesters and non-protesters with a higher accuracy of 96%. Our study contributes to the political-participation literature by demonstrating the importance of personal social networks in predicting protest participation. Our results suggest that in some cases, the likelihood of participating in protests can be significantly influenced by elements of a personal-network structure, inter alia, network density and size. Further explanatory research should be done to explore the mechanisms underlying these relationships.

What’s race got to do with it? Factors influencing urban officers’ off-duty participation in Black Lives Matter protesting

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to explore police officers’ beliefs regarding the value and validity of the underlying causes of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and to explore the factors that influence their desire to participate in BLM protesting off duty. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with sworn police officers from an urban police department in Virginia. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to discover similarities and differences in the officers’ responses. Findings suggested variability in officers’ support for BLM and protest organising, with unwritten department rules, neutrality, rank promotion, and locality of the incident all influencing officers’ desire to participate in BLM protests. Overall, findings suggested that cognitive dissonance may explain the non-participation of Black officers in BLM protesting during their off-duty time. There are implications provided for police agencies regarding their policies governing officers’ off-duty participation in protests. Also, implications for officer training regarding BLM and protest policing.

COVID-кризис как фактор изменений в политическом участии

In this article, the author summarizes the results of the study on the COVID-19 impact of the pandemic on politi-cal participation, namely its mechanics and consequences. Due to the importance of this phenomenon for po-litical development and the unprecedented nature of the pandemic, this study is relevant and has novelty fea-tures. It is emphasized that the spread of coronavirus infection caused a large-scale COVID-crisis in many countries worldwide, distinguished by such characteristics as complexity, atemporality, non-linearity and disin-tegration. Simultaneously, it has become a crisis of public-power relations and a factor of changes in political participation. As the author argues, the COVID-crisis affected both electoral and protest participation of citizens in the countries studied by the author: in some cases it increased the level of public support for the ultra-right parties, in others – intensified direct civic actions.

#ShutItAllDown social protest: Examining emotional content on Twitter against sexual gender-based violence in Namibia

Over the years, social media has evolved into the primary platform for political activism. Citizens have utilized social media platforms to mobilize people to band together and rise against injustice. Social protests usually occur because of citizens’ emotional reactions to perceptions of injustice. Citizens have traditionally used social protests to voice their dissatisfaction with government policies and to influence political reforms. Citizens’ participation in social protests is fraught with emotion. Emotions elicited by political stimuli play a vital role in initiating and guiding goal-directed behavior. Therefore, this study intends to analyze the emotions expressed in Twitter posts during the #ShutItAllDown social protest. This study uses a quantitative approach. The findings show that both positive and negative emotions expressed on social media accelerate Namibian youth participation in the #ShutItAllDown social protests. Fear, anger, and anticipation instigate people’s participation in protests, whereas joy and happiness are feelings of satisfaction that are experienced during goal achievement. Thus, protest participation arising from both positive and negative emotions enforces government reforms.

Normative and non-normative collective action facing repression in a democratic context: A mixed study in a Chilean social movement

This work addresses collective action in the context of a social movement facing police repression in a democratic country. The movement studied was carried out in a region of southern Chile, had a very high citizen participation and deployed normative and non-normative actions. We aim to understand why people decided to participate and how they came to consider violent action as a legitimate option. We use a mixed methods approach. In a quantitative study we compare participation in normative and non-normative actions, and find they factor together as part of the same action repertoire, making it possible to speak of a continuum of participation instead of different types. We also replicate key findings of the SIMCA model, with protest participation motivated directly by anger and efficacy, but also by positive emotions. In a qualitative study we found similar results and draw out new data highlighting the relevance of the experience of repression in invoking a need for radical action and creating social cohesion among protestors.

From the screens to the streets? Social media use and participation in the Yellow Vests protests

From the screens to the streets? Social media use and participation in the Yellow Vests protests

Optimizing whose engagement? Beliefs and protest participation of social media users in South Korea

Optimizing whose engagement? Beliefs and protest participation of social media users in South Korea

Collective identity in collective action: evidence from the 2020 summer BLM protests

Does collective identity drive protest participation? A long line of research argues that collective identity can explain why protesters do not free ride and how specific movement strategies are chosen. Quantitative studies, however, are inconsistent in defining and operationalizing collective identity, making it difficult to understand under what conditions and to what extent collective identity explains participation. In this paper, we clearly differentiate between interest and collective identity to isolate the individual level signals of collective action. We argue that these quantities have been conflated in previous research, causing over estimation of the role of collective identity in protest behavior. Using a novel dataset of Twitter users who participated in Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 2020, we find that contingent on participating in a protest, individuals have higher levels of interest in BLM on the day of and the days following the protest. This effect diminishes over time. There is little observed effect of participation on subsequent collective identity. In addition, higher levels of interest in the protest increases an individuals chance of participating in a protest, while levels of collective identity do not have a significant effect. These findings suggest that collective identity plays a weaker role in driving collective action than previously suggested. We claim that this overestimation is a byproduct of the misidentification of interest as identity.

Politically engaged but unwilling to protest: analyzing the role of authoritarian orientations and internet use on protest participation behavior

ABSTRACT Several studies have investigated the effects of internet use on protest participation behavior. However, fewer have explored how personal dispositions of individuals moderate the impact of the internet. This study explores the relationship between political engagement, internet use, authoritarian orientation, and protest participation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and Myanmar. First, analysis of fourth-wave of the Asian Barometer survey data suggests a political engagement-driven stratification in protest participation across all settings. Second, internet use is positively associated with protest participation but only in authoritarian states, and citizens’ authoritarian orientation reduces the likelihood of protest action. Third, high authoritarian orientation subdues the participatory benefits of internet use for politically engaged citizens. Overall, the study confirms that politically engaged citizens are more capable of exploiting the benefits offered by the internet. Still, authoritarianism can inhibit the mobilizing potentials presented by the internet. The theoretical importance of attitudinal factors in protest participation is discussed.

Affective dimensions and the psychosocial work performed by naked body protests

ABSTRACT This paper is about the liberatory affective states associated with participation in naked body protests. The article will also touch on notions of gender as performative and located within the habitus, since affective states are intertwined with gender performance, embodiment and social construction. Exploration of these phenomena is done by analysing interview data from 16 women who participated in various naked body protests in South Africa. These include protests in Dobsonville, Soweto in 1990 and student protests at four universities in 2016. The study draws upon Wetherell’s theorisation of affect, especially their concept of affective practice. The findings illustrate that affects are always embedded in acts and practices, including forms of protest. In addition, using Judith Butler’s gender performativity theory, the study demonstrates that naked body protests have performative possibilities that both reify and challenge gender.

What Makes Swing Voters Participate in Protests? The Effects of Voting Patterns and Election Cycles on Participation in Candlelight Protests in South Korea

This paper aims to analyze how the traits of candlelight protest participants have changed from 2004 to 2017 in South Korea. While previous studies have typically identified these traits of the candlelight protesters based on a single survey, this paper examines the change of protest participants using a multi-level analysis. This study argues that voter type and election cycles have a significant impact on an individual's decision to participate in candlelight protests. To be specific, swing voters are less likely to participate in a candlelight protest when the next election is scheduled either too soon or too far. Core liberal voters with a high degree of motivation are more likely to take part in a candlelight protest when the distance from the next election is close, while core conservative voters with a low degree of motivation are not affected by the distance from the next election. This study contributes on both sub-fields, voting behaviors and contentious politics, by combining individuals' voting patterns with political opportunity structures. Survey data (2004, 2010, 2017) conducted by the Korean Political Science Association (KPSA) and the Korean Social Science Data Center (KSSDC) provide empirical support for the arguments.

Limitations of Human and Civil Rights in the Era of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Activity of the State and Law

Restrictions in the sphere of civil rights and freedoms introduced by governments led to the numerous demonstrations of citizens in the whole world. During street protests, they expressed their disapproval of the radical measures taken by authorities. The main research problem of this paper relates to the impact of repression on the course of social protest using the example of Estonia. The findings of the study will serve as the basis for formulating more general conclusions concerning protests in the pandemic era. We will describe repressive and non-repressive protest policing from the spring of 2020 to the autumn of 2021. Having in mind the above, we formulated two principal research aims. The first of them refers to the identification of the main reasons behind the organisations of protests in Estonia and what steps the demonstrators took. The other, equally important research aim is to establish what factors influenced the course of demonstrations. In particular, the response of the police to civil disorder will be analysed. The thesis posed in this paper assumes that the high level of political culture, resulting in trust in the institution of the state, contributes to the de-escalation of protests and influences the non-repressive behaviour of the police towards demonstrators. The method used in this study is the qualitative source analysis text analysis. It draws on the technique of content analysis of the specific media coverage of the activities of the police and protest participants during the indicated period. The study rests on the reports that appeared on the most important websites and Internet portals reporting on the course of the protests.

Social media in black lives matter movement: amplifying or reducing gaps in protest participation?

ABSTRACT This study explores the role of social media in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement by examining how social media news use impacts BLM protest action. Theoretically, we go beyond the frequently discussed relationship between social media and protest participation and examine how grievances, political efficacy, and racial identity conditionally impact the influence of social media on protest engagement. The findings suggest that social media news use amplifies, rather than reduces, the gaps between engaged and disengaged citizens regarding protest participation, particularly in the online sphere. These indicate that social media is not an equalizing tool for BLM participation.

“Too immature for politics?” Political agency in the eyes of Russian adolescent protesters, 2011–20

This paper bridges empirical research on children’s political participation and theoretical debates on the concept of agency in Childhood studies. It takes insights from the internal criticism of the essentialist conception of agency in Childhood studies and develops it further. Based on an analysis of in-depth interviews with adolescent participants of anti-regime protests in two periods of recent Russian history—i.e., 2011–13 and 2017–20—it compares how these two cohorts of politically active children constructed their political agency. It suggests that the authoritarian and depoliticized context of Russian society affects the construction of agency by child activists in ways we do not see in Western democracies. It thus challenges the main concepts of agency in Childhood studies, including the “critical” ones.

Het effect van sociaaleconomische status en politieke kansenstructuren op protestparticipatie: een multilevel analyse van 17 Europese landen

The effect of socioeconomic status and political opportunity structures on protest participation: a multilevel analysis of 17 European countries In recent years, protesting has become an increasingly pertinent form of political participation. Within the literature on political participation, both socioeconomic status (SES) and political opportunity structures (POS) have been shown to affect protest participation, but not often have these factors been studied in relation to each other. This study addresses this gap in the literature by analysing the effects of both SES and openness of POS on individual protest participation, as well as the moderating effect of POS on the effect of SES. Multilevel models were estimated using data from the European Social Survey and the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. The results show that both SES and openness of POS positively affect individual protest participation. The moderating effect of POS openness was not significant, indicating that the positive effect of SES on protest participation remains consistent across different political opportunity structures. Thus, we have shown that political inequality based on socioeconomic status is persistent across European countries, however, it does not depend on political opportunity structures.

The Career Consequences of Workplace Protest Participation: Theory and Evidence from the NFL “Take a Knee” Movement

Despite recognizing potential ramifications for employees who protest in the workplace, researchers rarely explore the career consequences that stem from such instances of workplace protest participation. We integrated research on employee activism, workplace deviance, and careers to theorize that workplace protest represents a perceived deviation from workplace norms that can influence an individual’s organizational and labor market mobility outcomes. We investigated this premise with the 2016 National Football League “take a knee” protests as a strategic research setting. The results indicate that protesting is associated with an increase in organizational exit although this effect is moderated by the degree to which the organization is sensitive to the underlying social movement (with an organization’s movement sensitivity operationalized with a four-part index composed of the team’s managers, personnel decision makers, owners, and customers). Protesting also is associated with labor market sorting across organizations as players who protest are more likely to make subsequent transitions to more movement-sensitive teams compared with players who do not protest. Overall, our findings offer contributions for research on employee activism, workplace deviance, and careers.