politics

Protesting was effective in the past but it doesn't mean it still is.

Why do those in charge get so upset about protesting?

Does it make them look bad? Yes. Does it raise awareness about an issue they would rather stay quiet about? Yes. Does it garner sympathy from like minded individuals and groups? Sure does! Does it get in the way of their plans and cause a scene? You got it! Does it generate news coverage, spreading the word of what's going on far and wide? Often.

Boy, all that sure sounds pretty ineffective to me! If they don't want you to do the perfectly legal thing, it's because it is effective against them.

Protests are a step in a process. Let people get worked up, stop trying to shame them for not immediately solving the problem for you. Encourage, don't discourage

According to Chenoweth, the number refers to peak, not cumulative participation. She also says 3.5% is not absolute – even non-violent campaigns can succeed with less participation, according to her 2020 update to the rule.

That's the opposite of what her update said (well, it's rather misleading). Her update noted cases where nonviolence failed even when they beat 3.5% - including one case that achieved 6% participation. She did note that most successful attempts didn't need to reach 3.5%, but also that reaching that is no longer a guarantee.

Her original research only went to 2006, there's been a few recent cases which broke the rule. Like she said in her update, history isn't necessarily a predictor of future results. I think there are also some very recent cases like Nepal where 95% of the movement is nonviolent, but violence at the very end of the movement tips the scale. (IIRC something similar happened with the Iranian revolution, though the results of that were decidedly undemocratic in the long run). There's some nuance with Nepal as well- the organizers did not choose to go for violence, it was largely an unplanned mob reaction.

Based on the totality of her research (which is publicly accessible and based on publicly accessible data), I still think nonviolence is more likely to achieve success than violence, but it really annoys me when articles like this one overstate the effects. It makes it really easy to tear apart the argument.

Strikes work even better

Perhaps I’m too skeptical, but maybe the purpose of this kind of article (that’s written by a large paper and owned by who?) is to keep the oppressed, oppressed. Protests have done nothing for the us - the authoritarian leadership is here, and rights are being taken away quickly. Maybe protests work is certain regimes but not others.

Thank you for sharing.

I'm from Russia, and I've seen thousands of people running from the police over a decade ago. I've left the country before the big invasion started, but I've heard of small, quiet protests, and even quieter, but organized sabotage of railways that run towards the border with Ukraine.

Many people still support Putin, might be hard to stand up to the empowered majority.

But my friends from Belarus participated in mass actions against Lukashenko; we know that the majority doesn't support him at all, and yet nothing changed.

I'm not saying protest is ineffective, but sometimes it's not, especially when the time passed and the system hardened.

It's important to protest, a lot, especially when the situation is not dire yet. Not only when people are desperate, but when they're in discomfort, when the politicians lie, when our rights are even slightly violated.

Now as a German citizen and resident I go to protests, sign petitions, and participate in other civil actions.

Boycotting and protesting with your money also works

If everyone just organized together and said ... 'hey, let's boycott this one company and just this one company' .. and everyone did it, it would drive that one company to its knees and bankrupt it and even drive it out of business.

It wouldn't affect most people terribly ... we'd still be able to shop, go around do things and go about our lives without much disruption ... but at the same time, it would scare the shit out of that one company.

Once one company gets destroyed, then everyone organize again and target another company and boycott them ... then just keep the ball rolling and keep boycotting and driving out companies one at a time. After a month of doing this, every major company would be shitting their pants knowing that they would be next on the list.

These assholes don't understand if you hold a sign up that says you dislike them .... they never listen to that ... but if a large enough group of us just stood back and withheld our money from them and told them to go fuck themselves, then they'd listen.

"This messaging was brought to you by billionaires that don't want to be kirked"

"Keep at it guys, we're going to give in to all your demands while you starve and we're living in luxury bunkers with a lifetime of supplies. You're so close."

Having had numerous discussions on different protests and pondering about what the most effective form of protest is, I find this article a nice addition in the endeavour of answering exactly that. So thanks for sharing. It's interesting to see, that peaceful protests have been more effective in the considered cases. However, I am under the impression that a final judgement is still not possible. According to what I have gathered so far even more violent protests may be shown to be effective. A classic, prominent example are suffragettes and their bombings, arsony, destruction of property etc.. How effective protect can become and the level of acceptance within the population seems to depend highly on further cultural and/or societal contexts as well. For instance, one could argue that suffragettes had more leverage due to the immense efforts and losses during WWI, which inevitably made the societal backbone more dependent on women. It's important to note, however, that suffragettes were a long running movement that has started to shape public discussion far earlier than WWI and it would not be accurate to reduce their achievements to their more violent protests alone. More precisely, it is debatable whether violence even was a positively contributing factor at all. At the very least, it can be argued that suffragettes were successfull despite these violent acts.

Another important factor seems to be how directly actionable the goals of the respective movements are. Combining with that, also how much of behavioural change is asked of the people in general. For example, protesting against violent police actions shifts the focus away from the general public and shapes the state as the responsible actor while climate protests may demand significant changes of each individual (in addition to policy changes). Furthermore, in this example, protesting for a change in the education and regulation of policeforces appears to have less requirements while counteracting climate change is much more demanding as it comes with significantly more challenges.

Is it causation or correlation? If something gets a certain level of support, things change. Doesn't seem like a deep thought.

What stops president from sending troops and shooting those protesters?

Data nerds (❤️) make gifs every year of the most popular search terms on Google for every day of the year.

It's insane how effortlessly it highlights the fact that big megaphones = world consciousness control. Protesting works.

Idgaf if you have protested abortion since the 60s and are mad it's still at issue. Idgaf if you hate traffic on your Tuesday commute.

I'll go further; idgaf if you're protesting something I disagree with; so long as it's peaceful. Protesting works. Not much else does.

Do you think violence works? Wasn't that Charlie Kirk backlash fun??

Protesting works.