The Guardian: How Effective is Protesting?

From the Guardian (UK) the Party Organ of the left in the United Kingdom. Interesting. And you should be able to access it through the link – just ignore the request that pops up. Worth reading the whole thing.

According to historians and political scientists who study protest: very. From emancipation to women’s suffrage, from civil rights to Black Lives Matter, mass movement has shaped the arc of American history. Protest has led to the passage of legislation that gave women the right to vote, banned segregation and legalized same-sex marriage. It has also sparked cultural shifts in how Americans perceive things like bodily autonomy, economic inequality and racial bias. But as with any tool, there are ways to sharpen and blunt a protest’s impact. Here’s what decades of research tells us about what protest can and can’t do.

According to the often-cited 3.5% rule, if 3.5% of a population protests against a regime, the regime will fail. Developed by political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, who researched civil resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006, the rule has seen renewed interest in leftist circles recently, especially with No Kings protests attracting historic numbers.

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According to the often-cited 3.5% rule, if 3.5% of a population protests against a regime, the regime will fail. Developed by political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, who researched civil resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006, the rule has seen renewed interest in leftist circles recently, especially with No Kings protests attracting historic numbers.

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Nonviolence is Key

In the context of civil rights, the movement’s ability to elicit violence from its opponents – such as in 1965, when armed police violently attacked peaceful protesters crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama – only strengthened public support for the cause. “When the state is perceived as engaging in excess use of force, that tends to generate very sympathetic coverage, and that drives concern,” explained Wasow.

In the same way, protests that engage in violent tactics tend to lose the support of the public, even if it’s only a minority who are involved in the disturbances, and even when a cause is otherwise viewed favorably. Such was the case with the anti-racist counter-protests that unfolded in response to the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Although it was a white nationalist protester who plowed through a crowd and killed one woman, footage of counter-protesters throwing objects and brawling in the streets lowered their public esteem.

Other tactics that aren’t necessarily violent, but that are destructive nonetheless – like property destruction, setting fires or shutting down interstate highways – can have a similar effect, Willer explained. “People react very negatively to protest tactics that they view as risking harm to people,” he said.