Why Do Non-Sympathizers Participate in Demonstrations? the Role of Social Capital in Facilitating Mobilization Processes

Participation in protests have been one of central topics of social movement studies, focusing on micromobilization processes that persuade sympathizers to take action. Many studies have sought to understand how consensus mobilization can be transformed into action mobilization or how mobilization potential produces demonstrators. However, previous research has largely concentrated on sympathetic participants and overlooked “non-sympathetic protesters” who do not like social movements but still participate in protest events. We argue that a significant number of non-sympathizers can and do participate in protests, and we clarify why they choose to join. We conducted a large-scale online survey on street demonstrations in Japan in 2017 (N = 77,084), as Japan experienced the largest wave of demonstrations in the last four decades following the meltdown of a nuclear power plant in 2011. Our data reveal that nearly one third of demonstrators were non-sympathizers of social movements. While social capital (notably group affiliations) is the most important variable to promote participation in demonstrations, we find distinct effects of different types of groups: (1) Affiliation with community associations heightened sympathy for the movement but did not lead to involvement in protests; (2) Whilst belonging to political groups (mostly conservative organizations in the Japanese context) lowered sympathy for the movement, it promoted participation in demonstrations. (3) Affiliation with civic groups heightened sympathy for the movement and facilitated participation in protests. The implications of these results are twofold: (a) not all group affiliations, especially those with non-political organizations, promote participation in collective action; and (b) even though they may be unfavorable to social movements, political groups can be important predictors of being asked to protest and can serve as social capital, propelling the recruitment of non-sympathizers to join demonstrations.