Protest Opportunities and Obstacles to Participation

Street protest has become an integral part of extrainstitutional political participation in democratic states, today (Meyer & Tarrow, 1998). At the same time, the rise of Information and Communication Technologies has both extended existing and opened new repertoires of protest participation. From a perspective of mobilization to protest, this nuances the binary distinction between protest participation and non-participation, when we acknowledge that the step from consensus to action mobilization (Klandermans & Oegema, 1987) is one that does not necessarily result in in-person street participation but rather in different protest participation styles representing a of mix individuals’ traits and the obstacles to participation they face (Authors, 2024). This paper builds on the distinction between an in-person and an online participation style, as well as a mix between both. Individuals participating in protest through either of those styles cite various obstacles to participation, with the physical proximity of protest making the chief perceived difference between the in-person and online style. We probe into this spatial association by combining insights from an original Protest Event Analysis dataset that contains geolocated protest events in five different countries in recent years, as well as a nationally representative survey on individual political behavior in five countries in Eastern and Western Europe. Based on regression analyses, we answer the question if and to what degree the spatial proximity of protest events influences perceptions of obstacles to participation and in turn, whether participation styles are more associated with individual choices, or with the inability to overcome obstacles like physical distance.

References

Klandermans, B., & Oegema, D. (1987). Potentials, networks, motivations, and barriers: Steps towards participation in social movements. American Sociological Review, 52(4), 519–531.

Meyer, D. S., & Tarrow, S. (Eds.). (1998). The social movement society: contentious politics for a new century [Book]. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.