Protest and Contentious Politics - Example of Encyclopedic Entry

Protest and Contentious Action
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics

Mario Quaranta
Subject: Contentious Politics and Political Violence, Political Behavior
Online Publication Date: Jan 2017 DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.225
Summary and Keywords
The field of protest and contentious action is massive. Numerous studies have focused on
the determinants of such behavior, among which are grievances and deprivations,
resources, political opportunities, and general contextual conditions. Others have
examined the changes in political protest over time and across countries, or the
consequences of contentious action. Moreover, research on protest politics is
characterized by a multitude of methodological approaches, which are not easy to group
according to the “qualitative–quantitative” divide. To navigate this literature, three units
of analysis are examined: individuals; groups, organizations or social movements; and
protest events. This perspective can guide researchers through the field, in particular
through the main factors for protest studies cross-temporally and cross-nationally, about
their effects, and through the various methodological approaches. This perspective also
might suggest possible directions for future research to overcome some limitations of the
current literature.
Keywords: political behavior, political protest, contentious action, social movements, unconventional participation,
grievances, deprivation, political resources, political opportunity structures, consequences of protest,
consequences of social movements, methodology for social moment research
Introduction
Protest and contentious action represent recurrent elements of contemporary
democracies (Rucht, 2007), so it is not surprising that this research has considerable
breadth and complexity. It considers both general and very specific aspects of
noninstitutional, unconventional, extrarepresentative, and collective forms of
participation. One way to summarize this research is to use a cross-cutting dimension. I
discuss the research literature according to “what” is studied, yielding to three main
perspectives. First, some studies focus of the individual, often examining reported
behavior. Second, other studies concentrate on groups or organizations, which might also
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be social movements, and often look at their strategies or characteristics. Third, there are
studies on events, which is a popular unit of analysis for this field (Klandermans &
Staggenborg, 2002). Therefore, I propose a general overview covering popular topics
investigated in the field based on the unit of analysis studied, helping the reader to sort
out its complexity.
I discuss the main determinants of protest and contentious action, the studies focusing on
change in protest, the consequences of protest, and, eventually, the methodological
approaches generally used. It should be clear, however, that these are not the only
possible units of analysis. The literature also investigates claims, tactics, networks,
discourses, or other aspects of contentious politics. Moreover, using the three units of
analysis does not always allow drawing straight lines between the studies on protest.
Still, this framework might be a useful tool to navigate the breadth of the field.
If we focus on individual political behavior, the driving questions will be: how active are
individuals in contentious forms of action? What makes individuals get involved in protest
politics? How has individual engagement in protest changed over time and space? What
are the consequences of individual engagement in protest? How has individual
engagement in protest been studied? If we swap this unit of analysis to the other units,
we get new questions that address the same phenomenon from different angles. Thus,
this article answers such questions accounting for each unit of analysis.
What is Protest?
Protest can be defined as a form of individual and collective action aimed at affecting
cultural, political, and social processes, which therefore challenge the status quo or
decisions that are seen as unfair, through a number of practices such as petitions,
demonstration, boycotts, refusing to pay rent or tax, occupations, sit-ins, blocking traffic,
and strikes, and riots (della Porta & Diani, 2006). Protest activities are often distinguished
from conventional participation, such as voting or contacting a government official. The
contrast between conventional and unconventional participation stems from the idea that
the two are different in nature. Conventional action concerns forms of political behavior
occurring within the constitutional process of interest aggregation and representation,
mediated by political institutions, and which define the relationship between political
authorities and citizens. Protest, or contentious, action is noninstitutionalized direct
political action, occurring outside of the realm of institutional politics, with the goal of
influencing decisions affecting the population or popular practices. The repertory of
protest and contentious politics can therefore range from mild forms of action, such as
petitions or boycotts, to more routinized forms, such as demonstrations, to even illegal or
violent forms (Barnes & Kaase, 1979).
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Tilly and Tarrow (2007, p. 4) argue that contentious politics lies at the intersection of three
fields—contention, politics, and collective action—and “involves interactions in which
actors make claims bearing on someone else’s interest, leading to coordinate efforts on
behalf of shared interests or programs, in which governments are involved or targets,
initiators of claims, or third parties.” Therefore, contention refers to the act of making
claims involving a directionality, from a maker to a receiver. That is, one party makes a
claim on another, be it an individual, a group, or an institution. Social interests might be
achieved by coordinating the action of individuals, and in this sense contentious politics is
a form of collective action. Eventually, contentious politics regards politics because the
government is often a claimant, the object of a claim, or a third party in any case involved
in this phenomenon. In fact, in one way or another, governments become part of this
process, even when they are not objects or subjects of claims. Protest and contentious
politics are also episodic and public phenomena. The first characteristic refers the fact
that they do not occur on a regular basis and do not have a fixed schedule, like the
elections do. The second refers to the fact that claims are not made within organizations,
and therefore are manifest.
Once protest is defined, we can ask how it varies. Many studies investigate the factors
explaining the occurrence of protest. In fact, it has been underlined that protest varies in
space, e.g. it depends on cross-national variables; in time, e.g., how protest changes over
time in one or multiple countries, regions, or even cities; in frequency, e.g., protest may
occur seldom or often; or in size, e.g. protest may involve few or many individuals or
actors.
To provide a general picture of how protest may vary across space, I plot protest events—
the third unit of analysis presented in this article—defined as forms of civilian collective
actions against some targets, occurred in the world between January 1, 2010 to
December 31, 2014.1 Larger dots indicate higher frequency. During this period, protests
occur more likely and frequently in European countries and the United States, in part
because citizen groups and political norms have regularized protest as a form of political
action. There are also frequent protests in North Africa, the Middle East, and India, in
part reflecting the tumult of the Arab Spring and internal political conflicts in these
regions. sub-Saharan countries and Latin America display lower levels of activity during
this period. This illustrates that protest occurs in democracies as well less democratic or
non-democratic states. Although the picture is very general, it illustrates some patterns
that might be explained by the factors described in the following section.
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Factors Predicting Protest

What contributes to the emergence of protest behaviors and contentious action is a
central theme in the literature on protest and contentious action. The available
explanations make use of a large number of factors, which cannot be summarized here.
However, three can be considered the major sets of factors explaining protest: grievances
and deprivation; resources; and political opportunities and contextual conditions. This
section examines them by discussing their contribution for the explanation of protest
from the perspective of individuals, groups or organizations, and events.
Grievances and Deprivation
One classic explanation for protest activity concerns the role of grievances and
deprivation. People protest when they perceive a situation as unfair or illegitimate. They
see action as a way of overturning it. When expectations are not met, mostly economic,
frustration and discontent spread and become incentives for protest (Gurr, 1970). Protest is
seen as an instrument that allows individuals or groups to affect the social or political
systems (van Stekelemburg & Klandermans, 2013).
Researchers have often used this explanation. Nevertheless, studies investigating

individual protest have not always reached clear conclusions. An early empirical study
found only a weak association between perceptions of one’s economic situation, as a
proxy for grievances, and protest (see Barnes & Kaase, 1979), and later research from this
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project similarly found a weak association between hardships and individual protest.
Others showed that a bad housing and financial situation might facilitate engagement in
protest (Opp, 2000).
Grievance and relative deprivation theory is also used to explain the protest mobilization
of specific groups. For example, such feelings may stimulate protest by students or the
unemployed. Lack of employment or social security can lead to discontent, which
eventually stimulates protest. For example, one study on Latin America showed that
relative deprivation is a factor for their protest participation (Almeida, 2007). Similarly,
research has attributed British students’ protests in 2010–2011 to the rising prices in
tuition fees and cuts in higher education, which aggravated feelings of grievance and
injustice (Ibrahim, 2011). Protests by the unemployed can also be a product of a
deprivation condition. A comparative study of France, Germany, and Italy showed that the
unemployed are more likely to mobilize in some regions or in moments of high
unemployment peaks, although mobilization also seems to depend on other conditions
(Baglioni, Baumgarten, Chabanet, & Lahusen, 2008). In Argentina, movements of the
unemployed protested the government’s neoliberal policies introducing new labor market
policies and privatizations, and demanded reforms to improve their condition (Silva, 2009).
In general, elements linked to deprivation and grievances can sometimes explain
mobilization following government austerity measures or the government’s inability to
cope with economic crisis (della Porta, 2015).
Grievances and deprivation can also explain the frequency of the occurrence of protest
events. Kerbo and Shaffer (1992) find that unemployment, a sign of rising grievances
among the population, increases the number of protests in the United States.
Researchers argue that economic grievances resulting from market reforms in Latin
America has a positive effect on protest in democratic nations that are more open to
contentious politics, but a negative effect in nondemocratic states (Bellinger & Arce, 2011).
This deprivation approach has had a “renaissance” in the past years given the post-2008
economic recession that hit several countries, in Europe and in other areas. The
recession-simulated protests across both Eastern and Western European countries
(Beissinger, Sasse, & Straif, 2014; Quaranta, 2016A).
In summary, research has shown that feelings of grievance or deprivation can stimulate
protest among the general public. Often these motivations apply to distinct subgroups
that are most affected by social or economic conditions. In addition, it appears that the
social and political context can affect which grievances lead to political action.
Resources
Research typically argues that protest and contentious action is more likely when
resources are present, be they resources of the individuals, groups, or organizations. This
approach argues that resources such as skills, money, or education are important in
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determining who can actually participate, and not just the presence of grievances or
deprivation. These resources are not equally distributed across the population, creating
differences in the chances actors have to protest.
Studies on individual participation in protest have shown that it might be the product of
education, income, and other resources that provide individuals with civic skills (e.g.,
Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995). Although such approach based on individual resources
was developed for explaining political participation in general and not protest in
particular, studies show that citizens with more resources are more able to participate in
protest activities. Education has a positive impact on noninstitutional and protest
participation in Europe (Marien, Hooghe, & Quintelier, 2010; Quaranta, 2015). Similar
results are found for other regions: in Latin America (Moseley, 2015) and in Egypt and
Tunisia (Beissinger, Amaney, & Mazur, 2015).
According to the deprivation approach, low income and low education should more likely
lead to more protest, since this would indicate a condition of hardship. Nevertheless,
research shows quite the opposite. In general terms, it seems that protest is more
common among the middle class because they possess the resources to be active
(Peterson, Wahlström, & Wennerhag, 2015). Through participation the middle class can
reinforce its position in society.
It is possible to identify specific forms of middle class contentious politics that generally
result from this group’s educational and income resources. Researchers label these as
“new social movements.” They put behind economic demands, and focus on cultural,
environmental, or issues linked to individual autonomy (Kriesi, 1989). The movements
mobilize around “post-materialist” issues, which become prominent among the middle
class because income is no longer a preoccupation (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005). Therefore,
the general increase in resources, material and cultural, may be linked to the emergence
of such movements. The middle class is active in contentious politics both because of its
higher resources, but also because of its specific issue interests.
There are various examples of mobilizations led by the middle class, such as the
mobilizations for the defense of the environment (Rootes, 2003) or against globalization
(della Porta, Andretta, Mosca, & Reiter, 2006). Given the emphasis on the availability of
resources of the middle class and on post-materialist values, these protest movements are
normally found in affluent democracies. However, similar movements can also be found in
less developed nations, although they not always have “new social movements”
characteristics (Dwivedi, 2001).
The resources of social movement organizations are often linked to the levels of protest
events. The number of instances of nonviolent protest is found to be associated with the
size of human rights organizations in terms of volunteers and members, as these link the
population to issues they care about (Murdie & Bhasin, 2011). Women’s insider
(institutional collective action) and outsider events (protest or grass-roots lobbying) are
more likely when there are more women’s social movement organizations (Soule,
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McAdam, McCarthy, & Su, 1999). The same could likely be said for other social
movements, such as environmental or human rights groups. Therefore, human resources
may overlap with organizational resources (Edwards & McCarthy, 2004).
Protest events (and other political activities) are more likely when material resources—
such as money, infrastructures, or equipment—are available to social movements. For
example, studies demonstrate that the rate and the availability of government funding to
organizations are correlated with homeless protest events (Snow, Soule, & Cress, 2005).
To summarize, research shows that various types of resources—such as material,

organizational, or human—favor protest mobilization. The supply of specific resources
also might change the objects, the targets, or the claims of protest, or the groups
involved, not only the frequency of contentious action.
Political Opportunities and Contextual Conditions
The political opportunities approach maintains that protest is influenced by the context
where it occurs. Tarrow (2011, p. 32) defines political opportunities as: “consistent—but
not necessarily formal, permanent, or national—sets of clues that encourage people to
engage in contentious politics.” Although the concept of political opportunities is widely
applied, it is not always completely clear what it includes, but it generally indicates
openness or closure of the political system; stability or instability of alignments; the
presence or absence of allies; and the state’s capacity and propensity for repression
(McAdam, 1996, p. 27).
Studies on individual protest participation have not stressed the role of political
opportunities until recently. Some focus on the openness of the political system. These
studies find that dispersion of power among states’ institutions or horizontal power-
sharing institutions, territorial separation of power, decentralization, or vertical power
dispersion are associated with protest or nonelectoral participation (Quaranta, 2015;
Vráblíková, 2016). Others interpret openness as democratic development, finding a positive
correlation with protest (Dalton, van Sickle, & Weldon, 2009). It is also argued that direct
democracy stimulates protest, as it empowers citizens who prefer it as a means to voice
preferences, yet research suggests that direct democracy represents a “safety valve”
channeling protest (Fatke & Freitag, 2013). The structure of the political competition and
alliances occurring in different contexts, such as party system characteristics, has also
been linked to individual engagement (Quaranta, 2015; Vráblíková, 2016).
The political opportunities approach is more common in the study of social movements. I
illustrate a few applications, with no claim of being exhaustive, trying to provide an
overview of relevant studies. Antinuclear movements are more active where political
structures are open and receptive (“input” structure), and where the state is less able to
implement nuclear energy policies (“output” structures) (Kitschelt, 1986). Similarly,
collective action, both in form and level, depends on the openness of the political systems
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(Kriesi, Ruud, Duyvendak, & Giugni, 1995). In addition, the presence of leftist parties
seems to favor movements, especially when these are in power. In the case of women’s
movements political opportunities are structured differently. This means that in some
cases these political opportunities can be more advantageous for women than for men. In
this respect, it has been argued that opportunities for women’s mobilization can appear,
for instance, when men’s mobilization is impeded or riskier (Beckwith, 2000).
Studies focusing on protest events also apply the concept of political opportunities, and in
some cases are tested against alternative approaches. For instance, Jenkins, Jacobs, and
Agnone (2003) argue that contextual conditions—such as electoral competition, elite
divisions, and strength of the left—in combination with grievances and organizational
resources, that may stimulate African-American protests in the U.S. increased political
representation and greater access to the political system. Elements of the political
opportunity structure approach are found in the party system, and in particular the
parliamentary arena, and in the cleavage structure. In fact, the number of effective
number of political parties and electoral volatility are associated with the number of
antigovernment demonstrations, riots, and strikes (Arce, 2010). Alliances are found to be
relevant predictors of protest events. In fact, a study finds that the presence of female
legislators in Congress is associated with an increase in women’s protest (Soule,
McAdam, McCarthy, & Su, 1999).
Although the theory of political opportunities has been largely developed and applied to
democratic settings, some research has applied the framework to less liberal or
repressive settings (Alimi, 2009). This research suggests that political opportunities do not
bring about contentious action, but rather the birth and growth of organizations.
In summary, the configuration of the political context can be an important influence on

protest activities. It defines the opportunities individuals and organizations have to
mobilize protest. Nevertheless, it is not only important that these opportunities are
present, but also that they are perceived. Contextual features also operate in combination
with grievances or resources.
Long-Term Developments
The study of contentious action and protest has explored whether the levels of activity
have changed across time, space, and in form. An influential argument describes the
emergence of a “social movement society” (Meyer & Tarrow, 1998).2 The basic point is that
political protest has become a frequent element in contemporary democracies. Protest
has diffused to constituents previously hesitant to use this form of engagement, and
protest has become a professionalized and institutionalized activity. In other words,
protest was once identified with the young and deprived, while it is now used by groups
as diverse as environmental groups, school teachers, and senior citizens.
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As an overview of such changes, Figure 2 shows the percentage of survey respondents

who answered to have attended lawful demonstrations in selected (and unrepresentative)
countries between 1981 and 2014.3 The plot indicates a variety of trends. In the group of
advanced democracies, participation in demonstrations increases in France and
Denmark, remains quite stable in the United States and Great Britain, and fluctuates in
Germany, while it slightly decreases in Japan. In post-communist countries there is an
overall declining trend. Participation rates are quite sustained in 1990, likely due to the
mobilizations at the time of the collapse of the communist regimes, while dropping in the
later years, with the exception of Slovenia. Diverse trends can also be found in Latin
American countries, with no particular patterns. In these countries participation rates
increase and then decrease, as in Mexico or Peru, are steady, as in Argentina or Brazil, or
increase, as in Uruguay. Finally, in the last group of countries, trends are quite stable, as
in Turkey, South Africa or Philippines. Where the trends are increasing, as in Nigeria or
India, the change is not particularly significant. In South Korea, instead, there is an
increase in participation in demonstration, with a following decrease. In sum, survey data
presented in the figure do not provide a clear and general indication about the rise of
protest. Indeed, what the figure does show is that participation in demonstrations greatly
varies across countries, as partially seen in Figure 1.4
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Various studies have investigated changes in protest politics from an individual

perspective. There are two main research strands, which do not necessarily exclude one
from another. The first shows that political protest has been increasing over time. These
mainly use repeated cross-sectional surveys finding that people are more likely than in
the past to engage in unconventional or non-institutional forms of participation. This
evidence is most common for established democracies where there is a long record of
opinion surveys and a climate of tolerance for protest. However, protest has spread
across geographical areas.
Some scholars also argue that increasing protest activity comes at the expense of
conventional, institutional forms of participation. However, this finding is not always
confirmed or clear. The same people tend to engage in both confrontational and non-
confrontational activities, challenging the idea that citizens have moved towards safer
forms of action (Dodson, 2011; Quaranta, 2016B).
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The second research strand investigates changes in the individual factors affecting
protest. Traditionally relevant factors such as education, gender, age, or the mobilization
context now appear to be weaker predictors of protest (van Aelst & Walgrave, 2001).
However, these findings seem dependent on the context where the study is carried out.
For instance, this process was not found in a recent study on the US (Caren, Ghoshal, &
Ribas, 2010), and only partially by studies on Italy and Western Europe (Quaranta, 2014;
2016B).
Other researchers have focused on the institutionalization of social movements, taking a

meso-level perspective. When this process occurs, collective action becomes routinized
such that challengers and authorities follow a set of (unwritten) rules. Those who accept
these rules are included in the political process, while those who do not are excluded.
Challengers thus adapt their strategies to avoid disruptive practices (Meyer & Tarrow,
1998). Often scholars have examined changes in the organizational structures of social
movements, following their trajectories from fluid and non-hierarchical organizations to
structured, formalized ones. A recurring example of institutionalization is the
environmental movements. In many advanced democracies these movements shifted from
using confrontational forms of action to pressure authorities, to being non-radical
organizations using conventional instruments of influence, getting access to hearings or
committees, and gaining institutional recognition (Diani & Donati, 1999). Movements
become institutionalized not only because their organizational structure changes, but also
because they interact with other political actors differently, in particular with authorities.
Studies in many established democracies have shown that the “policing of protest” has
changed over time, moving from repressive strategies, to dialogic or preemptive practices
that allow a form of negotiated control of contentious actions (della Porta & Reiter, 1998).
Eventually, the institutionalization of organizations involved in contention represents a
means of legitimation both among citizens and political institutions, especially in areas
characterized by weak participation. On this matter, it has been noted that NGOs and
third-sector organizations in Eastern Europe act as “challengers” of the authorities in
support of small grassroots groups, in a context where citizens are not active, given their
link with the elites at the national and supranational level (Petrova & Tarrow, 2007).
Research on protest events has also tested the social movement society argument. These
studies find that, in advanced democracies, some of the claims of the argument are
correct, albeit with some distinctions. The use of protests has increased over time in
affluent democracies, and it seems to have gradually lost its violent aspects. The number
of different claims has also increased, but across time there is not an increase of new
claims, which would indicate that protest has spread among new constituencies.
Moreover, fewer (but bigger) organizations appear to be present at protest events (Soule
& Earl, 2005).
In summary, changes in the level and nature of protest are often influenced by the context
of analysis. When taking into account different countries, it might be that the claims of
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the social movement society thesis could be confirmed in affluent democracies. But the
situation is often different in democratizing or non-democratic states. In addition, also the
choice of unit of analysis, and consequently the data used, plays a significant role in
detecting changes.
Consequences
Studying the consequences of protest raises questions linked to political, cultural, and
personal/individual changes in societies (Amenta, Caren, Chiarello, & Su, 2010; Giugni,
2004). Studies on the political consequences of protest consider how it affects the policy-
making process, actors such as political parties, and political institutions such as state
bureaucracies. Studies on the cultural consequences look at the effects on values, beliefs,
meanings, symbols, practices, and products. Research on the personal/individual
consequences look at how protest affects attitudes, behaviors, socialization, individual
structural factors, such as life course, and social networks.
Nevertheless, studying the consequences of protest and social movements is not at all
trivial. Above all, it is very difficult to assess the “causal” impact, for example in terms of
size and durability, of social movements or protest events on changes in society or politics
(Giugni, 1998). Leaving aside these methodological problems,5 this section presents this
area of research keeping the analytical scheme based on the unit of analysis.
Research on personal or biographical consequences of contentious action has taken the

individual as its preferred unit of analysis. These studies examine how engagement
affects the life course, and how it contributes to political socialization and further
participation (Giugni, 2004). This strain of research generally finds that left-wing activism
has a long-lasting effect on future activism and political values. American activists in the
1960s kept involved in contentious forms of engagement, retained their ideological
orientations, and this had personal consequences such as lower incomes, higher divorce
rates, or nontraditional work histories (McAdam, 1989).
Other studies have researched the consequences of less demanding forms of activism,
trying to overcome some methodological issues of focusing on 1960s activists.
Nevertheless, these yield to similar findings. Participation in anti-war, student, women’s,
and civil rights movements is correlated with later political orientations and activism,
higher educational attainments, the choice of careers, weaker religious orientations, and
a delay in marriage and a lower probability of having children (Sherkat & Blocker, 1997).
Other studies have focused on movements and events as their objects of analysis. This
strand of research examines the conditions under which protest effectively influences the
state, taking into account that the state’s characteristics also influences the organization
and the activities of movements. This research tests the general expectation that
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“circumstances that helped challengers mobilize would also aid them in their bids to
effect political change” (Amenta, Caren, Chiarello, & Su, 2010, p. 3).
Organizational variables are often used to explain the consequences of social movements.
Giugni (1998) recalls the case of Gamson’s (1990) systematic study of the effects of social
movements in the United States. Single-issue movements or bureaucratized and
structured movements have the highest rates of successful outcomes. Studies of protest
events find that action on a specific issue can influence congressional hearings or
legislation regarding the same issues, such as in the case of environmental protest (Olzak
& Soule, 2009).
Other studies take the tactics and the strategies of movements into account. Such factors
range from electoral activity, to threat and persuasion, disruptive and violent actions, or
different framing strategies (Amenta, Caren, Chiarello, & Su, 2010; Giugni, 1998). In this
perspective, a study finds that the outcomes of homeless movements—meant as
improvements in representation, resources, rights, and living conditions—depend on a
combination of several factors regarding these strategies and tactics (Cress & Snow, 2000).
Contextual characteristics, such as the division and centralization of powers, openness of

the political system, electoral rules, or democratization levels, are also considered
important for the outcomes of protest and movements (Amenta, Caren, Chiarello, & Su,
2010). However, these outcomes vary over time, while state characteristics change only
rarely or slowly.
Thus, we can also study protest as influencing social and political outcomes, be they
individual outcomes, actors, policies, or organizations. In the end, it seems natural that
protest should have some consequences, as influencing society and politics is a distinctive
element of this form of action.
Methods
It is argued that research on protest, unlike other sub-fields of the social sciences, seems
to have dodged the often-harsh methodological debate between neo-positivist and
interpretivist approaches (della Porta, 2014). We keep the three units of analysis—
individuals, movements or organizations, and events—as a tool to identify the
methodological approach that is more suited to each unit (Klandermans & Staggenborg,
2002). The reader should keep in mind that the available methodological choices are very
numerous and go beyond those presented here.6
Two approaches are the most common when studying individual participation in
contentious action: surveys and in-depth interviewing. On the one hand, surveys typically
have a wider scope and aim to provide broader results. A conventional method is
surveying the general population, asking about participation in a series of activities, such
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as protest, petitions, boycotts, strikes, and other non-conventional actions, along with
items tapping other information such as socio-demographic factors, attitudes,
orientations, and behaviors (Rucht, 2007). This approach has the clear advantage that the
data are collected by international projects that make them available to the general
public.7 Researchers have used this method to investigate the determinants of individual
political action, and looked at the cross-national differences in the levels of protest.
However, using surveys of the general population is not a dominant approach in the field.
An alternative, which is flourishing, is surveying protesters “on the spot.” Information
provided by surveys on the general population is quite unspecific, with the resulting
problem that is not possible to investigate reasons, contexts, issues, organizations, or
type of action (Andretta & della Porta, 2004). Surveying protestors provides detailed
information and allow framing the results in context. Nevertheless, this method is not
problem-free. Some are typical of general survey research, such as response bias, missing
values, or standardized and superficial responses, while other are specific of this
approach, such as representativeness. Even when sampling techniques are sound,
problems related to response bias and selection still remain, although they can be
contained (Walgrave & Verhulst, 2007).
Alternatively, in-depth interviewing represents an opposite approach on an ideal

continuum ranging from structured to unstructured interviewing. This avoids
standardization and produces detailed descriptions of the dynamics behind participation
in contentious politics, related to both protesters and other informed actors (Blee &
Taylor, 2002). In-depth interviewing is particularly useful when the aim is studying
processes, feelings, motives, values, norms, beliefs, practices, identities, or expectations
regarding protest engagement. In general, it allows studying complex aspects of the
participation in contentious politics, and in this sense is similar to the approach of life
histories. Although these approaches produced nuanced images of the processes behind
participation, they suffer from some issues, such as comparability of results, availability
of interviewees, sampling, idiosyncrasy, or subjectivity.
To study organizations or groups, research has often relied on social network analysis.
This has been found particularly suited for these objects as collective action can be seen
as the product of networks of formal and informal organizations. Therefore, it allows
emphasizing the meso-level of analysis. Mobilization is studied as a process linking
several organizations, with the network being a factor for mobilization or the effect of it.
An advantage of social network analysis is that it allows accounting simultaneously for
different levels of analysis, such as the whole network, sub-groups, or single relations,
studying, its flexibility allowing studying change and mechanisms. Social network
analysis has also been criticized for problems related to the difficulty of defining the
boundary of the networks, for the impossibility of testing the hypotheses statistically, or
for the difficulty of linking the theory to the method (Caiani, 2014).
Page 14 of 23

Participant observation or ethnographic approaches are also applied to the study of social
movement organizations, with a variety of scopes. In general, these are applied to
investigate aspects of contentious politics that other methodological approaches miss,
such as the symbolic and nonpublic aspects of social movements, their practices, or their
heterogeneity in types and forms of organizations (Balsinger & Lambelet, 2014).
Eventually, the field has relied on protest event analysis, which is an approach specifically
emerged within it. It is prominent as it has allowed research to focus on the cross-
national and over-time aspect of contentious politics, providing the possibility to test
many claims, such as of the political process approach, to look at protest waves, and in
general to link the context to protest (Hutter, 2004). As a form of content analysis, protest
event analysis tries to assess the frequency, the size, and in general the characteristics of
protest, relying on newspaper articles or other textual sources, such as reports or digital
media. It is an approach allowing one to make inferences about protest from textual
contents. Protest event analysis has expanded the possibilities for investigating a
phenomenon that it is not always easy to compare across space and time. Slightly
different but part of the same family is protest claim analysis by which instead of coding
events it codes political claims (Koopmans & Statham, 1999). Although the advantages of
protest event and claim analysis can be easily appreciated—i.e., it is unobtrusive, it
allows managing large amount of data, it is flexible, and press as a source is widely
available—it has been challenged for problems related to selection bias, which is the
problem related to the fact that not all events are recorded, and description bias, which is
the problem related to accuracy (Earl, Martin, McCarthy, & Soule, 2004).
In a nutshell, contentious politics has been studied taking a “problem-oriented” approach,

applying methods suited to the research questions to be addressed, without
preconceptions on epistemological choices (Klandermans & Staggenborg, 2002).
Page 15 of 23

What is Next?
The vast literature on protest and contentious actions speaks to the importance of the
topic. The field has produced an enormous amount of research looking at protest from
different angles, using several explicative frameworks and applying diverse methods. In
its complexity, this literature can be understood by looking at it through the unit of
analysis of interest. This lens, however, reveals that studies generally examine only one of
the three (or several) units at a time. Indeed, studying protest and contentious action
from an individual perspective, a meso or organizational perspective, or from a protest
event perspective, allows detecting specific aspects of the topic.
However, studies looking at one specific unit of analysis may miss important aspects of
protest and contentious politics stemming from the interactions across levels. For
example, research on individual protest is often unable to connect protesters to the
events they engage in or to the organizations to which they belong. When research is
indeed able to link events and protest or organizations, it might be unable to provide
generalizable results because of selection issues. Research on protest events might miss
individual motivations for protest, while it well accounts for contextual conditions
favoring protest. Research focusing on organizations tends to focus on one or few
movements providing very useful insights on them, even emphasizing the role of
individuals and events for such movements, but are, unfortunately, limited to those
organizations.
Nevertheless, the problem of focusing on one unit of analysis is not necessarily connected
to a limited point of view of contentious politics. This is quite inevitable given the
difficulty of accounting for multiple units in the same study. Yet, the problem could be the
lack of reasoning around the consequences of choosing one or another unit of analysis. In
fact, although the units of analysis discussed here are all attributes of political protest,
they tell different stories when inquired.
One possible line of future research regards the development of a research program
systematically studying the same object—protest and contentious politics—from different
viewpoints. To be clear, protest is already studied from different positions, but it occurs
very rarely because of the costs involved. It is not difficult to find studies analyzing, for
example, environmental protests looking at individuals, organizations, or events.
However, such research studies different instances of protests, often analyzed across
varying time frames or contexts. A case for such research direction could be, for example,
studying the same anti-austerity protests looking at individuals, organizations, and events
at the same time. Future, possibly collaborative, research projects might consider the
difficult, but promising, path of analyzing protest and contentious action from multiple
points of view.
Page 16 of 23

Indeed, a positive characteristic of the field studying protest and contentious politics is its
diversity. There are plenty of studies analyzing one unit of analysis making use of
theoretical approaches originated from studies focusing on different units. Therefore,
cross-unit studies should not be a problem since the different perspectives are
complementary and in continuous exchange. In fact, methodological triangulation seems
to have been a driving force for the study of protest (Klandermans & Staggenborg, 2002),
stimulating and empirically supporting theoretical developments.
Future research can also develop and apply new and cross-cutting methods. Big data
methods, such as those used by the Global Dataset of Events, Language, and Tone
project, expand the boundaries of our data collections (Dalton, 2016). Studies of online
methods for protest, such as Twitter and Facebook posts, offer new potential to study
protest communication networks. These are new tools for social movements and social
movement research (Mosca, 2014). These developments provide further methods and
evidence for theory testing, and should apply a “unit of analysis triangulation” to study
the same phenomenon—protest—looking at different instances.
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Notes:
(1.) Data come from the Global Dataset of Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT), available
at: http://gdeltproject.org. The data are collected using a machine-coding procedure of
multiple and publicly available news reports, which are classified according to a scheme
able to identify actors and events.
(2.) Studies on the social movement society thesis are not the only ones focusing on
change. An influential part of the protest literature focuses on “protest cycles or waves”.
These waves are described as periods characterized by more intense conflict, diffusion,
and innovation in forms of contention (Tarrow, 2011; see also della Porta and Diani, 2006).
(3.) Data come from the European Values Study, and the World Values Survey.
(4.) This might also be due to the timing of the survey and to data sources. See note
number 7 for a list of comparative survey projects including indicators measuring
participation in protest.
(5.) See on this point Earl (2000).
(6.) For more detailed assessments of methodological approaches in social movements

and protest research see della Porta (2014) and Klandermans and Staggenborg (2002).
(7.) These are, for instance, the Afrobarometer, Americas Barometer, Arab Barometer,
Asian Barometer, Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, Eurobarometer, European
Social Survey, European Values Study, International Social Survey Programme,
Latinobarometro, or the World Values Survey.
Page 22 of 23

Mario Quaranta
Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore
Page 23 of 23

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Protest and Contentious Action

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics

Summary and Keywords

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Factors Predicting Protest

Grievances and Deprivation

Researchers have often used this explanation. Nevertheless, studies investigating

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Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

To summarize, research shows that various types of resources—such as material,

Political Opportunities and Contextual Conditions

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In summary, the configuration of the political context can be an important influence on

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As an overview of such changes, Figure 2 shows the percentage of survey respondents

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Various studies have investigated changes in protest politics from an individual

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

Other researchers have focused on the institutionalization of social movements, taking a

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

Research on personal or biographical consequences of contentious action has taken the

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Contextual characteristics, such as the division and centralization of powers, openness of

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

Alternatively, in-depth interviewing represents an opposite approach on an ideal

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

In a nutshell, contentious politics has been studied taking a “problem-oriented” approach,

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

Almeida, P. D. (2007). Defensive mobilization: Popular movements against economic

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

Beckwith, K. (2000). Beyond compare? Women’s movements in comparative perspective.

Blee, K. M., & Taylor, V. (2002). Semi-structured interviewing in social movement

Caiani, M. (2014). Social network analysis. In D. della Porta (Eds.), Methodological

della Porta, D. (Eds.). (2014). Methodological practices in social movement research.

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

Dodson, K. (2011). The movement society in comparative perspective. Mobilization, 16(4),

Dwivedi, R. (2001). Environmental movements in the Global South: Issues of livelihood

Earl, J. (2000). Methods, movements and outcomes: Methodological difficulties in the

Giugni, M. (2004). Personal and biographical consequences. In D. Snow, S. A. Soule, and

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

Kitschelt, H. P. (1986). Political opportunity structures and political protest: Anti-Nuclear

McAdam, D. (1989). The biographical consequences of activism. American Sociological

McAdam, D. (1996). Conceptual origins, current problems, future directions. In D.

Mosca, L. (2014). Methodological practices in social movement online research. In D.

Moseley, M. W. (2015). Contentious engagement: Understanding protest participation in

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

Quaranta, M. (2014). The “normalization” of the protester: Changes in political action in

Quaranta, M. (2016a). Protesting in “hard times”: Evidence from a comparative analysis

Quaranta, M. (2016b). Towards a Western European “social movement society”? An

Rootes, C. (Eds.). (2003). Environmental protest in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford

Silva, E. (2009). Challenging neoliberalism in Latin America. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

Vráblíková, K. (2016). What kind of democracy? Participation, inclusiveness and

(5.) See on this point Earl (2000).

(6.) For more detailed assessments of methodological approaches in social movements

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Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore

Subscriber: University of Witwatersrand; date: 05 September 2017

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