Hundreds of thousands of聽people filled the streets of Hong聽Kong on 9聽June to protest a聽government plan to allow extraditions to mainland China. The demonstrations have continued regularly since, with seas of protesters surrounding a聽government building and preventing law-makers from meeting about the proposed law.
Hong Kong鈥檚 chief executive Carrie Lam has suspended the bill,聽but protesters say this doesn鈥檛 go far enough and want the law to聽be聽scrapped. As 快猫短视频 went to press, it was unclear if聽this聽demand would be met.
The approach in Hong Kong is just one of many ways protesters have recently been attempting to challenge the status quo. Tactics range from marches to violent civil disobedience, but it can be difficult to tell what, if any of it, really works when it comes to effecting change.
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The result can depend on the type of protest. Matthew Feinberg at聽the University of Toronto and his colleagues have found that peaceful protests like sit-ins and marches can amplify a message and draw new supporters, but that聽extreme or violent tactics backfire, putting people off from聽supporting their cause. 鈥淭he聽easiest way to become known is聽to聽get the news to cover聽your聽movement, and the easiest聽way to聽do that is by doing something extreme. But it鈥檚 a catch-22,鈥� says Feinberg.
Disruption
One way to bring attention to a聽cause is to disrupt the hum of normal life. In April, climate protesters Extinction Rebellion had success with this method, bringing some transport hubs in central London to a standstill by blocking the streets with people and gluing themselves to trains.
The movement quickly gained attention from the press and attracted new supporters, partly thanks to social media. But it also聽drew criticism from people who felt the inconvenience didn鈥檛 justify the cause.
In a series of studies, Feinberg聽and his team delved into the trade-off that protest groups have to make. They presented people with news articles and videos of protests and found that聽extreme actions 鈥� including forming blockades, rioting, damaging property and violence 鈥� meant people supported and identified with the protesters less. This was true even if they believed in the group鈥檚 goals.
This may be because people value actions they perceive as reasonable, and most people identify themselves as reasonable, so extreme protest tactics make it harder to identify with activists, says Feinburg.
However, even protests that aren鈥檛 extreme may be perceived as being so by people who disagree with the aims. In another study, Feinberg and his colleagues showed people videos from the 2017 Women鈥檚 March, which rallied 500,000 people in Washington DC, and 2.5聽million more in cities around the world to聽advocate for civil rights in the wake of Donald Trump鈥檚 election.
It was largely peaceful, which helped correct the mistaken impression many have that protest is always violent, says Eden Hennessey at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, who worked on the study. 鈥淲e all saw that it wasn鈥檛 people holding Molotov cocktails with bandannas over their face. It was Sharon from down the street,鈥� she says.
The team showed people videos from the march that included benign actions like women chanting or high-fiving. They then asked viewers how many people were breaking windows, burning things or engaging in fights. Even though these things weren鈥檛 in the videos, nearly 8 per cent of people responded that they had seen such violence 鈥� and these people all identified as Trump supporters.
鈥淥ur data would suggest that,聽depending on your political views, you鈥檙e going to interpret information differently,鈥� says Hennessey. In other words, some聽people will see what they want to see, if they are sufficiently opposed to the cause.
But recruiting more supporters is only one aim for protest movements. Can they change policy too?
Changing policy
It is clear that not all protests work. It is estimated that more than 36聽million people across the world marched against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, yet it still went ahead. Although the marches rallied people to the cause, they ultimately failed to change the policy the movement opposed.
Still, protests do sometimes appear to directly affect policy, as聽a聽case study of the .
In April 2009, there were a series聽of rallies that began with hundreds of thousands of people gathering in US cities to protest government spending by the Obama administration. That was聽followed by rallies throughout the following spring and summer protesting local taxes and budgeting decisions.
According to Stan Veuger at the聽American Enterprise Institute, it was successful. He and his colleagues analysed the sizes of聽these protests and measured related changes in voting patterns and policy change by comparing the way members of Congress voted before and after the protests.
They found that members of Congress were more likely to vote conservatively 鈥� in line with Tea Party principles 鈥� after large protests in their districts. Larger protests correlated with higher turnout at subsequent town hall meetings with congressional leaders, while smaller protests lowered the probability of a representative鈥檚 vote to align with聽protesters by 8.7 per cent. And every Tea Party protester in聽a聽district was related to an increase of between seven and 15聽Republican voters in the area.
The sustained Tea Party protests also led to more media coverage of聽the movement and its aims to limit government spending, and added members and financial contributions to the movement.
It wasn鈥檛 fully successful, however. When it came to major聽national legislation, such as聽the Affordable Care Act (ACA) healthcare bill that was so vehemently opposed by the Tea聽Party that the movement鈥檚 proponents in Congress shut down the government over it, they聽ultimately didn鈥檛 achieve their goal. The bill became law in March 2010 and still stands today.
Veuger says the effects of protest may be more local, or more diffuse. 鈥淭he ACA passed before the first election in the fall of 2010 in which the Tea Party could have an impact. But they were still successful. Nothing along those lines has passed after the 2010 midterms,鈥� he says.
The effects of protest can also hit policy-makers where it hurts: the economy. Daron Acemoglu at聽the Massachusetts Institute of聽Technology and his colleagues looked at how the Egyptian stock market was affected by the mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo in 2011, which ended with聽the resignation of president Hosni Mubarak.
The team analysed stock returns of 177 firms listed on the Egyptian stock exchange between 2005 and聽2013 and found that more protesters in the streets led to for those firms whose shareholders and board members were connected to聽the National Democratic Party, the party of Mubarak. A turnout of聽500,000 protesters in Tahrir Square was correlated with a 0.8聽per cent lower valuation in those companies than the firms unaffiliated with members of the political party in power.
Economic pressure can affect policy-makers and the same goes for social change. For example, although the Women鈥檚 March suffered from not having specific policy goals, that doesn鈥檛 mean it wasn鈥檛 successful, says Hennessey. After January 2017, the MeToo movement to bring to light and end sexual violence really took hold. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think the MeToo movement would have gained traction in the same way without it. You need a crack and then the water starts to seep in,鈥� she says.
