9 - Social Change and the Politics of Protest¹

Summary

This chapter pursues several research questions that attempt to understand the development of nonviolent protest activity since the 1970s. Considering the behavioral repertoire of citizens, the continuing florescence of nonviolent protests is a major manifestation of the rising assertive culture on which this volume focuses. Indeed, the continuation and expansion of nonviolent protest activity in mature postindustrial democracies can be seen as a key indication of the cultural transformation from allegiant to assertive citizenship. Frequent and widespread nonviolent protest by ordinary people is an inherently “elite-challenging” activity that testifies to the rise of an assertive model of democratic citizenship. Postindustrial democracies supposedly experienced a participatory revolution over the last four decades, in which the forms and levels of nonviolent protest activity expanded. This development seems to be linked to progressing social modernization and the development of new values with an overall emancipatory impetus. Thus, like others in this volume, we are interested in the process of value change in contemporary societies and view protest as an exemplary manifestation of the hypothesized impact of the changing values of the people.

In their now classic book Political Action, Samuel Barnes, Max Kaase, and their colleagues (1979) reported on a study of political behavior and political values in five Western democracies in the mid-1970s. In addition, they initiated a research program designed to distinguish between major types of political action and to explain the variation in these actions, including new forms of political protest, and to predict future developments.