Explaining differential protest participation: novices, returners, repeaters and stalwarts

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Description/Abstract

Scholarly work on protest participation has tended to focus on the special characteristics of first-timers and the highly committed, underplaying the significance of those in between. In this article, we fill a lacuna in the literature by refocusing attention on four different types of protesters – novices, returners, repeaters and stalwarts. We test whether these four types of protesters are differentiated by biographical/structural availability and/or psychological/attitudinal engagement. We employ data from protest surveys of six May Day and four climate change demonstrations that took place in seven European countries (2009-2010). Our results suggest that biographic availability distinguishes our four groups, but not straightforwardly as a matter of degree. Few indicators of structural availability distinguish between the groups of protesters, and emotional factors do not distinguish between them at all. Whilst some political engagement factors distinguish between the groups as a matter of degree, others suggest similarity between novices and returners. This confirms the need to avoid treating protesters as a homogenous group and reinforces the importance of assessing the contributions of diverse factors to sustaining ‘protest politics’.