How does protesting work

Protests can win exposure for a cause, but they do not fight legal battles that make change possible. While media attention may have hastened legal decisions on the matter of building on Sioux lands, the final battle was ultimately decided in the Oval Office and in the courtroom, and the protest lines were swiftly shut down. Protests are win-lose propositions that highlight ideological differences and sow discord. The ethos of protest is rooted in conflict , not conflict resolution — resistance, even nonviolent resistance, is an act of war intended to change a political reality.

To many, protest rhetoric is more about preaching to the choir than it is about changing hearts and minds. The one-voice-no-debate approach may be perceived as a zero-sum game that pits protesters against their environment, and to an extent, against anyone who is not protesting. This charged atmosphere often leads to violence that proves counterproductive to protest goals.

Look no further than the pro-Trump protesters who violently overran the US Congress. For an older example, Antifa protestors and their embrace of violence tend to undermine their aims of fighting against fascism. Discover Membership. Editions Quartz. More from Quartz About Quartz. Follow Quartz.

These are some of our most ambitious editorial projects. By Dan Kopf Data editor. Published February 3, This article is more than 2 years old. In a close race, such swings can be decisive. During the midterms, eight liberal protests occurred in the average congressional district. In districts with greater protest activity, liberal candidates fared well.

This was hardly the first time that protests had fueled successful challenges against incumbents. Mikva did not immediately champion either cause, and he lost in his run for Congress in He also acted as legal counsel for protesters jailed by an aggressive police department during anti-war protests. Read: Do protests even work? Mikva unseated a superannuated Democratic incumbent during the primary and then roundly defeated his Republican challenger, even as Nixon carried Illinois.

Mikva was not alone: Democratic candidates across the nation benefited from liberal protest, which helped the party maintain control of the House and the Senate. Voters understand this. While wanton, opportunistic destruction of public property can certainly undermine an otherwise righteous protest movement, nightsticks, rubber bullets, and tear-gas canisters can draw attention to—and sympathy for—a cause and those brave enough to advocate for it. The point of protest is rarely to swing a single race, however momentous that race may be.

It is to change the terms of political debate, and ultimately to change society itself. And indeed, protest has always foreshadowed the most radical shifts in American history. Protest calls attention to problems with the status quo—and often spells political doom for those who have upheld it. In this way, protest not only affects electoral outcomes today, but establishes the conditions for change in the future.

Abner Mikva went on to be a leading progressive voice for decades and helped launch the careers of Elena Kagan and Barack Obama. Beyond the call for us to find our humanity, these examples demonstrate that protests are still and perhaps increasingly a method of crucial political participation.

This also means that society must become better at protesting. To this end, ten members of the Common Futures Conversations community discuss impactful protest below. You must focus on facilitating and strengthening dialogue mechanisms between the government and citizens. Antagonistic and violent strategies often prove counter-productive in bringing about sustainable and concrete change. Instead, protesters need to reach out both to those in power and unconvinced citizens through peaceful methods.

Responsible citizens have an obligation to provide solutions and to institutionalize them in an inclusive way. When protests erupted in Chile in October over a rise in public transport fees, they were initially disjointed and disorganized.

Many different groups, each voicing their own grievances, took to the streets and the government responded brutally. Key civil society groups and political parties then stepped in and soon enough found consensus around a single set of demands, to be pursued through a referendum process. Through the referendum, all Chileans were able to quantify support for concrete change, as a constitutional process was backed by an overwhelming majority of the electorate.

The road to achieve sustainable change is always long for protesters but through dialogue mechanisms, you can institutionalize channels to voice grievances to those in power and increase the likelihood of success.

For a protest to be powerful, you must communicate clearly about why you are protesting and what changes you desire. When it comes to communication, there are clear lessons to draw from the MyDressMyChoice protests in Kenya. In , a woman in Kenya was publicly stripped by men at a bus station and groped for wearing a mini skirt.

The men claimed she tempted them. Thousands of Kenyan women were angered by the act and the constant abuse of women while in transit. The incidence gave birth to the MyDressMyChoice protests where Kenyan women took to the streets to demand the elimination of all forms of violence against women and, in particular, calling for prosecution of the men who stripped the woman and for this to be explicitly be made illegal.

The men were arrested and prosecuted and it is now illegal in Kenya to strip a woman. Although we have a long way to go in terms of protecting women in public spaces in Kenya, the MyDressMyChoice protests made it clear that if you assault a woman you will be prosecuted. A key reason for the success of the protest was that Kenyan women were very clear in their demands.

From the Arab Revolution to the MeToo movement, both traditional and digital platforms have provided a valuable contribution through their ability to spread news, create visual representations of events and extending the potential for active engagement beyond physical barriers. During the pandemic, mass gatherings represented a health hazard for both individuals and the wider community.