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DEMOCRATIC PHOENIX: PIPPA NORRIS. APSA 2002. 8/8/2002 1:17 PM
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Democratic Phoenix
Agencies, Repertoires, & Targets of Political Activism
Pippa Norris
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Pippa_Norris@Harvard.edu
www.pippanorris.com
Synopsis: There is widespread concern about declining levels of conventional political
participation, exemplified by electoral turnout and party membership, as well as eroding
engagement through civic associations such as churches and unions. But there are many
reasons why this focus may have overlooked some important ways that modes of political
activism have been reinvented in recent decades. This paper argues that traditional
theoretical and conceptual frameworks derived from the literature on participation in the
1960s and 1970s, and even the core concepts, need to be revised and updated to take
account of how opportunities for political activism have evolved and diversified in the late
twentieth century. Part I of this study theorizes about shifts in the nature of political
activism in terms of the agencies (collective organizations), repertoires (the actions
commonly used for political expression), and targets (the political actors that participants
seek to influence). Part II examines cross-national evidence for the rise of protest politics,
the characteristics of those engaged in protest, and whether there is considerable overlap
today between conventional and protest modes. Part III focuses upon environmental
activists, taken as exemplifying participation via new social movements, to see whether
these participants are particularly attracted towards protest politics. The conclusion
considers the implications for understanding trends in civic engagement and for the future
of representative democracy.
Paper for presentation at Panel 14-8 Political Activism, Participation, and
Identification Friday, Aug 30, 10:45 AM at the annual meeting of the American Political
Science Association, Boston 29th August – 1st September 2002.
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There is widespread concern about declining levels of conventional political participation,
exemplified by electoral turnout and party membership, as well as eroding engagement
through civic associations such as churches and unions. But this focus may have
overlooked important ways that modes of political activism have been reinvented in
recent decades. This paper argues that traditional theoretical and conceptual frameworks
derived from the literature on participation in the 1960s and 1970s, and even the core
concepts, need to be revised and updated to take account of how opportunities for
political activism have evolved and diversified in the late twentieth century. Part I of this
study theorizes about three shifts in the nature of political activism including in terms of
the agencies (collective organizations), repertoires (the actions commonly used for
political expression), and targets (the political actors that participants seek to influence).
Part II examines comparative evidence for the rise of protest politics, who is most likely to
engage in protest in different countries, and whether there is considerable overlap today
between conventional and protest modes. Part III focuses upon environmental activists,
taken as exemplifying participation via new social movements, to see whether these
participants are particularly attracted towards protest politics. The conclusion considers
the implications of developments for understanding trends in political engagement and for
the future of representative democracy.
I: The Transformation of Political Activism?
Many are alarmed that Western publics have become disengaged from public affairs,
detached from campaigns, and bored with politics producing, if not a crisis of democracy,
then at least growing problems of legitimacy for representative government1. It is widely
suggested that the active involvement of citizens in public affairs has been falling away
over the years, potentially undermining the legitimacy of more fragile democracies, and
widening the gap between citizens and the state. One does not need to subscribe to the
stronger claims of ‘strong’, ‘direct’ or participatory theorists of democracy to believe that
any long-term hemorrhage in electoral turnout, party membership and associational
activism is, and should be, a matter of genuine concern. Pollyannerish optimism and
Panglossian sentiments should be avoided. Yet despite the weight of the conventional
wisdom, the evidence of secular decline often remains scattered and patchy; consistent
and reliable longitudinal trend data is limited; and most previous systematic research has
been restricted to case studies of particular countries, particularly the United States, and
comparative evidence among established democracies in Western Europe, making it
hard to generalize more widely. An established democracy like the United States which
combines both exceptionally low turnout and exceptionally strong associational activism,
by definition cannot be regarded as setting the global standard followed by the rest of the
world.
Conceptual frameworks for understanding modes of political participation that
were developed in the 1950s and 1960s commonly still shape our current assumptions.
Yet these models were developed to account for activism within a particular time and
place. The expansion of the franchise in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
generated the rise of traditional channels for political mobilization and expression in
representative government, particularly the growth of extra-parliamentary party
organizations, the spread of cheap mass-circulation newspapers, and the establishment
of traditional groups in civic society exemplified by the organized labor movement, civic
associations, voluntary groups, and religious organizations. By the 1940s and 1950s
these channels had settled and consolidated to become taken for granted as the major
institutions linking citizens and the state within established democracies. The core
argument of this study is that rising levels of human capital and societal modernization
mean that today a more educated citizenry living within postindustrial societies has many
opportunities to engage in a diverse range of repertoires, including combining electoral
activities and protest politics. In post-industrial societies the younger generations, in
particular, have become less willing than their parent’s and grandparents to channel their
political energies through traditional agencies exemplified by parties and churches, but
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are more likely to express themselves through a variety of more ad hoc, contextual and
specific activities of choice, increasingly via new social movements, Internet activism, and
transnational policy networks. The core claim is that agencies, channels and targets have
diversified and evolved during the postwar era.
Agencies
The issue of ‘agency’ concerns the organizational structures through which
people mobilize for political expression, particularly differences between traditional
interest groups and alternative new social movements2. Interest groups that evolved with
the rise of democracy in nineteenth and early twentieth century in industrial societies
usually involved regularized, institutionalized, structured, and measurable activities:
people signed up and paid up to become card-carrying members of the Norwegian trade
unions, the American Elks, and the British Women’s Institute. Interest groups and parties
typically had Weberian bureaucratic organizations, characterized by formal rules and
regulations, fulltime paid officials, hierarchical mass-branch structures, and clear
boundaries demarcating who did, and did not, belong3. Our parents and grand-parents’
generations often served on a local governing board or belonged to community
associations, holding fundraisers, publishing newsletters, manning publicity stalls,
chairing meetings, and attending socials for the Red Cross, the Parent-Teacher
Association, and the Rotary club.
Many studies suggest that recent decades have seen the rise of new social
movements and transnational advocacy networks as an alternative mechanism for
activists, yet one far more amorphous and tricky to gauge4. Networked agencies are
characterized by direct action strategies and Internet communications, loose coalitions,
relatively flat organizational structures, and more informal modes of belonging focused on
shared concern about diverse issues and identity politics5. Theorists suggest that the
capacity for social movements concerned about issues like globalization, human rights,
debt-relief, and world trade to cross national borders may signal the emergence of a
global civic society6. Traditional hierarchical and bureaucratic organizations persist, but
social movements may be emerging as the most popular avenue for informal political
mobilization, protest and expression. If this shift has occurred, it has important
implications for interpreting and measuring trends in civic engagement. In particular, if
studies are limited to traditional indicators of political participation, such as party
membership, union density, and voting turnout, then any apparent erosion of civic
engagement may disguise the simultaneous transformation towards alternative
movements characterized by fuzzier boundaries and informal forms of support.
Repertoires
The question of agencies is closely related to that of ‘repertoires’, meaning the
ways that people choose to express themselves politically. Much of the traditional
literature on political participation has focused extensively upon conventional repertoires
of civic engagement. Rather than a unidimensional ‘ladder of participation’, the original
typology developed by Verba and his colleagues distinguished among four main ‘modes’
of political participation: voting, campaign activism, community organizing, and
particularized contacting activity7. These modes differed systematically in their costs and
benefits. Voting, for example, can be classified as one of the most ubiquitous political
activities, yet one that exerts diffuse pressure over leaders, with a broad outcome
affecting all citizens. Campaign work for parties or candidates like leafleting, attending
local party meetings, and get-out-the-vote drives, also typically generates collective
benefits, but requires greater initiative, time and effort than casting a ballot. Communal
organization involves cooperation with others on some general social issue, such as
raising money for a local school, or helping at an arts collective, with varying demands
depending upon the level and kind of activism. Lastly, particularized contacting, like
writing to an elected official about a specific problem, requires high levels of information
and initiative, generating individual benefits but little need for political cooperation. These
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conceptual distinctions remain important, so this study has maintained this tradition by
examining the three most common repertoires of political expression generating
collective benefits, namely: voting turnout, party campaigning, and community organizing
in civic society.
But the early literature also drew an important line between ‘conventional’ and
‘protest’ forms of activism, and it is not clear whether this distinction remains appropriate
today. Recent decades have seen a diversification of the types of activities used for
political expression. In particular, new social movements may be adopting mixed action
repertoires combining traditional acts such as voting and lobbying with a variety of
alternative modes such as Internet networking, street protests, consumer boycotts, and
direct action. The use of mass demonstrations in radical movements is nothing novel;
indeed historically there have been periodic waves of protest and vigorous political
dissent by citizens throughout Western democracies8. The mid-1950s saw the start of
the most recent cycle of organized protest politics in established democracies,
symbolized by passive resistance techniques used by the civil rights movement in the US
and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Western Europe9. The following decade
saw the resurgence of direct action with the anti-Vietnam demonstrations, the fashionable
wave of student protest movements and social upheaval that swept the streets of Paris,
Tokyo and London, the espousal of community action by new social movements
concerned about women’s equality, nuclear power, and the environment, the use of
economic boycotts directed against apartheid in South Africa, and the adoption by trade
unions of more aggressive industrial action, including strikes, occupations, blockades and
mass demonstration, occasionally accompanied by arson, damage and violence, directed
against Western governments10. This development generated studies of ‘protest
potential’ by Barnes and Kasse, among others, examining the willingness of citizens to
engage in forms of dissent such as unofficial strikes, boycotts, petitions, the occupation of
buildings, mass demonstrations, and even acts of political violence11. The late 1980s and
early 1990s saw the spread of ‘people power’ which helped to topple the old regimes in
Central and Eastern Europe, followed by the anti-capitalism and anti-globalization forces
of the late 1990s.
During the late-1960s and early 1970s protests by anti-war hippies, black power
advocates, militant workers, progressive intellectuals, students, and feminists were
commonly regarded as radical politics, or even the start of violent revolutionary ferment.
Today there remains a substantial difference between peaceful protests and violent
political acts which harm property or people, exemplified by long-standing ethnic-
nationalist and ethnic-religious conflict in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka,
Colombia, and the Basque region, and the events surrounding the destruction of the
World Trade Center. Incidents of violent terrorist activities, assassinations, hijackings and
the use of bombs for political purposes all fall into this category. Despite this distinction,
developments in recent decades mean that the sharp dividing line drawn in earlier
studies between ‘conventional’ electoral activities and peaceful protests has dissolved
somewhat over time. Lawful street demonstrations are often used today by political
parties, traditional interest groups and unions, as well as by ordinary middle-class
citizens. Studies suggest that the number of people willing to attend lawful
demonstrations has risen since the mid-1970s, so that the social characteristics of the
protest population have gradually ‘normalized’12. Public demonstrations are used today
by a multiplicity groups ranging from Norwegian anti-fuel tax car-owners to Florida
retirees protesting the ballot design of Miami-Dade county, Philippino ‘people power’
intent on ousting President Estrada, local farmers critical of the McDonaldization of
French culture, the nouveau poor locked out from bank accounts in Argentina, Uruguay
and Brazil, street theatre like the gay Mardi Gras in Sydney, and consumer boycotts such
as those used against British supermarkets stocking genetically-modified foods. Events
at Genoa combined a mélange of mainstream charities like Oxfam and Christian Aid, as
well as radicals like British Drop the Debt protestors, the German Freie ArbeiterInnen
Union, and Italian anarchists like Tute Bianchi and Ya Basta! Collective action through
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peaceful channels has become a generally accepted way to express political grievances,
voice opposition, and challenge authorities.
Direct action strategies have also broadened towards engaging in life-style
politics, where the precise dividing line between the ‘social’ and ‘political’ breaks down
even further, such as volunteer work at recycling cooperatives, helping at battered
women’s shelters, or fundraising for a local hospital, as well as protesting at sites for
timber logging, the location of airport runway expansions, and the use of animals in
medical research. It could be argued that these types of activities, while having important
social and economic consequences, fall outside of the sphere of the strictly ‘political’ per
se. This conceptualization would demarcate between, for example, running the Parent-
Teachers Association fund drive (understood as a social activity) and pressuring local
officials to increase public spending upon education (understood as a political activity).
Yet the distinction between the ‘public’ and the ‘private’ spheres remains controversial, as
the feminist literature has long emphasized13. Social movements often seek to reform the
law or influence the policy process, as well as directly altering systematic patterns of
social behavior, for example by establishing bottle bank recycling facilities, battered
women’s shelters, and art collectives. In many developing societies, loose and
amorphous networks of community groups and grass-roots voluntary associations often
seek direct action within local communities over basic issues of livelihood, such as
access to water, the distribution of agricultural aid, or health care and schools14. The
‘social’ and the ‘political’ are commonly blurred around issues of identity politics, where,
for example, a revivalist meeting of ‘born again’ Christians in South Carolina, a gay and
lesbian arts festival in San Francisco, or the Million Man March in DC, can all be
understood as expressions or assertions of political communities. Therefore in general
the older definition of political participation, based on citizenship activities designed to
influence government and the policy process within the nation-state, seems unduly
limited today, by excluding too much that is commonly understood as broadly ‘political’.
Accordingly as well as analyzing electoral turnout, party work, and civic activism, studies
of political participation also need to compare legitimate protest activity as a common
mainstream form of expression today.
Targets
This leads towards a closely related and equally important development, namely
whether the target of participation, meaning the actors that people are attempting to
influence, has widened well beyond the nation-state. Traditional theories of
representative democracy suggest that citizens hold elected representatives and
governments to account directly through the mechanism of regular elections, and
indirectly in intra-electoral periods via the news media, parties, interest groups, NGOs
and social movements in civil society. Verba, Nie and Kim, for example, defined political
participation as “…those legal activities by private citizens that are more or less directly
aimed at influencing the selection of governmental personnel and/or the actions they
take.”15 Within this model, typical state-oriented activities are designed to influence the
institutions of representative government and the policy process, to communicate public
concerns to government officials, and to pressure them to respond. These activities
remain important, but today the diffusion of power following the simultaneous process of
both globalization and decentralization, means that this represents an excessively narrow
conceptualization that excludes some of the most common targets of civic engagement.
Non-state oriented activities are directed towards diverse actors in the public,
non-profit and private sectors. Well-known examples include international human rights
organizations, women’s NGOs, transnational environmental organizations, the anti-
sweatshop and anti-land mines networks, the peace movement, and anti-globalization
and anti-capitalism forces16. The targets are often major multinational corporations, such
as consumer boycotts of Nike running shoes, McDonald’s hamburgers, and Californian
grapes, as well as protest demonstrations directed against international agencies and
intergovernmental organizations, such as the World Trade Organization, the World
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Economic Forum in Davos, and the European Commission17. The process of
globalization is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, but one of the clearest political
manifestations of this development is the declining autonomy of the nation-state,
including the core executive, as power has shifted simultaneously towards
intergovernmental organizations like the U.N. and WTO, and down towards regional and
local assemblies18. Moreover the ‘shrinkage of the state’ through initiatives such as
privatization, marketization and de-regulation mean that decision-making has flowed
away from public bodies and official government agencies that were directly accountable
to elected representatives, dispersing to a complex variety of non-profit and private
agencies operating at local, national and international levels19. Due to these
developments, it has become more difficult for citizens to use conventional state-oriented
channels of participation, exemplified by national elections, as a way of challenging those
in power, reinforcing the need for alternative avenues and targets for political expression
and mobilization.
II: Evidence for the Rise of Protest Politics
For all these reasons, therefore, any conceptualization and measurement of the
mainstream forms of civic engagement and political participation needs to take account of
the way that the agencies, repertoires and targets may have been transformed since the
classic studies of the 1950s and 1960s. Not all these claims can be examined from the
available evidence here, within the scope and methodology of this limited study, but in
this paper we can explore the propensity to engage in protest politics and to support the
environmental movement, to see whether these are distinct dimensions of political
participation today compared with the channels of electoral, party, and civic activism, and
to consider how we explain patterns of protest politics and support for new social
movements in different countries.
One major challenge facing attempts to understanding and document the extent
of protest politics is that these activities are often situational rather than generic. In other
words, demonstrations, occupations and unofficial strikes are often triggered in reaction
to specific events and particular circumstances, depending upon the structure of
opportunities generated by particular issues, specific events and the role of leaders,
rather than reflecting the distinctive social or attitudinal profile of citizens20. The American
and British use of air strikes in Afghanistan triggered an outpouring of street rallies in
Karachi, Jakarta and Islamabad, but it is doubtful if residents would have displayed
particularly a-typical propensities to protest outside of this context. In the past specific
critical events such as the American urban riots in the 1960s, reactions to the Vietnam
War, the decision to site US nuclear weapons at Greenham Common, and the Chernoble
disaster, may have played a similarly catalytic function, leading to approaches focusing
on event analysis21. Reflecting these considerations, studies have often focused on
‘protest potential’, or the propensity to express dissent. Yet this can be problematic:
surveys are usually stronger at tapping attitudes and values rather than actual behavior,
and they are generally more reliable at reporting routine and repetitive actions (‘How
often do you attend church?’) rather than occasional acts. Unfortunately hypothetical
questions (‘might you ever demonstrate or join in boycotts?’) may well prove a poor
predictor of actual behavior. These items may prompt answers that are regarded as
socially acceptable, or just tap a more general orientation towards the political system
(such as approval of freedom of association or tolerance of dissent)22. Given these
limitations, this study focuses on those acts that people say they actually have done,
taken as the most accurate and reliable indicator of protest activism, and excludes those
that people say they might do, or protest potential.
Dimensions of Activism
The first issue to analyze is whether there continues to be a distinct dimension of
‘protest’ politics, or whether this has now become merged with other common activities
like joining unions or parties. Following the tradition established by Barnes and Kaase,
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protest activism is measured using five items in the World Value Survey, including
signing a petition, joining in boycotts, attending lawful demonstrations, joining unofficial
strikes, and occupying buildings or factories. Factor analysis can be used to examine
whether these activities fall into a distinct dimension compared with ‘conventional’ forms
of participation exemplified by electoral turnout, political party membership, and
belonging to civic groups like unions, religious-organizations, sports and arts clubs,
professional associations, charitable associations, environmental groups.
[Table 1 about here]
The results of the factor analysis presented in table 1 confirm that, as expected,
three distinct modes of political participation emerge. All the protest items cluster
consistently together, suggesting that a citizen who would do one of these activities
would probably do others as well. In contrast, civic activism emerged as another
distinctive dimension, so that belonging to parties was inter-correlated with membership
of unions and social clubs. Lastly electoral turnout proved a third distinctive dimension of
participation; as commonly emphasized the relatively low-cost, low-benefit aspect of
casting a vote means that it is atypical of the more demanding types of engagement. As
the result of the analysis a ‘protest activism’ scale was constructed, ranging from low
(zero) for someone who had no experience of any of the acts to high (5) for someone
who had actually done all five types of protest acts.
[Figure 1 about here]
The Distribution of Activism
How many have experience of these different types of activities? Table 2 shows
the frequency of protest behavior in the mid-1990s, compared with the standard
indicators of conventional forms of participation, across different types of political system.
Of these, the most popular protest activities across all countries were signing a petition,
done by 28% of all citizens, attending a demonstration (16%) and joining a consumer
boycott (9%). In contrast, industrial action was confined to a small minority (5%), as was
occupying a building (2%). Among the conventional acts, discussing politics, voting
turnout, and civic activism (belonging to at least one voluntary association) all proved by
far the most common, involving about two-thirds of the public. These acts were obviously
far more ubiquitous than protest politics. On the other hand, petitioning, demonstrating
and boycotting were all fairly common acts, far more so than being an active party
member. The comparison across different political systems shows that these activities
were consistently most common among older democracies with the longest tradition of
active citizenship, but nevertheless the difference among semi-democracies and even
non-democracies was far less than might have been expected based on the opportunities
for political rights and civil liberties in these countries.
[Table 2 about here]
Trends in Protest Politics
Has there actually been a rise in the number of people involved in protest and
demonstration politics, as so often assumed? One familiar problem is that we often have
to rely upon impressionistic accounts of these events, derived largely from the news
headlines, but this could reflect biases within the mass media rather than changes in the
real world. Some doubt whether we can assume that protest politics has grown. Survey
evidence in the United States, Putnam argues, indicates only modest growth in
nationwide rates of demonstration and protest over the last quarter century, with actual
involvement in ‘movement-type’ political actions confined to a ‘small and aging fraction of
the population’23. Moreover although he acknowledges that public protests in Washington
exemplified by the Million Man March have become somewhat more visible in the news,
nevertheless he suggests that these events are often rootless and shallow, part of the
media spectacle but generating little continued activism within local communities.
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Others suggest that rather than a secular steady rise in the frequency of protest
and mass demonstration events, there are cyclical processes at work, characterized by
sporadic outbreaks like an irregular heart-beat. Tilly argues that historically there have
been periodic waves of protest and vigorous political dissent by citizens throughout
Western democracies and elsewhere24. If this is correct, then incidents of protest politics
in established democracies could be a passing fad of the hot-button politics of the 1960s
and early 1970s that faded with the end of the great civil right struggle, the Vietnam War,
and the Watergate generation.
Despite these claims, the systematic cross-national survey evidence that is
available confirms that a significant long-term rise in protest politics has indeed occurred.
Protest politics is not simply a passing fad of the hot politics of the 1960s and early 1970s
that faded with the end of the civil right struggle, the Vietnam War, and the Watergate
generation. Instead the proportion of citizens engaged in protest politics has risen, and
risen dramatically, during the late twentieth century. Eight nations (Britain, West
Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, the United States, Italy, Switzerland and Finland)
were included in the original Political Action survey conducted from 1973-1976. The
protest politics items were replicated in the same countries in successive waves of the
World Values Study25. The results of the comparisons of trends from the mid-1970s to the
mid-1990s in these nations, shown in Table 3, confirm that experience of protest politics
has surged steadily over the years. The proportion of citizens who had signed a petition
in these countries doubled from 32 to 60%; the proportion who had attended a
demonstration escalated from 7 to 19%; the proportion participating in a consumer
boycott tripled from 5 to 15%. Participation in unofficial strikes and in occupations
remains confined to only a limited minority, but even here there is evidence of growing
numbers.
[Table 3 about here]
Broader comparisons confirm that the rise of protest politics is by no means
confined to postindustrial societies and established democracies. Tables 3 show
experience of demonstrating from the early-1980s to the early-1990s in the wider range
of 22 societies for which evidence is available. The results confirm that demonstration
activism became more common in 17 nations, with particularly marked increases in
South Korea, the Netherlands and Mexico. In contrast, participation in demonstrations
only fell slightly in a few places, including Argentina and Finland. Across all these
societies, the proportion of citizens with experience of taking part in demonstrations rose
from 14 to 20 percent of the population during this decade. Table 4 shows that
participation through signing a petition has become even more commonplace, rising from
just over a third (38%) to half the population. Again steep rises in petitioning were evident
in South Korea, Mexico and the Netherlands, as well as in Northern Ireland, Belgium and
Sweden.
[Tables 3 and 4 about here]
The distribution of nations on the protest activism scale in Figure 1 compares the
countries where WVS data is available in the mid-1990s. Although we might expect that
protest might be strongest in countries without many other opportunities for democratic
participation, or that it would be most prevalent in poorer nations, in fact the results show
that it is strongest in established democracies and in affluent postindustrial societies.
There was a strong correlation between national levels of protest activism and the UNDP
Human Development Index (R=.529 Sig. 001), as well as with Freedom House measures
of democratization (R=.386 Sig. 001). Sweden, West Germany, Norway and Australia
lead the ranking, with poorer countries such as Ghana, El Salvador, India, Egypt lagging
at the bottom of the comparison.
[Figure 1 about here]
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Examples of dramatic events like the anti-globalization movement disruption of
international summits and the peace demonstrations triggered by the US air strikes in
Afghanistan suggest that willingness to engage in protest politics has increased in recent
decades in many places around the world, but on the other hand this perception could
reflect changes in the new media’s propensity to cover these events. Confirming the
more anecdotal evidence, there was an increase in the protest activism scale registered
in all the 23 nations where WVS survey was conducted in both the early 1980s and the
mid-1990s, with strong gains registered in some of developing countries such as South
Africa, South Korea and Mexico, as well as in older democracies like Switzerland,
Sweden and West Germany. There may be more media coverage of street
demonstrations, rallies and public meetings, but these images reflect real changes in
political behavior in many societies.
Who protests?
Earlier studies have shown that during the mid-1970s protest potential was
generally highest among the younger generation, the better educated, men, and the non-
religious, while public sector professionals and students were particularly active through
these channels26. In more recent years, however, some suggest that as protest has gone
from margin to mainstream so that the population willing to engage in such acts has
‘normalized.’27 Table 6 analyzes the social background of protest activists, measured by
whether people had carried out at least one protest act and the mean score on the
activism scale by social group, for the pooled WVS sample across all societies in the mid-
1990s.
[Table 6 about here]
The results show that by the mid-1990s one third of the public had carried out at
least one protest act. There was a modest gender gap, as expected, with men slightly
more willing to protest than women. But overall education proved by far the best predictor
of experience of protest politics, followed by social class. In a familiar pattern found in
many earlier studies, 40% of those with high education had protested, compared with
only one quarter of those with low education. In contrast to studies in the mid-1970s, the
age profile was curvilinear, reflecting common patterns found with civic activism. It was
the middle-aged who proved the strongest protest activists, with a fall off among both the
youngest and the oldest cohorts. Whether this is a life-cycle effect or a generational effect
is difficult to establish from cross-sectional data but this evidence probably suggests that
far from being confined to the student generation, as in the past, today the protest
activism has normalized as the 1960s and 1970s cohorts have aged.
III: Support for New Social Movements
How does protest politics relate to the growth of new social movements, and in
particular, as often assumed, are supporters of these groups more likely to engage in
demonstrations, boycotts and petitions than in elections and party work? One difficulty
facing any systematic analysis is that new social movements and transnational advocacy
networks encompass a diverse mélange of organizations and causes. As exemplified by
the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001, an estimated 700 groups attended the Genoa
Social Forum, ranging from traditional trade unions and charities like Oxfam and Christian
Aid, as well as groups concerned with peaceful protests about globalization, the
protection of human rights, environmentalism, the peace movement, poverty and debt
relief for developing nations, to the more radical anarchists and anti-capitalist forces at
the forefront of the ‘black block’.
Here we focus on environmental activism, taken as exemplifying typical forms of
participation in other new social movements. There is nothing novel about concern for
wildlife, biodiversity and preservation of natural habitats, indeed traditional British
associations in the voluntary sector that continue to campaign on these issues, founded
more than a century ago, include the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew (1840), the Royal
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Society for the Protection of Animals (1864), the National Trust (1895). But the late
twentieth century witnessed a dramatic rise in public concern about environmental
issues, membership in environmental groups, the formation of government environmental
agencies, and the number of environmental regulations and international treaties, making
this movement one of the most important forces in the policy process28. The diverse
organizational structure of environmental groups, and the emphasis on ‘life-style politics’
and direct action for recycling and environmental protection of local areas, exemplifies
many of the defining features of new social movements. Environmentalism encompasses
a diverse coalition: ecologists and peace activists, holistic theorists and anti-nuclear
power activists, feminists, animal rights activists, the organic farming movement, the soft
energy movement, consumers concerned about genetically modified food, and converts
from radical left groups, as well as traditional organizations seeking to preserve the
countryside and wildlife habitats. There are fuzzy boundaries. Support includes activities
as different as joining the Friends of the Earth or Greenpeace, recycling bottles and cans,
boycotting non-organic produce, signing a petition against a road development, helping
restore a local wildlife habitat, voting for a Green party, or protesting against a
multinational company29.
This study measures how far citizens had carried out a battery of five actions that
cover some of the most typical forms of environmental activism, as shown in table 7,
such as recycling, contributing to an environmental organization and attending a meeting
about these issues. Active membership of an environmental organization, used earlier to
gauge civic society, was added to this battery. Responses to all these six items scaled
consistently into a single dimension, and proved highly inter-correlated (Cronbach’s
Alpha=0.77). Table 7 shows that environmental activism varied across these items, from
40% of the public who said that they had tried to reduce water consumption for
environmental reasons down to 11% who had attended a meeting, signed a letter or
petition aimed at protecting the environment. The ‘lifestyle’ dimensions of activism all
proved more popular and widespread than those involving more narrowly policy-oriented
forms of support.
[Table 7 about here]
To examine who was environmentally active, Table 8 shows the distribution that
has done at least one environmental act and the mean score for groups on the scale. The
results show that two-thirds claim to have done at least one environmental act. There
was a slim gender gap, with women slightly more likely to be active on these issues than
men. But again education and class proved far stronger predictors of activism, reflecting
the well-known propensity for environmentalism to be strongest among the well educated
and among managerial and professional households. Age proved to be slightly
curvilinear, with environmentalism strongest among the early middle-aged, rather than
among the youngest cohort, but overall only a modest difference by age group.
[Table 8 about here]
Since the patterns that have been observed so far could be due to the type of
societies included in the comparison, Table 9 introduces models that control for levels of
human and democratic development, social structure and cultural attitudes. The models
then test for the impact of the environmental activism scale on four dimensions of political
participation. The results show two important and distinctive findings.
First, after introducing all these prior controls, environmental activism is
negatively associated with voting turnout and positively related to protest politics. The
associations are not particularly strong, but they are significant and they prove robust
against different statistical tests. This suggests that environmentalists are less likely than
average to cast a ballot in elections, and they are more likely to engage in protests such
as demonstrations, petitions, strikes, and boycotts. Figure 10.2 shows the clear
relationship at societal level between the two scales of environmental activism and
protest activism: postindustrial societies like Sweden, New Zealand, Germany and
DEMOCRATIC PHOENIX: PIPPA NORRIS. APSA 2002. 8/8/2002 1:17 PM
11
Australia that were strong on one dimension were often strong on the other as well, with
development displaying a curvilinear relationship. In these regards, the green movement
could indeed be regarded as the emergence of an alternative form of politics, as many
advocates claim, which may also be evident with other new social movements, such as
those concerned with feminism, human rights, or conflict resolution.
[Figure 2 about here]
Yet the second important finding is that at the same time environmental activism
is positively related to the conventional channels of party membership and civic activism.
Indeed, environmental activism is one of the best predictors of membership in all the
other forms of joining to community groups such as sports and arts clubs, as well as
professional associations and unions. This suggests that rather than an alternative and
distinctive form of civic engagement, people who are active through recycling, green
shopping, and donating to environmental groups are also likely to be found among many
other mainstream civic organizations. Activism through these channels can be regarded
as supplementary rather than zero-sum choices.
[Table 9 about here]
IV: Conclusions and Implications
Commentators highlight common warning signs that are believed to be
undermining the three central channels of mass activism, including sagging electoral
turnout, rising anti-party sentiment, and the decay of civic organizations. But are these
concerns justified? What this study suggests is that there are many reasons to believe
that there have been important changes in the agencies, repertoires and targets of
political activism. It is more difficult to find systematic evidence to analyze these issues,
but the analysis of protest politics and environmental activism presented in this limited
study presents four main findings:
(i) Factor analysis confirms that protest activism remains a consistent
dimension of political participation, which proves distinct from voting
participation, and from conventional civic activism through belonging to
parties, voluntary associations, and community organizations.
(ii) Many forms of protest politics, exemplified by petitions, demonstrations,
and consumer boycotts, have became increasingly popular in many
countries during the 1980s. Protest politics is not merely a passing
phenomenon, but instead it is on the rise as a channel of political
expression and mobilization.
(iii) Protest politics is particularly pervasive among the well-educated
managerial and professional classes in postindustrial societies, as many
other have suggested, but it has also become more ‘mainstream’ today.
By the mid-1990s protest was no longer confined to the students and the
younger generation. The social background of protestors today reflects
the propensity of groups to participate through conventional means as
well.
(iv) Lastly participation within new social movements is measured in this study
by environmental activism, which proved to be negatively related to voting
turnout, but positively linked to party membership, civic activism and
protest politics.
These conclusions are explored further elsewhere, including in research examining
the characteristics of protest activists, contrasting anti-state, strategic resource, and
contextual theories, with unique evidence drawn from demonstrators in Belgium30.
The general thesis outlined in this study is that before we can conclude that the
vitality of civic activism is under threat, studies of conventional forms of political
participation exemplified by electoral turnout and party membership need to take
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12
account of other alternative avenues for political expression to provide a more
balanced and holistic perspective. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the channels of
elections, parties, and interest groups were primary route for citizens to influence the
policy process within the nation-state but today the diversification of agencies,
repertoires and targets means that energies can and often do flow through new
tributaries. As a result of this process, governments face difficult challenges in
balancing and aggregating more complex demands from multiple channels, but from
the perspective of citizens this provides more diverse opportunities for engagement
that may well be healthy for representative democracy. In short, contrary to popular
assumptions, the traditional electoral agencies linking citizens and the state are far
from dead. And, like a Phoenix, the reinvention of civic activism allows political
energies to flow through diverse alternative avenues as well as conventional
channels.
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Table 1: Dimensions of Political Participation
Civic Activism Protest
A
ctivism
Voting
Turnout
Belong to environmental organization .680
Belong to charitable organization .647
Belong to art, music or educational organization .643
Belong to professional association .638
Belong to political party .584
Belong to sport or recreational organization .536
Belong to church or religious organization .521
Belong to labor union .423
Attend a lawful demonstration .765
Join in boycotts .764
Join unofficial strike .756
Sign a petition .687
Occupy buildings or factories .680
Voted in election .926
% Variance 20.1 19.6 7.2
Notes: Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with
Kaiser Normalization.
Protest activism: “Now I’d like you to look at this card. I’m going to read out some
different forms of political action that people can take, and I’d like you to tell me, for each
one, whether you have actually done any of these things, whether you might do it, or
would never, under any circumstances, do it.”
Source: World Values Survey, mid-1990s
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Table 2: Experience of Political Activism, mid-1990s
% ‘Have done’ Older
democracy
Newer
democracy
Semi-
democracy
Non-
democratic
All
Discuss politics 72.3 72.2 68.2 65.6 70.0
Voting turnout 73.1 68.9 56.3 60.8 64.5
Civic activism 73.0 60.3 63.1 40.7 62.4
Signed a petition * 60.7 22.6 19.4 10.0 28.5
Attended
demonstrations*
19.1 12.5 15.7 19.1 15.7
Joined in boycott * 17.1 6.7 7.5 3.0 8.9
Active union member 8.2 5.0 4.7 3.5 5.4
Joined unofficial strike * 4.8 4.4 5.6 5.2 5.0
Active party member 5.8 4.2 4.7 2.5 4.6
Occupied buildings * 1.5 2.0 1.6 0.3 1.6
Notes:
(Highlighted in italic) * Protest acts: “Now I’d like you to look at this card. I’m going to read
out some different forms of political action that people can take, and I’d like you to tell me,
for each one, whether you have actually done any of these things, whether you might do
it, or would never, under any circumstances, do it.” % ‘Have actually done’
Discuss politics: % ‘Frequently’ or ‘Occasionally’
Civic activism: Active or passive member of at least one voluntary association (i.e. a
sports club, arts club, environmental group, charitable group, excluding party or union)
Voting Turnout: Aggregate mean Vote/VAP 1990s.
Source: World Values Survey, mid-1990s
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Table 3 The Rise of Protest Politics, mid-1970s to mid-1990s
Mid-1970s
(i)
Early 1980s
(ii)
1990
(ii)
Mid-1990s
(ii)
Signed petition 32 46 54 60
Demonstrated 9141817
Consumer Boycott 5 8 11 15
Unofficial Strike 2344
Occupied buildings 1222
Notes:
Protest acts: “Now I’d like you to look at this card. I’m going to read out some different
forms of political action that people can take, and I’d like you to tell me, for each one,
whether you have actually done any of these things, whether you might do it, or would
never, under any circumstances, do it.” % ‘Have done’
The proportion of citizens who reported actual experience of these protest activities in
eight postindustrial societies (Britain, West Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, the United
States, Italy, Switzerland and Finland).
Sources: (i) The Political Action survey (1973-1976). (ii) World Values Survey.
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Table 4: Rise in Demonstration Activism, early 1980s to the early 1990
Early 1980s Early 1990s Change 1980-1990
South Korea 5.4 18.9 13.5
Netherlands 11.9 25.0 13.1
Mexico 7.7 20.2 12.5
Iceland 13.6 23.4 9.8
Italy 24.7 34.1 9.4
Denmark 17.8 27.0 9.2
Belgium 12.7 21.2 8.5
Canada 13.0 21.0 8.0
South Africa 6.4 13.3 6.9
Sweden 15.1 21.8 6.7
Australia 12.0 18.0 6.0
West Germany 13.8 19.5 5.7
France 25.8 31.2 5.4
Ireland 12.2 16.3 4.1
Britain 9.7 13.6 3.9
US 12.2 15.1 2.9
Japan 6.6 9.4 2.8
Northern Ireland 17.9 17.8 -0.1
Norway 19.4 19.0 -0.4
Spain 21.8 21.2 -0.6
Finland 14.2 11.9 -2.3
Argentina 18.8 14.6 -4.2
MEAN 14.2 19.7 5.5
Note: “Now I’d like you to look at this card. I’m going to read out some different forms of
political action that people can take, and I’d like you to tell me, for each one, whether you
have actually done any of these things, whether you might do it, or would never, under
any circumstances, do it.” % ‘Have actually attended lawful demonstration’
Source: World Values Survey.
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Table 5: Rise in Petitioning, early 1980s to the early 1990
Early 1980s Early 1990s Change 1980-1990
South Korea 15.7 40.6 24.9
Northern Ireland 33.0 57.9 24.9
Mexico 8.2 31.4 23.2
Belgium 21.6 44.5 22.9
Netherlands 33.1 50.1 17.0
Sweden 53.0 69.9 16.9
Canada 60.6 76.5 15.9
South Africa 17.1 31.5 14.4
Ireland 27.9 41.4 13.5
Britain 62.6 74.5 11.9
Japan 40.7 52.0 11.3
Iceland 36.7 46.6 9.9
Australia 68.7 78.6 9.9
West Germany 45.5 55.1 9.6
US 61.2 70.1 8.9
Denmark 42.0 50.3 8.3
France 43.8 51.4 7.6
Italy 37.5 44.2 6.7
Finland 29.0 34.0 5.0
Norway 54.4 59.4 5.0
Spain 20.6 17.5 -3.1
Argentina 28.6 21.4 -7.2
MEAN 38.3 50.0 11.7
Note: “Now I’d like you to look at this card. I’m going to read out some different forms of
political action that people can take, and I’d like you to tell me, for each one, whether you
have actually done any of these things, whether you might do it, or would never, under
any circumstances, do it.” % ‘Have actually signed a petition’
Source: World Values Survey.
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Table 6: Protest Activism by Social Background, mid-1990s
% Have done
at least one
protest act
Mean score
protest
activism
scale
Eta (Sig.)
All 33.7 .53
Gender
Men 36.1 .59
Women 31.5 .47 .07***
Age
18-24 30.6 .46
25-34 34.4 .55
35-44 36.4 .59
45-54 37.5 .61
55-64 35.2 .51
65+ 30.7 .42 .07***
Education
High education 40.5 .70
Medium education 33.7 .52
Low education 24.1 .35 .15***
Occupational Class
Managerial and professional 43.7 .74
Other white collar 43.1 .64
Skilled manual 32.4 .51
Unskilled manual 25.6 .38 .13***
Note: For the protest activism 0-6-point scale see Table 2. The strength (Eta) and
significance of the difference in the group mean is measured by ANOVA. Sig. ***=p.000
Source: World Values Survey, mid-1990s. (N.80583)
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19
Table 7: Environmental activism scale, mid-1990s
% ‘Yes’
Have you tried to reduce water consumption for environmental reasons? 40.8
Have you decided for environmental reasons to reuse or recycle something rather
than throw it away?
34.2
Have you chosen household products that you think are better for the
environment?
33.6
Are you an active or inactive member of an environmental organization? * 13.8
Have you contributed to an environmental organization? 11.5
Have you attended a meeting or signed a letter or petition aimed at protecting the
environment?
10.6
Note: “Which, if any, of these things have you done in the last twelve months, out of
concern for the environment?” (% ‘Yes’)
(*) Voluntary organization membership:
Source: World Values Survey, mid-1990s.
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Table 8: Environmental Activism by Social Background, mid-1990s
% Have done
at least one
environmental
act
Mean score
environmental
activism scale
Eta (Sig.)
All 63.9 1.43
Gender
Men 62.9 1.40
Women 64.8 1.46 .01***
Age
18-24 63.5 1.36
25-34 67.1 1.51
35-44 66.1 1.49
45-54 68.4 1.57
55-64 63.3 1.40
65+ 65.0 1.38 .05***
Education
High education 70.2 1.64
Medium education 65.2 1.45
Low education 56.0 1.16 .12***
Occupational Class
Managerial and professional 71.9 1.73
Other white collar 70.4 1.67
Skilled manual 65.6 1.41
Unskilled manual 59.0 1.19 .13***
Note: For the environmental activism 0-6-point scale see Table 4. The strength (Eta) and
significance of the difference in the group mean is measured by ANOVA. Sig. ***=p.000
Source: World Values Survey, mid-1990s. (N.80583)
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Table 9: Environmental activism and political participation, mid-1990s
Voting Turnout Party Member Civic Activism Protest Activism
b (s.e.) Sig. B (s.e.) Sig. B (s.e.) Sig. B (s.e.) Sig.
DEVELOPMENT
Level of human development 2.14 .300 *** -3.26 .135 *** -1.05 .088 *** .788 .047
***
Level of democratization .576 .020 *** -.035 .012 *** .045 .007 *** .049 .004
***
STRUCTURE
Age (Years) -.005 .001 *** .001 .001
-.005 .000
*** -.004 .000
***
Gender (Male=1) -.239 .050 *** .263 .029
*** .122 .016
*** .068 .009
***
Education (7-pt scale) -.128 .012 *** .027 .007
*** .071 .004
*** .028 .002
***
Class (10-pt scale) .003 .010
.011 .006
-.012 .003
*** -.023 .002
***
CULTURAL ATTITUDES
Political Interest (9-point scale) .374 .013 *** .313 .007 *** .068 .004
*** .103 .002
***
NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENT
Environmental activism (6-point scale) -.191 .018 *** .350 .010 *** .459 .006
*** .114 .003
***
Constant -2.71 -2.56 .649 -1.08
Nagelkerke R2 .171 .178
Adjusted R2 .174 .151
% Correct 94.7 84.7
Notes: Voting turnout and party activism in the mid-1990s are analyzed using logistic regression with the table listing
unstandardized regression coefficients, standard errors and significance. Civic activism and protest activism are analyzed using
linear regression models. Sig. *=p<.05 ** p<.01 ***p<.001 Human Development: Human Development Index 1990: Human
Development Report, NY: United Nations Development Program. Level of Democratization: Mean Freedom House Index of
political rights and civil liberties 1990-1996. www.freedomhouse.org. New Social Movement Environmental activism (6-point
scale). See Table 7. Cultural attitudes: The 9-point interest scale combined political discussion, interest, and the salience of
politics, which all also proved highly inter-correlated. Voting turnout (yes=1); Party member (inactive or active member); Civic
activism (scale of active or passive member of church, sports club, arts club, professional, union, charitable or other group);
Protest activism (5-point scale of having signed petition, joined boycott, demonstrated, joined unofficial strike, and occupied
building). For more details see Pippa Norris. 2002. Democratic Phoenix. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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22
Figure 1: Protest Activism by Nation, mid-1990s
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6
Taiwan
Moldova
Ghana
Bulgaria
Guatamala
Philippines
Ukraine
Russia
Belarus
Macedonia
Montenegro
Slovakia
Serbia
Venezuela
Estonia
Peru
Hungary
Poland
Azerjaiban
Chile
Colombia
Romania
Nigeria
India
Bosnia
Safrica
Czech
Albania
Lithuania
Spain
Argentina
Georgia
DomRep
Mexico
Latvia
Croatia
Uruguay
Slovakia
Japan
Finland
Bangladesh
Armenia
Skorea
Brazil
E.Germany
US
Norway
W.German
NZ
Australia
Sweden
Source: World Values Survey, mid-1990s.
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23
Figure 2:Environmental and Protest Activism, mid-1990s
Environmental activism
3.53.02.52.01.51.0.50.0
Protest activism
1.5
1.0
.5
0.0
Type of Society
Low development
Medium development
High development
Postindustrial
Rsq = 0.5455
Austl
SKor
Ger
US
NZ
Swe
Nor
Phil
Mex
Sp
Slov
Fin
DomR
Arm
Chil
Nigeria
Jap
Bng
Czech
Tai
Uru
Arg
Hung
SAfr
Slovk
Peru
China
Alb
Aze
Cro
Ven
Mac
Braz
Gha
Rom
Guat
Rus
Pol
India
Lith
Est
Bul
Lat
Geo
Mol
Ukr
Col
Environmental activism: See Table 7 for details.
Protest activism: See Table 1 for details.
Source: World Values Survey, mid-1990s.
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24
Note: This paper is drawn from Chapters 10 and 11 of a new book, Pippa Norris Democratic Phoenix:
Reinventing Political Activism (forthcoming September 2003) New York: Cambridge University Press.
Further details are available at www.pippanorris.com.
1 For a detailed review of the ‘crisis of the state’ literature discussing these claims see Pippa Norris. 1999. Critical
Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2 For a discussion of the conceptual distinctions and theoretical frameworks in the literature, as well as the structure,
function and organization of interest groups and new social movements, see Jeffrey Berry. 1984. The Interest Group
Society. Boston: Little Brown; Jack L. Walker. 1991. Mobilizing Interest Groups in America: Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press; Sidney Tarrow. 1994. Power in Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Charles Tilly.
1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley; Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Mayer
N. Zald. Eds. 1996. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements. New York: Cambridge University Press.
3 Jeffrey Berry. 1984. The Interest Group Society. Boston: Little Brown; Jack L. Walker. 1991. Mobilizing Interest
Groups in America: Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; Terry Nichols Clarke and Michael Rempel. 1997. Citizen
Politics in Post-Industrial Societies: Interest Groups Transformed. Boulder, Co: Westview Press.
4 Sidney Tarrow. 1994. Power in Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Charles Tilly. 1978. From
Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley; Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald.
Eds. 1996. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements. New York: Cambridge University Press; Russell J.
Dalton and Manfred Kuechler. Eds. 1990. Challenging the Political Order: New Social and Political Movements in
Western Democracies. New York: Oxford University Press; Margaret E Keck. and Kathryn Sikkink, 1998. Activists
beyond Borders - Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press; J.Smith, C.
Chatfield and R. Pagnucco. Eds. 1997. Transnational social movements and global politics: Solidarity beyond the
state. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press; H.Kriesi, D. D. Porta and Dieter Riucht. Eds. 1998. Social
Movements in a Globalizing World. London: Macmillan.
5 Mayer Zald and John McCarthy. Eds. 1987. Social Movements in an Organizational Society. New Brunswick, NJ:
Transaction Books; Anthony Oberschall. 1993. Social Movements: Ideologies, Interests and Identities. New
Brunswick: Transaction; David Meyer and Sidney Tarrow. 1998. Eds. The Social Movement Society: Contentious
Politics for a New Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield; Enrique Larana, Hank Johnston and Joseph R.
Gudfield. Eds. 1994. New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press;
Douglas McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald. 1996. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
6 James Rosenau. 1990. Turbulance in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity. Princeton: Princeton
University Press; Ronnie Lipschutz. 1996. Global Civic Society and Global Environmental Governance. Albany, NY:
SUNY Press.
7 Sidney Verba, Norman H. Nie and Jae-on Kim. 1971. The Modes of Democratic Participation: A Cross-National
Analysis. Beverley Hill, CA: Sage; Sidney Verba and Norman Nie. 1972. Participation in America: Social Equality and
Political Participation. New York: Harper Collins; Sidney Verba, Norman Nie and Jae-on Kim. 1978. Participation and
Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison New York: Cambridge University Press.
8 Charles Tilly et al. 1975. The Rebellious Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
9 Frank Parkin. 1968. Middle Class Radicalism. New York: Praeger.
10 Barbara Epstein. 1991. Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
11 Samuel Barnes and Max Kaase. 1979. Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies. Beverley
Hills, CA: Sage. See also Alan Marsh.1977. Protest and Political Consciousness. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage; Charles
Adrian and David A. Apter. 1995. Political Protest and Social Change: Analyzing Politics. NY: New York University
Press.
12 Peter Van Aelst and Stefaan Walgrave. 2001. ‘Who is that (wo)man in the street? From the normalization of protest
to the normalization of the protester.’ European Journal of Political Research. 39: 461-486.
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25
13 See Carole Pateman. 1988. The Sexual Contract. Cambridge: Polity Press; Anne Phillips. 1991. Engendering
Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
14 See Jonathan Baker. 1999. Street-Level Democracy: Political Settings at the Margins of Global Power.
Connecticut: Kumarian Press.
15 Sidney Verba, Norman Nie and Jae-on Kim. 1978. Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison
New York: Cambridge University Press. P. 46. See also Sidney Verba, Kay Schlozman and Henry E. Brady. 1995.
Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. P. 38.
16 Saskia Sassen. 1999. Globalization and its Discontents. New York: New Press; Margaret Keck and Kathryn
Sikkink. 1998. Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press; Michael Edwards and John Gaventa. Eds. 2001. Global Citizen Action. Boulder, Co: Lynne Reinner
Publishers; Peter Evans. 2000. ‘Fighting marginalization with transnational networks: Counter-hegemonic
globalization.’ Contemporary Sociology 29(1): 230-241.
17 Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, 1998. Activists beyond Borders - Advocacy Networks in International
Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
18 For a discussion see David Held. 1999. Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture London: Polity
Press; Joseph S. Nye and John Donahue. 2001. Governance in a Globalizing World. Eds. Washington DC: Brookings
Institution Press; Daniele Archibugi, David Held and Martin Kohler. 1998. Re-imagining Political Community: Studies
in Cosmopolitan Democracy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
19 Harvey B. Feigenbaum, J. Henig and C. Hamnett. 1998. Shrinking the State: The Political Underpinnings of
Privatization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
20 M. Kent Jennings and Jan W. van Deth, et al. 1989. Continuities in Political Action: A Longitudinal Study of Political
Orientations in Three Western Democracies. New York: Walter de Gruyter.
21 Dieter Rucht, Ruud Koopmans, Friedhelm Neidhart. Eds. 1998. Acts of Dissent: New Developments in the Study of
Protest. Berlin: Edition Sigma.
22 For a fuller discussion see Samuel Barnes and Max Kaase. 1979. Political Action: Mass Participation in Five
Western Democracies. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage; Christo[pher A. Rootes. 1981. ‘On the future of protest politics in
Western democracies: A critique of Barnes, Kaase et al., Political Action.’ European Journal of Political Research 9:
421-432.
23 Robert D. Putnam. 2000. Bowling Alone. New York: Simon & Schuster. P. 164-5.
24 Charles Tilly et al. 1975. The Rebellious Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; Sidney Tarrow. 1994.
Power in Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Charles Tilly. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley; Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald. Eds. 1996. Comparative
Perspectives on Social Movements. New York: Cambridge University Press.
25 It should be noted that not every nation was included in every wave of the WVS survey, so the average figures
across all eight nations are presented here, but further examinations suggests that this process did not influence the
substantive findings.
26 J. Craig Jenkins and Michael Wallace. 1996. ‘The generalized action potential of protest movements: the new
class, social trends, and political exclusion explanations.’ Sociological Forum. 11(2): 183-207.
27 Peter Van Aelst and Stefaan Walgrave. 2001. ‘Who is that (wo)man in the street? From the normalization of protest
to the normalization of the protester.’ European Journal of Political Research. 39: 461-486.
28 Russell Dalton. 1994. The Green Rainbow: Environmental Interest Groups in Western Europe. New Haven: Yale
University Press; Christopher Rootes. 1999. Environmental Movements: Local, National and Global. London: Frank
Cass.
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29 Pippa Norris. 1997 ‘We're All Green Now: Public Opinion and Environmentalism in Britain.’ Government and
Opposition 32(3): 320-339.
30 See Pippa Norris. 2002. Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activism New York: Cambridge University
Press; also Pippa Norris, Stefaan Walgrave, and Peter Van Aelst. (Forthcoming). ‘Who demonstrates? Anti-state
rebels or conventional participants?’ Available at www.pippanorris.com
