Global Protest Movements

Introduction

Two protesters hold flares aloft during a demonstration to protest government corruption and mismanagement that drew thousands to Beirut in October. Lebanon was one of many countries that were convulsed in protests last year. (Rayya Haddad)

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Overview

Enraged Lebanese took to the streets last Oct. 18 when their government announced a $6-a-month tax on calls made via WhatsApp and other online apps. One of the protesters in Beirut, Rayya Haddad, says, “As I was walking to my parents' house, a friend texted me about the demonstrations starting, so I went. There were blocked streets, burning tires — all the country was up in revolt.”

Within hours, the Cabinet scrapped the tax proposal, which was supposed to help ease a lingering economic crisis and rescue Lebanon's ailing telecommunications industry. But the demonstrations continued, and the “WhatsApp tax” protests morphed into what Haddad and her fellow protesters began calling a revolution.

A supporter of ousted President Evo Morales faces off against police during a protest in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in November. Demonstrations for and against Morales were part of a worldwide wave of protests in 2019. (AFP/Getty Images/Ronaldo Schemidt)

On Oct. 29, 11 days after the protests began, Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned — but even that did not satisfy anti-government demonstrators, who had swelled into the hundreds of thousands. “The protests … continued because people are fed up with government corruption and incompetence,” Haddad says.

Lebanon's protests bear many of the characteristics of those that roiled the world last year: Seemingly mundane local events, like a WhatsApp tax, spark demonstrations, which in turn unleash anger about more fundamental grievances such as government incompetence or social and economic inequality. A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, found that more than 37 countries experienced massive anti-government movements in the last few months of 2019 alone. This continued a decade-long trend, during which mass political protests increased by an annual average of 11.5 percent, the center reported.1

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“Protesters have taken to the streets to speak out about corruption, economic injustices, environmental questions, repression and a range of particular local issues,” Richard Youngs, a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, a part of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, wrote last fall. “Several protests have driven political leaders out of office; some have triggered draconian government reprisals. Mass mobilizations have occurred in democracies and nondemocracies and advanced and developing economies alike. They are now a major feature of global politics.”2

Maria Stephan, director of the Program on Nonviolent Action at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, puts it this way: “We are probably living in the most contentious time in recorded history.”

But early this year, as the deadly coronavirus spread rapidly around the world and governments instituted social distancing requirements and bans on public gatherings to limit the contagion, the mass street demonstrations that had characterized the protest wave largely came to an end. Many movements turned to other means of expressing dissent, such as strikes, boycotts or virtual protests on the internet, to keep their grievances before the public.3

Protesters generally acknowledge that the measures taken by governments have been necessary to protect public health. However, some also fear that authoritarian governments are using the coronavirus breakout as an excuse to exert powers to quash legitimate dissent. “We could have a parallel epidemic of authoritarian and repressive measures [closely] following … a health epidemic,” said Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the United Nations special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights.4

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Lebanon's protests followed a predictable pattern. Demonstrations often progress from small, discrete issues to larger, more encompassing ones, says Kai Thaler, a professor of global studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The movements “start out with small causes. Then, some people make the case for wider protests, and other people see the opportunity to express their own grievances, and things snowball.”

Recent examples include:

• France's gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protests, named for the high-visibility safety jackets that French motorists must carry, were triggered by a proposed increase in the national fuel tax in 2018. The tax was abandoned in April 2019.5 The size of the protests dwindled, but they continued as part of a wider anti-government movement.

• Protests erupted in Hong Kong in March 2019 when many citizens felt the city's limited autonomy from mainland China was threatened by a proposed extradition law in the Hong Kong Legislature. After five months of protests, the bill was withdrawn — but protests continued, with expanded demands for democratic guarantees.6 The emergence of the coronavirus diminished the size of the demonstrations, although movement participants vow to continue pressing their demands.7 (See Short Feature.)

• Bolivians took to the streets in October to protest once-popular President Evo Morales' extralegal effort to seek a fourth term in office. After three weeks, Morales fled the country, but demonstrations continued against his conservative interim successor, Jeanine Áñez, until coronavirus safety measures suspended street protests.8

• In Chile, student demonstrations in October over a 30-peso (4-cent) rise in rush-hour subway fares mushroomed into a protest against economic mismanagement and inequality that drew a million participants.9 The national Congress agreed to call a referendum (now postponed) in April on the question of creating a new constitution, meeting a key protester demand. President Sebastián Piñera promised to increase pensions. Demonstrations continued, however, amid complaints of harsh repressive tactics by police: According to press reports at least 30 demonstrators have been killed, though no official figure is available.10 The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights reported some 28,000 were jailed.11

• In November, increased fuel costs triggered protests in Iran. Then, in January, the government's lack of transparency over its reporting of the downing of a Ukrainian airliner led to another nationwide protest. Security forces quelled both; neither protest led to noticeable change in government policies.12

Experts see the trend toward more protests as signaling an erosion of faith in governments' ability to solve problems, and even in democracy itself. “More people are motivated to engage in nonviolent mobilization because of a seeming inability of governments around the world to address major challenges of our time,” says Erica Chenoweth, a professor of human rights and international affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. “People believe our political institutions are not equipped to address national problems that also affect people locally.”

Chenoweth adds, “There's also a rising tide of authoritarianism. There are fewer democracies in the world than there were 10 years ago, and more democracies at risk today than in a very long time. People are resisting this authoritarian march.”

Although the number of protests has increased dramatically, there is no guarantee that they will achieve their objectives. Political analyst Youssef Cherif, deputy director of Columbia University's Global Center in Tunisia, said, “Staging [demonstrations] is no longer the difficult part. The problem is what to do after the protests, how to make your point and achieve the goals you're protesting for…. You can break off part of a system, but it's very hard to break the whole structure … of institutions and networks.”13

Authoritarian regimes often resort to violence to end opposition protests.

In Iran, which is controlled by a theocratic Islamist regime, the human rights group Amnesty International said it had seen credible reports that security forces killed at least 208 protesters during last year's protests.14 The U.S. State Department, pointing to unspecified “international media reports,” put the number killed at approximately 1,500.15

Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, believes repression will not stop the protests. “The future of Iran is completely tied to whether the government will represent the people's interests or try to suppress them,” he says. “If they continue to kill and to refuse to tolerate any dissent, we're sure to see more dissent and more violence in the future.”

And even nominally democratic governments, such as Chile's, can adopt harsh measures. Alexa Schaeffer Quintero, an American working in Santiago, who took part in some of the protests there, says, “As the weeks passed, the police's repressive tactics got worse — the police used rubber and metal bullets that caused hundreds of flesh wounds and eye injuries. During protests the water tanks sprayed a yellowish water that caused a burning sensation…. My fear was never of the actions of other protesters, only of the police and their excessive and unnecessary use of force.”

To protest police use of pellet guns, Chilean demonstrators hold placards depicting eyes in Santiago in December. The pellets caused numerous eye injuries during anti-government protests last fall. (AFP/Getty Images/Martin Bernetti)

Today, as in earlier times, there is lively debate over whether violent acts can advance the goals of protesters or will prove counterproductive.

Thaler, the University of California scholar, said violence can help further a movement's cause. “In Chile, protesters' willingness to fight with police and burn buildings, in addition to nonviolent tactics, helped push the government to make serious concessions,” he said. And violent protests pushed Bolivia's Morales to step down “amid unhappiness with his ignoring the results of a referendum and allegations of electoral fraud.”16

Stephan, of the U.S. Institute of Peace, says any benefits violence might lend to an otherwise nonviolent movement are short-lived. “If you add violence,” she says, “in the short term you get more media covering it, or you may get a morale boost, but over time you may see participation levels decrease, more people staying home. That, at the end of the day, ends up weakening the movement.”

While many protests are specific to a single society and its problems, some issues catalyze far-flung cross-border protests. Two examples are climate change and violence against women.

Millions of students around the world have rallied to demand climate action in both physical and online protests. Many were inspired by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who called for action to end climate-damaging practices in high-profile appearances at the United Nations and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.17

A movement against femicide — gender-based killing of women — has spread across Latin America and to other continents as well. According to the United Nations, some 87,000 women and girls were murdered worldwide in 2017 — 50,000 by a spouse, partner or close family member.18

As nations and their citizens confront both rising social tensions and a virulent virus, here are some of the questions they are asking:

Is the current protest wave a sign that democracy is failing?

It is no coincidence that the wave of protests has occurred at a time when there is also an upsurge in authoritarian regimes and rulers and increasing skepticism about democratic governance, Stephan says.

“This resurgent authoritarianism is probably linked to growing global inequality and sense of disenfranchisement,” she says. “People orient to those populist leaders who say they have the solutions to the problem. They're giving up on the traditional legislative and judicial processes that are seen to be ineffective, and look to the autocratic strongman to bring solutions.”

Some recent studies echo these views. According to the latest survey by Freedom House, a Washington-based organization that researches issues pertaining to democracy, last year 64 countries experienced a deterioration in political rights and civil liberties while just 37 experienced improvements. “The unchecked brutality of autocratic regimes and the ethical decay of democratic powers are combining to make the world increasingly hostile to fresh demands for better governance,” the group said.19

And a 2020 Pew Global Research study found “considerable dissatisfaction with the way democracy is working in many countries.” Across the 34 nations polled, 52 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with how their democracy was functioning. The biggest complaint was the feeling that political leaders were out of touch; Pew found that 64 percent “believe elected officials do not care what people like them think.” In the United States, 71 percent feel that way. Overall, the Pew study found that 59 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working in the United States.20

“I think we're living through an anti-establishment wave, and public frustration is at play,” says Chenoweth of Harvard's Kennedy School. “A lot of people think the electoral system isn't as representative as it should be, or perhaps as it used to be, and that institutions aren't responsive to urgent issues.”

She adds, “There's also a sense of gridlock, that public polarization has infected government institutions in ways that keep them from moving. The public is divided, so the institutions are divided, so much so that there's no wiggle room.”

Another gloomy assessment comes from the University of Cambridge in England. Its 2020 “Global Satisfaction with Democracy” report, which reviewed dozens of international surveys between 1995 and this year, found that “dissatisfaction with democracy has risen over time, and is reaching an all-time global high.” It said last year represented “the highest level of democratic discontent on record.”

The report marks 2005 as the high point for global satisfaction with democracy. Since then, it said, “democratic institutions around the world have faced setbacks ranging from military coups, to domestic crises, to the election of populist or authoritarian leaders willing to use their office to erode the independence of parliament, courts and civil society.”21

The Cambridge study's principal author, Roberto Foa, a lecturer in politics and public policy, says global democracy is in “a state of deep malaise.” He says, “In transitional democracies in Africa, Latin America, parts of Asia, many of the hopes and expectations that were raised during the democratic transition — better delivery of public services, better rule of law, more control over corruption — have been disappointed.”

In developed democracies, Foa says, “it's more to do with the consequences of the [2007–09] financial crisis and the eurozone crisis and the economic frustrations that created, and the feeling of being left behind without a voice.”

But Monica de Bolle, director of Latin American studies and emerging markets at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, says there is no evidence that democracy is dying.

“Nothing is linear,” she says. “We make progress, we take a step back, we make progress. To infer that democracy and democratic institutions are going away on the basis of what's been going on in the past very few years is overly pessimistic, even irresponsible.”

Democracy is complicated, de Bolle says. “Institutions need to be modernized, and they will modernize when there's discontent with what's happening. That's what will move things forward.”

Erica Frantz, a Michigan State University political science assistant professor, believes government institutions are falling short of their promise. “On one hand, it's cause for optimism that people are hitting the streets and protesting,” she says. “At the same time, the underlying cause of their frustration is that they don't feel their governments are delivering. If there is some sort of ideological battle between democracy and authoritarianism at the moment, it's up to these democratic governments to prove they can provide, and do all those things democracies are supposed to do.”

Haddad, the protester in Beirut, describes Lebanon as a “schizophrenic” democracy. “We have an open, free press,” she says. “That's why the government didn't put a blackout on the internet, it would have been unconstitutional. But we don't really have free speech — people have been imprisoned for criticizing the president.”

Thomas Carothers, founder and director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the surge of protests “is not a crisis of democracy per se, though a lot of democracies are facing pressure from their citizens — as are a lot of autocracies. Part of the paradox of governing is, the more you satisfy [citizens], the more demands they have. Sometimes good performance leads to high expectations, and you fail to meet them. It isn't a straight line between bad performance and failure to meet expectations.”

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And for all the turmoil and discontent, Stephan sees the protests as a sign of democracy's health. “People finding voice and employing it in institutional, extralegal ways is arguably very good for democracy — people believing they can bring about change through collective action,” she says. “That's a hopeful aspect of what we're seeing around the world: an exertion of agency.”

Is social media responsible for the recent wave of protests?

One thread linking recent mass protests is the use of social media as a recruitment and organizing tool.

Haddad, who participated in the WhatsApp tax protests in Lebanon, says social media played a huge role.

“It unites the people, people send flyers and documents, tell where the next protest is, when to meet, where people are gathering, what to bring,” she says. “People share stories, or photos. It's much more accurate than TV or other traditional media for following what's happening.”

Most scholars agree that social media has played an important part in modern movements, but add that there are limits to its value. “There's no question that social media is an accelerator of protest, but I wouldn't point to it as an original cause,” says Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment. “I think it's an accelerator of underlying causes.”

Social media has played an important role in the Hong Kong protests, activist and lawyer Angeline Chan says. Two platforms that have been especially important are Telegram, a Dubai-based messaging app that describes itself as heavily encrypted, and a Hong Kong forum, LIHKG, she says.

“These platforms are where people can come together and brainstorm and make plans,” Chan says. “They can get people together from all districts of Hong Kong, for example to form a human chain, or to start online petitions, for circulating posters — they're really the place to go for information.”

Tunisians call for the ouster of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis in 2011. The demonstrations forced the president to resign and touched off the Arab Spring protests that swept the Middle East that year. (AFP/Getty Images/Fethi Belaid)

Michigan State's Frantz, who studies authoritarianism, says that “access to new technologies facilitates more protests and helps reduce barriers to collective action. Protests are on the increase, and there's good evidence that it's due to the rise of social media.”

At the same time, she says, “dictatorships are using this technology to repress dissent — shutting down the internet, for example, or surveilling people online.”

And Frantz says that reliance on social media may, perversely, be undermining the ultimate success of protests.

“The logic behind this is that, before social media, to organize a protest you had to work hard to develop your organization and get feet on the ground,” she says. “Now, because it's easier to spread the word about a protest, the organizations that are backing them are weaker and less cohesive than in the past…. Opposition movements could become more resilient by strengthening their organizations offline and mimicking opposition movements of the past that didn't rely on social media to get going.”

Under an authoritarian regime, it can be difficult to use the internet to facilitate protests. That is the case in Iran, says Garrett Nada, program officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace's Center for the Middle East & Africa. In order to communicate more safely, he says, Iranian protesters must use a virtual private network, which allows a user to make an encrypted connection to a public network to block monitoring and bypass censorship.

“Most popular foreign social media platforms are banned, such as Telegram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter,” Nada says. “During the November 2019 protests, the regime resorted to shutting down the internet for five days to limit communications.”

At the same time, social media can create a diffusion of inspiration, ideas and tactics across borders — a “global contagion,” in the words of David Gordon, senior adviser in the Washington office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a research organization. “Seeing protests in other places motivates people to be willing to go to the streets in their own countries,” Gordon said.22

But Dawn Brancati, a research scholar at Yale University's MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, says pro-democracy protests in one nation are unlikely to be replicated in adjoining countries, because protests arise primarily from unique domestic conditions such as fraudulent elections or economic crises.

“Democracy protests can even dampen prospects for protests in neighboring countries,” Brancati says. “After all, national leaders watch the same regional developments that activists do, and can take steps to block protests in their own countries, like shutting down internet access and pre-emptively arresting activists.”

The 2011 Arab Spring, a wave of pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world, began in Tunisia. The protests, widely shared on Facebook and other social media, led within weeks to the resignation of the country's president and, subsequently, to democratic elections. Tunisia has been cited as an example of how a successful protest in one country can, thanks to social media, inspire similar events in another.

“The protests that brought down Tunisia's leader had an immediate impact — people in other Arab countries said, ‘Wow, we can do the same thing,’” says Kurt Weyland, professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin.

But while the unrest soon spread to Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and other countries in the region, it ultimately failed to achieve its fundamental goal of a democratic transformation in the Arab world.

“If change is not inspired by a country's own domestic reasons, then that change isn't likely to succeed,” Weyland says. “The Arab Spring brought democratization to one country: Tunisia. In the others it didn't succeed. Diffusion is a prediction of probable failure.”

Can protests bring about lasting change?

Several of 2019's protests have led to major changes. In Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq and Bolivia, leaders were forced out. Governments in Chile, France, Ecuador and Hong Kong made significant concessions in response to demonstrators' initial demands.

However, most of these protests have yet to produce the fundamental changes many protesters had sought. Bolivia's Morales was ousted for suspected election corruption, but replaced by an unpopular right-wing politician; new elections were scheduled for May but then postponed over coronavirus concerns. The Hong Kong extradition legislation, which would have allowed mainland China to extradite criminal defendants, was withdrawn, but the protesters' wider demands for greater democracy remain unfulfilled. Demonstrators' success in overthrowing Sudan's longtime dictator, Omar al-Bashir, has been thrown into question by repressive tactics on the part of the interim military government that succeeded Bashir.23

Sudanese protesters wave the national flag in Khartoum in February. Demonstrations last year toppled President Omar al-Bashir, but repressive tactics by an interim military government have sparked new protests. (AFP/Getty Images/Ashraf Shazly)

Youngs of Carnegie Europe believes what activists do after an action can determine the movement's success or failure. “What happens in the immediate aftermath of a protest is just as crucial as what occurs during the protest,” he said. “It is a major factor in determining whether mass protest becomes a force to restructure politics or ultimately remains a dramatic yet ineffective interlude in the status quo.”

Youngs is the editor of “After Protest: Pathways Beyond Mass Mobilization,” a Carnegie Europe report in which educators and other experts analyze 10 major recent domestic conflicts and how the choices made by the activists affected the outcomes.24

In Egypt, Youngs wrote, activists were ready for revolution but not prepared to govern in the aftermath. “Civic activist strategies after the 2011 revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak became highly polarized around a division between secularists and Islamists,” and a repressive authoritarian government filled the vacuum, he wrote.

Ukrainians, on the other hand, generally chose to work — albeit warily — with their new government after toppling President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Activists “moved into new roles of supporting the formally democratic [new] government but also sought ways to resist the government's growing reluctance to reform fully,” said Youngs. “The largest activist group has focused on local-level volunteering and community-organizing….”25

Whether a protest movement will succeed is difficult to forecast. “Nonviolent popular uprisings are among the least predictable events we see in humankind,” says Harvard's Chenoweth.

Stephan of the Institute of Peace says successful movements typically share a few central attributes. She says the key questions are: “Is the protest growing and bringing in new participants from different parts of society? How are they dealing with violent repression? Can they maintain nonviolent discipline? Are there loyalty shifts among key pillars of regime support, such as workers and security forces?”

In addition, she says, a successful protest will display “innovative, dispersed and coordinated use of tactics — more than just street protests, for example.”

Stephan notes one striking trend: “The overall success rate of nonviolent campaigns has decreased noticeably. Twenty years ago, about 70 percent of nonviolent campaigns succeeded in achieving their goals. Starting in the 2000s, that rate dropped to 30 percent. That's a staggering decline,” she says, one she attributes to an increase in authoritarian governments, which tend to use repressive tactics against protesters.

George Lakey, a retired professor in peace and conflict studies at Swarthmore College, says one thing is certain: A single protest is not sufficient to bring about change.

“In a one-off demonstration, your opponent knows perfectly well at the end of the day you're going to go back home, so the next day they continue doing what they've been doing,” says Lakey.

As a case in point, Lakey — who is also a longtime activist in support of progressive causes — recalls the massive Feb. 15, 2003, global protest against U.S. plans to go to war against Iraq. Perhaps as many as 11 million people gathered in at least 650 cities around the world — the largest one-day protest in history.26

But the demonstrations ultimately had no impact on the Bush administration's war plans, because other actions did not follow, he says.

“It was an amazing expression of public opinion, and it had very little impact,” Lakey says. “The one-off may persuade more people to agree with the protesters' point of view, but the newly convinced don't have a place to go without a campaign — a sustained series of actions.”

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Background

Peasants and Protestants

For centuries, social and economic inequality has been at the heart of protest. England's Peasants' Revolt of 1381 challenged the conditions of serfdom — heavy taxes, bondage to the land and a government-enforced income cap. The nobility quelled the uprising, but because the revolt demonstrated peasants' potential power, historians say it helped break down England's feudal system.27

The Protestant Reformation, sparked in 1517 by German monk Martin Luther, challenged the authority of the Roman Catholic Church (and gave “protest” its modern meaning). Luther questioned the church's right to define Christian practice. The Reformation, supported by princes seeking to replace the church's authority with their own, spread through much of Europe, resulting in Protestant dominance of much of the northern part of the continent by 1648.28

By preaching the leveling notion of a “priesthood of all believers,” Luther unintentionally inspired discontented agrarian workers to challenge social and political hierarchies, leading to another rebellion, the German Peasants' War of 1524-25. Like England's, it sprang from the social and economic inequality that were hallmarks of feudalism — and, like England's, it was put down by nobles' armies.29

In the late 18th century, colonists in British North America also chafed under what they regarded as unequal treatment, in that they were heavily taxed by Parliament but had no political representation in England. As taxes and trade restraints on the colonies increased, so did American resentment. Battles between British troops and American militias broke out in 1775 and the 13 colonies formally declared their independence in 1776. Britain's superiority in manpower and materiel was negated by its long, unreliable supply lines and the hemorrhaging effects of the rebels' guerrilla tactics. With the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the United States had secured its independence.30

Encouraged by the American example but motivated by their own grievances, French citizens rose up against their monarchy in 1789. Social inequality and onerous taxation were core concerns. In a bloody revolution, French citizens eliminated the absolute monarchy and the feudal system, adopting a new constitution in 1791. However, the ensuing government, inefficient and corrupt, was overthrown in 1799 in a coup d'etat led by Napoleon Bonaparte, who crowned himself emperor in 1804.31

Expanding literacy helped spread the writings of political thinkers and philosophers throughout Europe, and by 1848 the idea of revolution had taken hold throughout the continent. In January, Sicilians threw out the ruling Bourbon monarchy; revolutions in the states of the Italian peninsula erupted later that year. In February, the French overthrew their constitutional monarchy and replaced it with the Second Republic under Louis-Napoléon, nephew of Bonaparte. Revolution spread to the German states and to Austria, Denmark and Hungary in March.

The revolutions of 1848 enjoyed limited success; the dethroned monarchs soon returned to power. However, the upheavals resulted in some victories: Hungary gained autonomy within the Hapsburg Empire, the Italian states made progress toward a unified government, Austria ended the feudal system and abandoned press censorship and the German state of Prussia established an elective assembly.

Other European countries avoided 1848's revolutionary turmoil. Some had undergone earlier revolutions or civil wars and enacted reforms.32 Others pre-emptively instigated reforms demanded elsewhere and successfully avoided violent unrest; in the Netherlands, King William II voluntarily authorized a new constitution, including direct elections, and ceded royal authority.33

Birth of Nonviolent Resistance

Mohandas Gandhi, a 24-year-old Indian-born lawyer, moved to Natal, a British colony in present-day South Africa, in 1893. There, he quickly discovered the discrimination against people of Indian descent. When Indians lost the right to vote in 1894, he led protests against the colonial government.

Independence advocate Mohandas Gandhi leads supporters on a “salt march” to challenge British control of India in 1930. Gandhi's pioneering use of peaceful civil disobedience was widely copied by protesters elsewhere, including U.S. civil rights advocates. (Getty Images/Central Press/Hulton Archive)

Gandhi developed satyagraha, a philosophy of nonviolent resistance, and in 1915 brought it home to India. Although the British imprisoned him several times, he was instrumental in winning support for India's independence, and eventually became known as mahatma, or great soul. Gandhi, although himself a Hindu, was assassinated in January 1948 by a Hindu extremist because of his tolerance of India's Muslims, five months after India became independent from Great Britain.34

Gandhi's nonviolent philosophy and the struggle for racial equality came together in the U.S. civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr., an admirer of Gandhi, became a dominant figure in the movement, which sought full political, economic and social rights for African Americans. King's nonviolent strategy and powerful oratory helped build sympathy for the movement, as did the tactics employed by its participants, including acts of civil disobedience such as sit-ins — peaceful occupation by blacks of whites-only facilities — along with marches, boycotts and letter-writing campaigns.

Violence, or at least the fear of it, was also present in the movement, embodied by Malcolm X, who sought a separate society for African Americans. In 1964 he urged blacks “to fight whoever gets in our way … and bring about the freedom of [people of African descent] by any means necessary.”35 He was assassinated in 1965 while giving a speech in Harlem. Three members of the Nation of Islam, a group that Malcolm X once helped lead but had split from, were convicted of his murder. Many years later, amid doubts about the case, New York authorities reopened the investigation into his death.36

The Black Panther Party, formed in 1966, supported black nationalism, socialism and “armed self-defense.”37

Young civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963 are flattened against a wall by fire hoses. The images of police brutality against the marchers created widespread sympathy for their cause. (Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives/Frank Rockstroh)

Civil rights activism played a key role in bringing about several laws enacted in the 1960s to protect the rights of black Americans. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and in facilities such as stores, restaurants and hotels that served the general public.38 In 1965, the Voting Rights Act made it illegal to deny the right to vote based on race and set up a system of federal registrars to ensure that blacks could vote.39 The Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed racial discrimination in the sale, rental or financing of housing.40

King was assassinated in 1968; a white man with a racist past, James Earl Ray, was convicted of the crime.41 King's assassination sparked riots and rebellions in nearly 200 cities across the United States.42

Also in 1968, protests against the U.S. war in Vietnam swept the world. That was the year when the number of American troops in Vietnam peaked, and also when American public opinion turned against the war.43 Tens of thousands of mostly young demonstrators protested the war at the Democratic Party's national convention in Chicago. Violence outside the convention — later termed a “police riot” by the head of an investigating commission — and rancor and confusion within the hall crippled the Democrats and helped Republican nominee Richard Nixon win the presidency in November.44

Other events led some observers to compare 1968 to 1848 in the global sweep of the protests:

• In May, much of France shut down as tens of thousands of students, later joined by millions of workers, protested capitalism, consumerism and the Vietnam War.45

• Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia in August to end the Prague Spring, the government reforms instituted by Czech leader Alexander Dubček. Thousands of Czechs protested, but the Soviet military prevailed.46

• That summer, inspired in part by the French protests and the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, students in Mexico City protested for greater freedom. At a rally on Oct. 2, just days before Mexico hosted the Summer Olympics, soldiers fired into a crowd of thousands of students. Dozens died; the actual number killed is still in dispute. The protests and the violent reaction of the authorities are often cited as a key moment in the development of Mexican democracy.47

Soldiers round up student protesters who were seeking greater democratic freedoms on Sept. 23, 1968, in Mexico City. Nine days later, soldiers opened fire on a crowd of students, killing dozens. (AFP/Getty Images/El Heraldo)

A Democratic Moment

By the late 1980s, two decades after the Soviet crackdown in Prague, demands for political change were again rising within the communist world. This hunger for democratic reforms underpinned two major events in 1989.

In China, pressure was building for greater freedoms and an end to government corruption. That spring, protesters began gathering in Beijing's Tiananmen Square — perhaps as many as 1 million at one point. After weeks of internal Communist Party debate about how to handle the protests, the Chinese military forcibly cleared the square with tanks and troops. The government estimated the death toll at 200 civilians and several dozen security personnel; other casualty estimates ranged as high as 10,000.48 The Tiananmen Square events failed to democratize China, and they remain a sensitive issue for the authorities to this day — government internet censors still block content related to the protest.49

Also in 1989, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who had come to power four years earlier pledging greater openness, began loosening Moscow's control over its Eastern European satellites. Seeing an opportunity for independence, trade unions in Poland negotiated free elections. In November, after months of protests in Soviet-dominated East Germany, the wall separating communist East Berlin from democratic West Berlin was breached; Czechoslovakia overthrew its pro-Moscow government and, in the coming months, other Soviet allies broke away. In December 1991, the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist and its constituent states became independent.

Arab Spring and Grassroots Protests

In December 2010, police forbade a 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor to sell his produce because he had no official permit. Unable to make a living, the man, Mohamed Bouazizi, publicly immolated himself. Sympathy demonstrations evolved into nationwide anti-government protests that toppled the regime of longtime President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. It marked the start of the Arab Spring, a wave of pro-democracy demonstrations around the Middle East.50

When the Arab Spring ended, Tunisia's rebellion was the only clear success. Although the protests also brought about the downfall of leaders in Egypt and Libya, their successors proved no more democratic. Protests led to bloody civil wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen.51 The Arab Spring showed the power of social media to communicate, organize and mobilize, but also its limits in sustaining a movement.52

In 2007 a financial crisis brought about by risky practices by U.S. financial institutions spawned a global recession that lasted until 2009, the deepest slump since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the United States, a plummeting stock market, mortgage foreclosures and widespread unemployment contributed to the rise of populist movements on both the left and right in opposition to the political elite.53

In 2009 fiscally conservative Americans formed the Tea Party movement. Rallies in many states voiced opposition to what participants called big government and wasteful economic policies. In the 2010 midterm elections, the Tea Party helped end Democratic control of the House of Representatives and pushed the Republican Party further to the right, widening political polarization, fostering distrust of the federal government and helping to enable Donald Trump's election as president in 2016.54

On the left side of the spectrum, on Sept. 17, 2011, hundreds of demonstrators marched into a small park in New York City to protest what they called corporate greed and economic inequality. The Occupy Wall Street movement spread to other cities across the United States; it also had a presence in Canada, Europe, Australia and elsewhere. While it did not produce major structural changes, it made economic and social equality a part of the national political debate and helped fuel support for the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described democratic socialist.55

Other grassroots protest movements arose in the United States during and after the presidency of Democrat Barack Obama, who served from 2009 to 2017. The Black Lives Matter movement was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a white man accused of killing Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American who Zimmerman said was acting suspiciously.56 By publicizing shootings of unarmed blacks by white police officers, the movement has “forced [America] to confront its deep-rooted problems with race and inequality,” said a World Economic Forum report.57

Trump's 2016 election angered many who were upset by what they regarded as his demeaning attitude toward women.58 A Women's March on Jan. 21, 2017, the day after Trump's inauguration, drew hundreds of thousands of protesters to Washington and large crowds to events in other cities.59 Subsequent annual rallies were held, although the number of participants steadily declined.60 However, the movement is credited with encouraging women to run for political office; a record 117 women were elected to Congress in 2018.61

Frightened and angered by shootings in U.S. schools and frustrated by the lack of legislative action to prevent them, students began to protest. The March For Our Lives movement was started by students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., who were galvanized into action after a gunman walked into their school on Feb. 14, 2018, and killed 17 classmates and faculty members. The organization tries to maintain public attention through group protests and student walkouts.62 (See Short Feature.)

Gun owners and enthusiasts also have taken a stand. The National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun-rights groups have lobbied with considerable success against state and federal legislation that would restrict and regulate gun ownership.63 After Virginia's state elections in 2019 gave control of the Legislature to Democrats, and lawmakers then proceeded to enact stricter gun laws, a large crowd of pro-gun-rights protesters gathered at the state Capitol in Richmond on Jan. 20. The demonstration was peaceful.64

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Current Situation

Coronavirus Impact

The wave of protests in 2019 had been expected to continue and even expand as protesters dug in, and new movements formed, to press demands for government action on corruption, economic reform and other issues.

But the emergence of the coronavirus altered the landscape. While government responses to protesters' demands have blunted some protests and refocused others, public fear of the coronavirus and strictures imposed by governments as disease preventative measures have led to a decline in protesters' participation and enthusiasm.

In the Middle East, during what the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East expert Michele Dunne calls “the second wave of the Arab Spring,” pro-democracy protests in 2019 toppled longtime dictators Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria and Bashir in Sudan and forced the resignations of prime ministers Hariri of Lebanon and Adel Abdul-Mahdi in Iraq.

Despite these apparent successes, demonstrations continued because “the sense lingers of a job left unfinished,” said Bobby Ghosh, former editor of New Delhi's Hindustan Times, who writes about the Middle East. “The political systems in all four countries remain largely intact, in the hands of the elites that enabled the misrule protesters were hoping to end.”65

But in March, amid the threat of the coronavirus and strictly enforced government restrictions on public gatherings, the protests in the Middle East were largely suspended. Algerians ended their string of Friday protests after 56 consecutive weeks.66

On March 10, Lebanese protesters formed a human chain around the Palace of Justice in the capital of Beirut, but they wore masks and gloves and kept a distance from one another. On March 21, the government ordered security services to enforce social distancing and stay-at-home measures and to “prevent gatherings.”67 Since then, virtual outreach has replaced physical demonstrations: Activists livestream information sessions, stage social media campaigns and solicit funds.

Protests in other regions also were affected by the coronavirus. In Chile, protests over economic inequities, which ebbed at the end of 2019, resumed in early March, only to be dampened weeks later by the pandemic. “Plaza Dignidad, a place that has been the point of congregation for daily protests in Santiago since October 19th, is now completely empty,” says Schaeffer Quintero in Santiago.

On March 15 President Sebastián Piñera declared a 90-day “state of catastrophe,” giving the government powers to restrict freedom of movement and secure supply lines for food and medical supplies.68 The government also postponed for six months the scheduled April 26 referendum on whether to write a new constitution — a key protester demand — because of the virus.69

In Bolivia, elections to choose the successor to Morales had been scheduled for May 3, but the government postponed them, citing coronavirus concerns. The Bolivian electoral tribunal has proposed new dates between June 7 and Sept. 6.70

In Hong Kong, protests waned after the coronavirus arrived in the city. Organizers are exploring alternate ways of pressuring the government for change. (See Short Feature.) However, protesters began to defy the government's pandemic-related ban on public gatherings of more than four people. On April 24, 100 pro-democracy activists demonstrated at a Hong Kong shopping mall; on April 26, 300 demonstrators targeted another mall.71

Yellow vest protesters in France — which is among the nations hit hardest by the coronavirus — defied a government public health ban on gatherings of more than 100 people to demonstrate on March 14, the eve of local elections.72 Prime Minister Edouard Philippe banned yellow vest protests on the Champs-Élysées in central Paris and in two other cities after 18 weeks of violent demonstrations.73

Lebanese activists suspect their government is using the virus as an excuse to suppress dissent. They say the emergency measures enacted March 15 that mandated stay-at-home restrictions and closed offices and businesses failed to include basic practices to safeguard public health.

“The government activated criminal laws to arrest and charge people [but] did not stop flights from [coronavirus] epicenters like Iran and ignored taking necessary measures to protect the people,” said activist Jad Yateem.74 The government eventually stopped airline flights from Iran, some three weeks after Lebanon's first reported coronavirus victim — who had returned from Iran.75

Global Climate Campaign

The coronavirus also has affected the global movement to fight climate change undertaken by Swedish teenager Thunberg. The Fridays for Future (FFF) movement she inspired, in which students took Fridays off from school to agitate for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, had drawn millions of protesters to demonstrate in cities around the world.

But the pandemic has closed schools and driven the campaign indoors, robbing it of publicity, draining its influence and forcing its leaders to change tactics. FFF in many countries has suspended public demonstrations, instead using social media and the internet to get its message out.76 On March 13 Thunberg, who said she believed she had the virus, tweeted, “In a crisis we change our behaviour and adapt to the new circumstances for the greater good of society.”77

A student in Davos, Switzerland, participates in a January school strike demanding action against climate change. Inspired by teenage Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, students around the world have joined climate demonstrations. (AFP/Getty Images/Fabrice Coffrini)

With public demonstrations off the table in most countries, a coalition of environmental organizations held a three-day continuous livestream “mobilization to stop the climate emergency” called Earth Day Live, April 22-24. The event included teach-ins, musical performances and a voter registration drive for U.S. audiences. The Future Coalition, an organizer of Earth Day Live, said 2.75 million people viewed the event.78

One online tactic is the “digital strike,” in which activists post a picture of themselves and a sign bearing a slogan on social media. Joe Hobbs, 17, a student and FFF-United States activist from Columbia, Md., says, “Before [the virus struck] we would have physical strikes — protesting at the White House or the Capitol or the Library of Congress — once a month, and once a week we'd strike digitally, on social media. Now, we're going for all-digital strikes.”

Dana Fisher, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland who researches activism, said social media campaigns “end up … amplifying within an echo chamber, which is really different from what the movement wants.” Twitter hashtags do not get the visibility and publicity that large public demonstrations do, she said. However, she acknowledged that the young climate-change protesters are skilled at using social media to advance their cause.79

Hobbs says that “a digital strike, like a physical strike, raises awareness among your followers and anyone else who sees it.” He says, “A lot of people thought that, because of the coronavirus, our numbers [of supporters] would go down, but actually they've gone up — more people are staying at home and able to interact with us online.”

But online protests have drawbacks. Akshaya Kumar, director of crisis advocacy at Human Rights Watch, sees “a huge issue with … the digital divide — questions about who's able to get online and the bandwidth limitations for people based on their economic situation.” She added, “It's certainly not as [accessible] as participating in a street protest, which is available to people regardless of their socioeconomic status.”80

The coronavirus has had profound effects on the global economy. Stock market values have plunged, as have industrial production and retail sales, and unemployment has soared. The disease and governments' attempts to combat it have themselves become the target of protesters as the desire to slow the rate of infection conflicts with citizens' fears that the economic slowdown will leave them unable to make a living.81 In Kenya, police killed 12 people while enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew which began March 27 — more than the 11 that had been officially reported killed by the virus itself as of April 16.82

In the United States, hundreds protested in state capitals against stay-at-home measures and other safeguards imposed by governors, arguing the restrictions were no longer necessary and infringed on constitutional liberties. President Trump had declared the preventative measures to be the province of the state governors rather than the federal government, but he also encouraged the protests by criticizing governors for obstructing the nation's economic recovery, saying they've “gone too far.” Targeted governors responded that they lacked the data that would justify relaxing the measures.83 The Washington Post reported that the state protests, though appearing spontaneous, had actually been orchestrated in a Facebook campaign by far-right activists.84

Between mid-March and mid-April, more than 22 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, a record number.85 As of April 25, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was reporting 928,619 coronavirus cases, with 52,459 deaths from the disease.86

Foreign Protests and U.S. Policy

Trump won the gratitude of the Hong Kong protesters when he signed legislation allowing the United States to levy sanctions on those who violate human rights in the city. Protesters draped themselves in American flags and waved pro-Trump banners in demonstrations celebrating the president's Nov. 27 signing of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which also requires the State Department to conduct an annual review of Hong Kong's special trade status.87

The Chinese Foreign Ministry called the law “a severe interference in Hong Kong affairs, which are China's internal affairs. It is also in serious violation of international law and basic norms governing international relations.”88

Another new law forbids U.S. companies to sell rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas and other crowd management munitions to Hong Kong police.89

Trump also inserted himself into Iran's January protests over the downing of a Ukrainian airliner when, in a series of tweets, he expressed solidarity with the demonstrators and warned the government, “DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS.”90 In response, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tweeted, “The villainous US [government] repeatedly says that they are standing by the Iranian [people]. They lie. If you are standing by the Iranian [people], it is only to stab them in the heart with your venomous daggers.”91

Joseph Nye, former dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and former chair of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, which provides long-term strategic analysis to government officials, says supporting protests in other countries “is useful if it's in the context of a general advancement or protection of human rights. But if it's seen as a weapon used against some countries but turning a blind eye to similar events in other countries, then it's viewed as hypocrisy.”

“If President Trump wants to defend protesters in Iran, he has to reconcile that with his excusing the dismemberment of [Jamal] Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul,” Nye says, referring to the Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist who was murdered there. “Those responses don't fit together very well.”

Frantz of Michigan State University says, “Both mainland China and the Iranian regime are very adept at putting forth the narrative that the U.S. is an agent provocateur. In some ways any U.S. involvement is just fodder for these regimes to put out this propaganda and help them withstand the [protesters'] challenge. If the U.S. is not willing to put up the resources to back up its words, it's empty rhetoric.”

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Outlook

Democracy in Peril?

As the coronavirus spreads rapidly around the world, governments have imposed strict social distancing requirements and limitations on public gatherings to mitigate the impact of the virus and protect public health. But some protesters and civil liberties advocates fear governments might also use the new laws to suppress dissent and that autocratic leaders could assume dictatorial powers that do not expire when the virus threat subsides.

“The pandemic may well lead to a serious decline in democracy around the world,” said Florian Bieber, professor of Southeast European history and politics at the University of Graz in Austria.

“Emergency laws or declared states of emergency [are] a tactic autocrats can use to consolidate power,” Bieber said. He acknowledged that restricting gatherings and postponing elections are valid public health practices, noting that “French municipal elections held on March 15 might have accelerated the spread of the coronavirus.” But he added: “Postponing elections for months might deprive governments of their legitimacy and allow autocrats to” strengthen their power.92

Democracy experts Crothers and David Wong of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote that “some governments are capitalizing on the crisis to enhance their ability to quash protest.” But despite this challenge, they said, “the global protest wave is by no means moribund. Government responses to the virus have already sparked a spate of new protests. Prisoners in Lebanon and Italy have rioted over unsanitary conditions and overcrowding, and Brazilian and Colombian citizens have banged pots and pans from their windows to protest their leaders' public health response.”

Moreover, they said, “the unfolding economic devastation resulting from the virus and the governance crises it has triggered may also sow the seeds for future protests. By exposing governments' incompetence in key areas such as public health and socioeconomic justice, the global pandemic could reinvigorate existing protests or even ignite demonstrations in new contexts.”93

Hong Kong may be a case study for the theory. While the coronavirus has stalled public protests, a survey by the independent Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute found that three-quarters of Hong Kong residents believe the city did not do enough to stop the illness.94 “The handling of the crisis by the government has been extremely poor,” said activist Nathan Law. “[P]ublic anger is still growing and … the movement will revive when the outbreak is ended.”95

Dunne of Carnegie believes many more protests are in store for the Middle East, too. “The whole economic structure of the region is crumbling,” she says. “World energy markets are changing. There's a lot of oil and gas in the region, but it's not worth what it was.”

Yet as the region's economic situation worsens, its population is growing and its people are increasingly aware of inequality, Dunne says. “I would say virtually every country in the region is vulnerable.”

Stephan of the U.S. Institute of Peace says the future for peaceful protest movements is cloudy. “It's very disconcerting when considering the future of nonviolent movements,” she says. “My worst fear is that we will see a strengthening of authoritarianism and a backsliding of democracies around the world.”

But, she adds, “My optimistic side says people know how to organize and push back, and they can learn from each other. There's a competition going on between democracy and authoritarianism, and it remains to be seen who prevails.”

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Pro/Con

Is violence an effective tool for protest?

Pro Benjamin Ginsberg David Bernstein Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University. Written for CQ Researcher, May 2020 Violence is the driving force of politics. The importance of violence derives from the dominance it usually manifests over other forms of political action, from its destructive and politically transformative power and from the capacity of violence to serve as an instrument of political mobilization. These three factors explain why Chinese leader Mao Zedong was correct in his assertion that political power emanated from the gun barrel. Political forces willing and able to employ violence to achieve their goals will generally best their less bellicose adversaries, overturning the results of elections, negating the actions of parliamentary bodies and riding roughshod over peaceful expressions of political opinion. Indeed, the mere threat of violence is often enough to instill fear in, and compel acquiescence by, those unwilling or unable to forcefully defend themselves. Violent groups can usually be defeated only by adversaries able to block their use of mayhem or to employ superior force against them. Those who cannot or will not make use of violence seldom achieve their goals over the opposition of those who are not similarly constrained. As Machiavelli observed, things have seldom turned out well for unarmed prophets. Much attention, of course, is given to the putative effectiveness of nonviolence as a political method. In actuality, though, far from being nonviolent, the protest tactics — strikes, boycotts, demonstrations and the like — employed by such leaders as Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King were designed to produce economic and social disruption and, in some instances, to actually provoke violent responses from their opponents. Violent attacks on apparently peaceful protesters would, it was hoped, elicit sympathy for the innocent victims of bloodshed and perhaps encourage powerful external forces to intervene on their behalf. Their success was predicated upon the availability of allies who could be drawn into the fray. In the United States, nationally televised images of the violence unleashed upon peaceful protesters generated enormous sympathy for the civil rights cause and helped create the setting for enactment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which sent an army of federal law enforcement officials into the South with the power to suppress white resistance to the registration of black voters. In essence, nominally nonviolent protest succeeded because the protesters' allies had an even greater capacity for violence than their foes. Where, as in the case of China's Tiananmen Square in 1989, powerful allies are not available to deploy or at least threaten the use of force, nonviolent protest is almost always doomed to failure.

Con Jonathan Pinckney Program on Nonviolent Action, U.S. Institute of Peace. Written for CQ Researcher, May 2020 To answer whether violence is an effective tool for protest, one needs to first ask how protest works. Public protests are only one of a broad set of tactics employed by social movements such as strikes or boycotts. Protest is effective when it is strategically deployed alongside these additional tactics to undermine an opponent's power by prompting defections from their supporters. This defection process varies. A movement against a polluting company, for instance, might convince investors to divest, or customers to boycott. A pro-democracy movement might convince security forces to disobey orders to violently crack down. Does violence help this process? While the impact of violence varies across cases, on average there are strong reasons to believe that it cannot. First, violence tends to increase and legitimize government repression. Violent protests face much higher levels of government violence in response. While violent government repression of nonviolent protesters may spark backlash and condemnation, government repression of violent protesters is more likely to be seen as legitimate. Governments more easily paint violent protests as dangerous to social order and worthy of state violence in return. This tends to demobilize movements, leading to lower effectiveness. Second, violence reduces who can reasonably participate in protests and other social movement tactics. Protest violence is overwhelmingly the province of young men, and when movements turn to violence their size and diversity tend to drop precipitously. This further undermines the protesters' legitimacy, as well as their potential points of connection with regime supporters. Without these points of connection, inducing defection among the opponent's supporters becomes more difficult. Third, on average violence undermines mobilization of and external support for a movement. Numerous studies in political science and social psychology have shown that when movements use more violence, observers become less sympathetic and less likely to join or support them. This mobilization disadvantage is likely to undermine movements' attempts to achieve their goals. There are certainly exceptions to these general trends. Some studies indicate that large social movements may have sufficient momentum that they are unaffected by peripheral incidents of violence. And in some specific cases, violence may have a highlighting effect, drawing attention to otherwise neglected causes. But when looking at movements as a whole, there are few good reasons to believe that violence is an effective tool, and many good reasons to believe that it directly undermines movements' effectiveness.

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Short Features

Hong Kong Protesters Confront Beijing's Power

In 2018, a Hong Kong teenager visiting Taiwan, Chan Tong-kai, allegedly killed his girlfriend. He then returned to Hong Kong. Chan subsequently confessed to police, but Hong Kong has no extradition treaty with Taiwan, a separately-governed island off the Chinese mainland, so the killing could not be prosecuted.1

This tawdry murder case set off a chain of events that led to an eruption of dissent among Hong Kong citizens who feared the encroachment of the People's Republic of China and its authoritarian government. The result has been massive and at times violent street demonstrations, a significant electoral victory for the protesters, but also lingering questions about what they have ultimately achieved as the coronavirus and its restrictions now force protesters off the streets.

The year after the killing, the Hong Kong government cited Chan's case when it proposed legislation permitting case-by-case extradition to countries with which it does not have formal agreements — including the People's Republic.2 This triggered alarm that such a law could lead to arbitrary imprisonment of Hong Kong residents who dissent against the Chinese government. Pro-democracy activists responded by organizing protests against the proposed law.

The dispute was rooted in the laws that govern relations between Hong Kong and the mainland. The 1,108-square-mile Hong Kong Special Administrative Region enjoys special economic, political and legal status until at least 2047, the result of the agreement by which Great Britain ceded Hong Kong to China in 1997. Under the agreement, which applies a principle called “one country, two systems,” Hong Kong has maintained the free-market economic system that makes it an important world financial center, and its citizens enjoy civil and political rights unheard-of in mainland China.3

“Extraditing people from Hong Kong into China would break down the ‘one country, two systems’ firewall,” says Angeline Chan, a Hong Kong lawyer who took part in the pro-democracy movement that opposed the legislation.

Pro-democracy advocates gather in central Hong Kong in February. They sought to keep alive a protest movement that began last year when authorities tried to enact legislation permitting the extradition of Hong Kong residents to mainland China. (AFP/Getty Images/Isaac Lawrence)

The protests peaked on June 9 with a crowd estimated by police at 240,000 and by organizers at more than 1 million.4 The protests continued during the summer.

On Sept. 4, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam withdrew the extradition bill, saying she was doing so “to eradicate the worries of [the] people” of Hong Kong.5 But her move came too late to quell the movement. By that time the protesters had broadened their demands and hardened their position.

They said they would not end the demonstrations until the government met four other demands in addition to withdrawing the extradition bill: cease defining the protests as rioting, grant amnesty for arrested protesters, conduct an independent inquiry into police violence and give Hong Kong citizens more say in choosing their government. At present, residents elect a territorial council with limited authority, but the powerful chief executive is chosen by an electoral council made up of 1,194 representatives of various sectors of Hong Kong society who are approved by Beijing.6

Protesters criticized Hong Kong's security forces for using unreasonable force. “We've seen police violence used regularly — tear gas, beanbag rounds, pepper spray, batons, with hardly any police held to account,” Chan says. “The focus of the protests has shifted from the extradition bill to the fact that the police are acting with impunity.”

But protesters too have used violence. During a standoff at Hong Kong Polytechnic University in November, barricaded students used firebombs and bows and arrows against police — who themselves had used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons.7

The protesters can claim some credit for a major political shift in Hong Kong. In November's territorial council elections, pro-democracy candidates won 389 of 452 seats; previously they held 124. Pro-Beijing candidates took just 58 seats, down from 300.8 “This election [was] totally a de facto referendum for the protests,” said Samson Yuen, an assistant professor of political science at Hong Kong's Lingnan University.9

A survey by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute taken March 17–20 indicated substantial public support for protesters' demands, with those backing the protests outnumbering opponents by 58 percent to 28 percent.10

But Richard Bush, a China specialist and senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, a centrist Washington think tank, says the movement is probably failing in fulfilling its objectives.

“If the goal is to get Beijing to create a more democratic system, then it has failed,” he says. “If the goal was to deal with the extradition bill and then return to more normal circumstances, it failed by following up with unreasonable demands that would lead Beijing, the Hong Kong government and the Hong Kong elite to conclude the movement really didn't want a mutually acceptable solution.”

However, he adds, “if the goal is to keep Hong Kong in a permanent state of instability, the movement succeeded, and will probably be back for more once the coronavirus subsides.”

Without a doubt, the pandemic is complicating the pro-democracy movement. Hong Kong's first coronavirus death was confirmed Feb. 4, and the city instituted quarantines and other preventive measures. Since then, demonstrations have been sporadic, and smaller.11

Albert Ho, a pro-democracy leader, said authorities appear to be using the respite to prevent large demonstrations, including rounding up protest organizers. “They have to do everything to deter the social organizers from continuing to organize marches and demonstrations on a big scale,” Ho said.12

The coronavirus outbreak may dampen enthusiasm for street demonstrations, but in the long run it could help fuel the protest movement, whose leaders see the government's failure to cope with the virus as an opportunity to rally support.

“Street protests are just a part of the movement,” said Eric Lai Yan-ho, deputy convener of the Civil Human Rights Front. Yan-ho's group, which organized rallies, also helped gather more than 35,000 online signatures in a citywide campaign to protest the government's handling of the virus crisis. Unions added to the pressure by engaging in Hong Kong's largest-ever medical strike.13

Chan, the lawyer-activist, says the cause is vital to Hong Kong residents. “A lot of the protesters I come into contact with feel that if they don't resist, the way of life we know in Hong Kong will disappear,” she says. “They're fighting because they feel they have no choice.”

— Bill Wanlund

[1] Cindy Sui, “The murder behind the Hong Kong protests: A case where no-one wants the killer,” BBC, Oct. 23, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y8fjl24o.

[2] Daniel Victor and Tiffany May, “The Murder Case That Lit the Fuse in Hong Kong,” The New York Times, June 15, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y6qz8cx3.

[3] Eleanor Albert, “Democracy in Hong Kong,” Council on Foreign Relations, Sept. 20. 2019, https://tinyurl.com/ybw2yd7r.

[4] Eric Kleefeld, “Hundreds of thousands attend protest in Hong Kong over extradition bill,” The South China Morning Post, June 9, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y2pmzr65.

[5] “Hong Kong: Carrie Lam withdraws controversial extradition bill,” Deutsche Welle, Sept. 4, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y967uqfw.

[6] “How Hong Kong picks its chief executives,” The Economist, March 21, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/y7fp2723.

[7] Edward Wong et al., “Hong Kong Violence Escalates as Police and Protesters Clash at University,” The New York Times, Nov. 17, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/voa6lwq.

[8] Keith Bradsher, Austin Ramzy and Tiffany May, “Hong Kong Election Results Give Democracy Backers Big Win,” The New York Times, Nov. 24, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/qk33gms.

[9] Casey Quackenbush, “Hong Kong democrats score historic victory amid ongoing protests,” Al-Jazeera, Nov. 24, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/uzr3v9w.

[10] Felix Tam and Clare Jim, “Exclusive: Support for Hong Kong protesters' demands rises even as coronavirus halts rallies: poll,” Reuters, March 27, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y87z8vsp.

[11] James Griffiths, “Hong Kong appeared to have the coronavirus under control, then it let its guard down,” CNN, March 23, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ws6xhhq.

[12] Helen Davidson, “Hong Kong: with coronavirus curbed, protests may return,” The Guardian, March 15, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/s664gyy.

[13] Natalie Wong and Tony Cheung, “A new strain of resistance? How the coronavirus crisis is changing Hong Kong's protest movement,” The South China Morning Post, Feb. 10, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yddyq8t3.

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Parkland Protesters Meld Power of Youth, Social Media

On Feb. 14, 2018, a gunman killed 17 people at Cameron Kasky's high school. Almost immediately, Kasky, then 17, became one of the leaders of a national movement to end gun violence.

“One Wednesday everything changed,” says Kasky. “And by Sunday we were living a completely different life that had a different structure to it.”

The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., was neither the first nor the most lethal in a string of recent mass shootings in the United States, but it inspired the largest protests against gun violence nationwide.

Exactly one month after the Parkland shooting, thousands of students across the country walked out of class in a coordinated protest against gun violence. Ten days after that, hundreds of thousands of protesters descended on Washington for the March for Our Lives, which became the name of an organization that continues to organize against gun violence.

“To the leaders, skeptics and cynics who told us to sit down, stay silent and wait your turn, welcome to the revolution,” Kasky told the protesters.14

David S. Meyer, a professor of sociology and political science at the University of California, Irvine, says it is not unusual for political movements to take off after a push from younger people. And he says the Parkland students were in a kind of sweet spot: young enough so they had no political background that opponents could attack, but old enough to be able to speak for themselves — unlike the students at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where 20 first graders and six staffers died in a 2012 shooting.

In addition, Meyer says, “these kids went to one of the best-funded schools in Florida.” Because they were more likely to be children of professionals, they had access to resources that others in their situation might not have had, he says.

Despite his rhetoric at the Washington march, Kasky says he does not want to fan the flames of generational resentment. “It always made me upset when people made things a generational battle,” he says.

Cameron Kasky speaks to fellow students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., during a walkout to demand action on gun control. The walkout in February 2018 took place one week after a gunman killed 17 people at the school. (AFP/Getty Images/Rhona Wise)

In the two years that have followed the initial burst of activism, the Parkland activists have compiled a mixed record of achievements. Their demands for new federal gun laws remain unfulfilled, and some movement leaders, such as David Hogg and Kasky, became targets for criticism themselves. Their critics say they ignore the constitutional rights of gun owners and unfairly ascribe illegitimate motives to their opponents.

“The student activists presume that there is a ready solution to mass shootings that everyone knows, and the only reason why someone might not act on this universally accepted policy is malice or corruption,” wrote Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, a conservative publication.15

They have had more success at the state level and in the private sector, and participation by younger voters — one of the organization's goals — has recently increased. In the 2018 midterm elections, turnout among 18-to-29-year-olds surged to almost 36 percent from 20 percent in 2014.16

From the start, the young Parkland survivors relied heavily on social media to tell their stories, spread the hashtag #NeverAgain and inspire others to join them.17

“The March for Our Lives movement started using social media during the shooting itself,” says Errol Salamon, a postdoctoral teaching associate in media and popular culture at the University of Minnesota who attended the 2018 Washington march. “And they were using tools on social media that people could identify with.”

Salamon says the consistent use of Twitter was essential to the movement's growth. But while the methods of communication may be new, youth activism has been a staple of American politics for decades, he says.

“Young people have long been in protest movements, and this extends back as far as the countercultural movement of the 1960s,” Salamon says.

While the Parkland movement did not persuade a Republican-controlled Congress to enact gun laws such as a new assault weapons ban, the movement has had lasting effects in other ways. Several state legislatures have taken up the issue of gun control, passing laws designed to prevent another Parkland.18

Florida raised the legal age to purchase a firearm to 21 shortly after the shooting. (The Parkland gunman was 19.)19 Several states, including Colorado, Nevada and Hawaii, have passed “red flag” laws, which allow police or family members to petition a state court to temporarily remove firearms from someone who may pose a danger to themselves or others.20

Kasky says federal action is still needed to prevent potential perpetrators of gun violence from buying weapons in other states. “We can pass strong gun laws in one state, but there are always going to be people taking advantage of that,” he says.

Despite the lack of new federal legislation, Kasky says the movement and its message have motivated some businesses to take action in order to appear socially responsible in the eyes of younger consumers. “People are caring a lot more about what young people want and what young people have to say,” Kasky says.

One company that changed its policy was Dick's Sporting Goods, which stopped selling the type of semi-automatic rifle used in the Parkland shooting and raised the age required to purchase any firearm at its stores to 21. The chain's CEO, Ed Stack, said he was personally moved by the Parkland tragedy and the young survivors' response.21

But it may be hard to maintain momentum during the coronavirus pandemic. In the current era of social distancing, in-person protests may be dangerous, frowned upon or even illegal.

Parkland survivors believe their movement can adjust, because many activists have been sharing their message on social media for years. “It's very much online already right now,” Kasky says.

Yet while the movement may have spread on Twitter early on, Salamon says it is unlikely it would have gotten so far without a physical presence. “It could not have just been a hashtag movement,” he says. “People needed to be there in person.”

— Brock Hall

[14] Ray Sanchez, “Student marchers call Washington's inaction on gun violence unacceptable,” CNN, March 23, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y8qrjf8s.

[15] Rich Lowry, “The Teenage Demagogues,” National Review, March 27, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y8vj7adv.

[16] Tara Golshan, “Young people, women, voters in cities: how Democrats won in 2018, by the numbers,” Vox, April 26, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y6yxz8k4.

[17] “Timeline: How the #NeverAgain Movement Gained Momentum After Parkland,” NBC Philadelphia, Feb. 14, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y9gza2u8.

[18] Rep. David N. Cicilline, “H.R. 5087 — Assault Weapons Ban of 2018,” Congress.gov, Feb. 26, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/ydcl9uv3; Steven Melendez, “Here's a list of gun control laws passed since the Parkland shooting,” Fast Company, Feb. 14, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y83juh79.

[19] Patricia Mazzei, “Florida Governor Signs Gun Limits Into Law, Breaking With the N.R.A.,” The New York Times, March 9, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/ybu7f4mu.

[20] Jonathan Levinson and Lisa Dunn, “What is a Red Flag Law?” WAMU, Aug. 5, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y8vsh6jg.

[21] Alina Selyukh, “Soul-Searching After Parkland, Dick's CEO Embraces Tougher Stance On Guns,” NPR, Feb. 12, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/ybo8fv8s.

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Bibliography

Books

Brancati, Dawn , Democracy Protests: Origins, Features, and Significance , Cambridge University Press, 2016. A scholar at Yale University's MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies examines why major protests get started and how economic crises can trigger them.

Chenoweth, Erica, and Maria Stephan , Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict , Columbia University Press, 2011. Two political scientists use statistical analysis and case studies to explain why some protest movements succeed and others fail, concluding that nonviolent campaigns have a better record than violent ones.

Kendall-Taylor, Andrea, Natasha Lindstaedt and Erica Frantz , Democracies and Authoritarian Regimes , Oxford University Press, 2020. Three scholars look at the challenges facing democracy today, including populism and the rise of authoritarian regimes.

Articles

“COVID-19 and Conflict: Seven Trends to Watch,” International Crisis Group, March 24, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/spu4kzy. Analysts from a foreign affairs think tank discuss the coronavirus and its potential impact on world political events even after the danger of contagion has passed.

Karam, Zeina , “The New Mask: Wave of Global Revolt Replaced by Virus Fear,” The Associated Press, March 12, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/rlsylp3. Journalists for a global news agency report on how the coronavirus put 2019's wave of political protests on hold.

Kendall-Taylor, Andrea, Erica Frantz and Joseph Wright , “The Digital Dictators: How Technology Strengthens Autocracy,” Foreign Affairs, March-April 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yaz9x3f6. The director of the trans-Atlantic security program at the Center for a New American Security (Kendall-Taylor) and two political science professors explain how artificial intelligence, social media and other technologies are helping authoritarian leaders stay in power.

Kennon, Isabel, and Grace Valdevitt , “Women protest for their lives: Fighting femicide in Latin America,” Atlantic Council, Feb. 24, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/qvnk5zj. Two intern-researchers at the Atlantic Council examine gender-based violence directed at women and what governments are doing about it, and provide recommendations for more action.

Wright, Robin , “The Story of 2019: Protests in Every Corner of the Globe,” The New Yorker, Dec. 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/v5ptgme. In a pre-coronavirus report, a joint fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center discusses the protests that spanned the world last year.

Reports and Studies

Brannen, Samuel J., Christian S. Haig and Katherine Schmidt , “The Age of Mass Protest: Understanding an Escalating Global Trend,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 2, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y86cm553. Researchers from a Washington foreign affairs think tank examine the causes and outcomes of the current global wave of protests and why it is likely to continue and expand.

Foa, R.S. , et al., “The Global Satisfaction with Democracy Report 2020,” Centre for the Future of Democracy, Bennett Institute for Public Policy, January 2020, https://tinyurl.com/vcof6j3. In this survey of surveys, researchers from the United Kingdom's University of Cambridge found global dissatisfaction with democracy in 2019 reached the highest level since measurements began 25 years ago.

Repucci, Sarah , “Freedom in the World 2020: A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy,” Freedom House, https://tinyurl.com/y743l3xn. In its most recent annual report on political rights and civil liberties, the research and advocacy organization finds democracy in decline around the world for the 14th straight year.

Youngs, Richard , ed., “After Protest: Pathways Beyond Mass Mobilization,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/ydhbzqkk. Local experts in civic activism analyze protests in 10 countries to explain what happens to protesters after their movement has ended.

Websites

“Global Protest Tracker,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, last updated April 1, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ybrgyaee. A Washington think launched an interactive site in April that provides details on causes, triggers, duration and sizes of protests around the world since 2017.

Chenoweth, Erica, and Christopher Wiley Shay , “List of Campaigns in NAVCO 1.3,” Harvard University, last updated March 17, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y7ugzjhz. Harvard researchers identify 622 major resistance campaigns, violent and nonviolent, from 1900 to 2019, by name, location, date, objective and outcome.

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The Next Step

Coronavirus-Related Protests

Dougherty, Conor, and John Eligon , “Protesting Without Gathering, Tenant Organizers Get Creative,” The New York Times, April 23, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yc6c4jmz. Housing activists are decorating their cars in support of a protest movement that wants rents canceled during the pandemic.

Selyukh, Alina , “Amazon Workers Stage New Protests Over Warehouse Coronavirus Safety,” NPR, April 21, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ydym9b32. Hundreds of Amazon warehouse workers staged a nationwide walkout to protest the lack of paid sick leave and to support further measures to protect employees from contracting the coronavirus.

Wang, Vivian, Maria Abi-Habib and Vivian Yee , “‘This Government Is Lucky’: Coronavirus Quiets Global Protest Movements,” The New York Times, April 23, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y888ly69. Millions of protesters are forced to stay at home worldwide because of the coronavirus, but dissent over some pandemic-related restrictions could lead to future demonstrations.

International Protests

Davidson, Helen , “China to prosecute first foreign national over Hong Kong protests,” The Guardian, April 24, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y97aev5h. China is prosecuting a Belizean national for his participation in the 2019 Hong Kong protests.

McGowan, Charis , “How quarantined Chileans are keeping their protest movement alive,” Al-Jazeera, April 14, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y7cm8ont. Chilean protesters bang pots and create virtual art to continue protesting inequality during the coronavirus pandemic restrictions.

Saleh, Walid , “Lebanon cities erupt against economic hardship, one protester killed in Tripoli,” Reuters, April 27, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yagj83y4. One demonstrator was killed as protests erupted in Lebanon over worsening economic hardship.

Social Media

Overly, Steven , “Republicans attack Facebook as network shuts down anti-lockdown protests,” Politico, April 20, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y72ou2vt. Facebook is blocking anti-quarantine protesters from organizing on their platform because they say the protests will violate states' stay-at-home orders, and some conservatives are criticizing the move.

Serhan, Yasmeen , “The Common Element Uniting Worldwide Protests,” The Atlantic, Nov. 19, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y767qppt. Social media allows movements to operate in a decentralized way, which can benefit protesters facing suppression.

Tucker, Margaret , “A Guide to Chile's Revolutionary Social Media Slang,” Slate, Dec. 17, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/qtxfe2w. Chilean protesters have developed online slang and jokes to needle the government, such as dubbing President Sebastián Piñera, who was seen eating pizza shortly before ordering a crackdown, “El Pizza.”

U.S. Protests

Gabbatt, Adam , “US anti-lockdown rallies could cause surge in Covid-19 cases, experts warn,” The Guardian, April 20, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y7per7jq. Some health care workers are worried that anti-quarantine protests could allow the virus to spread faster.

Hauck, Grace, and Chris Woodyard , “Outraged Americans condemn US actions in Iraq and Iran: ‘Enough with this nonsense,’” USA Today, Jan. 4, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/sey3dyz. Protests against the Trump administration's killing of an Iranian general took place across the United States in an effort to prevent war with Iran.

Vogel, Kenneth P., Jim Rutenberg and Lisa Lerer , “The Quiet Hand of Conservative Groups in the Anti-Lockdown Protests,” The New York Times, April 21, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ycj3k39r. Political groups founded during the Tea Party protests a decade ago are helping organize demonstrations against states' stay-at-home orders.

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Contacts

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
79 John F. Kennedy St., Cambridge, MA 02138
617-495-9858
belfercenter.org
A center at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government that performs research and training in international security and diplomacy, environmental and resource issues.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20036-2103
202-483-7600
carnegieendowment.org
Independent think tank that researches and reports on issues pertaining to world peace.

Center for Security and International Studies
1616 Rhode Island Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20036
202-887-0200
csis.org
Think tank examining trends and developments in international security.

Centre for the Future of Democracy
Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Department of Politics and International Studies, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DT England
+44-(0)1223-767233
bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk
Part of England's University of Cambridge, the center conducts research into challenges facing democracy and democratic societies.

Peterson Institute for International Economics
1750 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20036-1903
202-328-9000
piie.com
Research institution dealing with economic aspects of current and emerging international issues.

United States Institute of Peace
2301 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20037
202-457-1700
usip.org
Congressionally funded independent organization that researches and promotes nonviolent conflict resolution and mitigation.

Woodrow Wilson Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20004-3027
202-691-4000
wilsoncenter.org
Nonpartisan think tank conducting research into, and disseminating information about, international issues and U.S. policy.

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Footnotes

[1] Samuel J. Brannen, Christian S. Haig and Katherine Schmidt, “The Age of Mass Protests: Understanding an Escalating Global Trend,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 2020, https://tinyurl.com/wgceft8.

[2] Richard Youngs, ed., “After Protest: Pathways Beyond Mass Mobilization,” Carnegie Europe, Oct. 24, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y938awr4.

[3] Jonathan Pinckney and Miranda Rivers, “Nonviolent Action in the Time of Coronavirus,” U.S. Institute of Peace, March 25, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y93qxzdo.

[4] Selam Gebrekidan, “For Autocrats, and Others, Coronavirus Is a Chance to Grab Even More Power,” The New York Times, March 30, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yd4xfrp9.

[5] James McAuley, “‘Yellow vest’ anniversary: What happened to the movement that shook France?” The Washington Post, Nov. 16, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/u8599be.

[6] Tara John, “Why Hong Kong is protesting: Their five demands listed,” CNN, Aug. 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y2prgjze.

[7] Brian C.H. Fong, “Where Does Hong Kong's Protest Movement Stand Amid Coronavirus Fears?” The Diplomat, Feb. 24, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ycgyjud2.

[8] Lucien Chauvin and Anthony Faiola, “As the U.S.-backed government in Bolivia unleashes a wave of political persecution, the Trump administration remains silent,” The Washington Post, March 6, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yarmjdfj.

[9] Charis McGowan, “Chile protests: What prompted the unrest?” Al-Jazeera, Oct. 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yypf9obg.

[10] “Violence resurgence in Chile: three deaths, looting and torched supermarkets,” MercoPress, Feb. 1, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ycprltzp.

[11] J. Patrice McSherry, “Chile's Struggle to Democratize the State,” North American Congress on Latin America, Feb. 24, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yb6fvokz.

[12] Andy Gregory, “‘They are killing us slowly’: Iranian security forces used ‘unlawful force against plane protesters,’” The Independent, Jan. 15, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ycstf6s7.

[13] Michael Safi et al., “Protests rage around the world — but what comes next?” The Guardian, Oct. 25, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yxjdm74k.

[14] “Iran: Death toll from bloody crackdown on protests rises to 208,” Amnesty International, Dec. 2, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y7pbyakj.

[15] “Iran 2019 Human Rights Report,” U.S. Department of State, March 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ya6u7mb7.

[16] Kai Thaler, “Violence Is Sometimes the Answer,” Foreign Policy, Dec. 5, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/ya7xpcsb.

[17] Shola Lawal, “Coronavirus Halts Street Protests, but Climate Activists Have a Plan,” The New York Times, March 19, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/r4nm8bv.

[18] “Femicide: A global scourge,” Agence France-Presse, Nov. 19, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yaoo75bc.

[19] Sarah Repucci, “A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy,” Freedom House, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/qwh9ek8.

[20] Richard Wike and Shannon Schumacher, “Democratic Rights Popular Globally but Commitment to Them Not Always Strong,” Pew Research Center, Feb. 27, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y9yjlhm4.

[21] R.S. Foa et al., “The Global Satisfaction with Democracy Report 2020,” University of Cambridge, January 2020, https://tinyurl.com/vcof6j3.

[22] Robin Wright, “The Story of 2019: Protests in Every Corner of the Globe,” The New Yorker, Dec. 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/v5ptgme.

[23] Danna Takriti, “Sudan just took a step backward on its path to democracy,” Vox, Feb. 21, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yadm8sok.

[24] Youngs, op. cit.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Paul Blumenthal, “The Largest Protest Ever Was 15 Years Ago. The Iraq War Isn't Over. What Happened?” Huffpost, March 17, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y89as2hj.

[27] Kim Milone, “The English Peasants' Revolt of 1381,” Loyola University Student Historical Journal 1986-87, https://tinyurl.com/y9wx6azz.

[28] Tara Isabella Burton, “The Protestant Reformation, explained,” Vox, Nov. 2, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/y742lygk.

[29] “The Reformation,” History.com, https://tinyurl.com/yb9pk6xq.

[30] Robert Longley, “The Road to the American Revolution,” ThoughtCo., Jan. 14, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/ybbx62xv.

[31] “French Revolution,” History.com, Feb. 21, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ybvhnauh.

[32] “Revolutions of 1848” Encyclopedia Britannica, Jan. 20, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y5ctwqkl.

[33] “William II: King of the Netherlands,” Encyclopedia Britannica, March 13, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y7bcb5zt.

[34] Erin Blakemore, “How Mahatma Gandhi changed political protest,” National Geographic, Sept. 27, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y6rp2hae.

[35] “Malcolm X's Speech at the Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity,” Blackpast, Oct. 15, 2007, https://tinyurl.com/y7d5j3gu.

[36] John Leland, “Who Really Killed Malcolm X?” The New York Times, Feb. 6, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ychcls9q.

[37] “The Black Panther Party,” National Archives, https://tinyurl.com/r963yzu.

[38] “Transcript of Civil Rights Act (1964),” National Archives, https://tinyurl.com/s5yev7x.

[39] “Transcript of Voting Rights Act (1965),” National Archives, https://tinyurl.com/ycmpcm3t.

[40] “Fair Housing Act,” U.S. Department of Justice, https://tinyurl.com/y72pxabo.

[41] “The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Stanford University, https://tinyurl.com/yawhf47c.

[42] Lorraine Boissoneault, “Martin Luther King Jr.'s Assassination Sparked Uprisings in Cities Across America,” Smithsonian Magazine, April 4, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/yawab8aa.

[43] Daniel S. Levy, “Behind the Anti-War Protests That Swept America in 1968,” Time, Jan. 19, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y9ycgrsw.

[44] Joel Achenbach, “‘A party that had lost its mind’: In 1968, Democrats held one of history's most disastrous conventions,” The Washington Post, Aug. 24, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y7h6s584.

[45] Alissa J. Rubin, “May 1968: A Month of Revolution Pushed France Into the Modern World,” The New York Times, May 5, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y7j7onro.

[46] Robert Tait, “Prague 1968: lost images of the day that freedom died,” The Guardian, Aug. 19, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y4vplqzk.

[47] Elizabeth Malkin, “50 Years After a Student Massacre, Mexico Reflects on Democracy,” The New York Times, Oct. 1, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y78w7gen.

[48] “Tiananmen Square: What happened in the protests of 1989?” BBC, June 4, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y8ujo2fr.

[49] Cate Cadell, “China's internet censors are on high alert ahead of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests,” Reuters, Business Insider, May 26, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y9h4oz7e.

[50] “The Arab Spring: A Year Of Revolution,” National Public Radio, Dec. 17, 2011, https://tinyurl.com/ybxw7ggh.

[51] Erin Blakemore, “What was the Arab Spring and how did it spread?” National Geographic, March 29, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yy4ae9eh.

[52] Jessi Hempel, “Social Media Made the Arab Spring, But Couldn't Save It,” Wired, Jan. 26, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/yag4o99f.

[53] Gautam Mukunda, “The Social and Political Costs of the Financial Crisis, 10 Years Later,” Harvard Business Review, Sept. 25, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y7n5ykzj.

[54] Jeremy W. Peters, “The Tea Party Didn't Get What It Wanted, but It Did Unleash the Politics of Anger,” The New York Times, Aug. 28, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y2gfhafq.

[55] Megan Leonhardt, “The Lasting Effects of Occupy Wall Street, Five Years Later,” Money, Sept. 16, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/y8pn4p7y; Emily Stewart, “We are (still) the 99 percent,” Vox, April 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y4qk58wz.

[56] “Herstory,” Black Lives Matter, https://tinyurl.com/t7r4x8b.

[57] Alem Tedeneke, “The Black Lives Matter movement explained,” World Economic Forum, Aug. 11, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/y42dadhu.

[58] Ritu Prasad, “How Trump talks about women — and does it matter?” BBC, Nov. 29, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/s2rzvrh.

[59] Anemona Hartocollis and Yamiche Alcindor, “Women's March Highlights as Huge Crowds Protest Trump: ‘We're Not Going Away,’” The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/jb5ouxu.

[60] Austa Somvichian-Clausen, “After low attendance, is the Women's March still relevant?” The Hill, Jan. 22, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yah6o7fe.

[61] Li Zhou, “A historic new Congress will be sworn in today,” Vox, Jan. 3, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yc3a56sr.

[62] “We Want Change!” March for our Lives, https://tinyurl.com/yaz2fsxa.

[63] Dominic Rushe, “Why is the National Rifle Association so powerful?” The Guardian, May 4, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y7bxcd4o.

[64] Alan Suderman and Sarah Rankin, “Pro-gun Rally by Thousands in Virginia Ends Peacefully,” The Associated Press, Jan. 20, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ueg4zp3.

[65] Bobby Ghosh, “Coronavirus blunts momentum of second Arab Spring,” The Eagle, March 27, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y8y4ffuk.

[66] “Coronavirus: Algeria protests called off for first time in a year,” BBC, March 20, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yc6eyeht.

[67] “Lebanon calls in army to enforce coronavirus lockdown,” Agence France-Presse, March 3, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ycu7sht2.

[68] Dave Sherwood, “Chile´s Pinera Declares 90-Day State of Catastrophe Over Coronavirus Outbreak,” Reuters, March 18, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y7pabzpt.

[69] Charis McGowan, “Chile moves to postpone constitutional referendum amid coronavirus crisis,” The Guardian, March 19, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/u2v9oak.

[70] Sergio Limachi, “Bolivia election body proposes June-to-September window for coronavirus-delayed vote,” Reuters, March 26, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yc35rjcf.

[71] Julia Fioretti and Iain Marlow, “Hong Kong Police Disperse Protesters Gathered at City Mall,” Bloomberg, April 26, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y957oph6.

[72] John Irish and Marine Pennetier, “Teargas, clashes in Paris as Yellow Vests' protesters defy coronavirus ban,” Reuters, March 14, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/sef5dul.

[73] Victoria Albert, “France's Prime Minister Edouard Philippe Bans Yellow Vest Protests After Saturday Riots,” The Daily Beast, March 18, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yaeqcgxf.

[74] Nisan Ahmado, “Lebanese Activists Fear Hezbollah-led Government Is Using Coronavirus to Solidify Power,” Voice of America, March 30, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y8638ocw.

[75] “Hezbollah Shifts Attention From Syria Fight to Battle Virus,” The Associated Press, March 30, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yd22f6my.

[76] Paul Hockenos, “Shifting Gears: The Climate Protest Movement in the Age of Coronavirus,” Yale Environment 360, March 26, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yc8xe85e.

[77] Greta Thunberg, Twitter post, March 20, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ydfdpup4.

[78] “Earth Day Live,” https://tinyurl.com/ydbpdf4c; Anna Belle Peevey, “Video: Covid-19 Drives Earth Day Anniversary Online, Inspiring Creative New Tactics For Climate Activists,” Inside Climate News, April 26, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y9eje4s5.

[79] Lawal, op. cit.

[80] Max de Haldevang, “Coronavirus has crippled global protest movements,” Quartz, April 1, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y86rfg7e.

[81] Liz Sly, “Stirrings of unrest around the world could portend turmoil as economies collapse,” The Washington Post, April 19, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yay7vnab.

[82] Rael Ombuor and Max Bearak, “‘Killing in the name of corona’: Death toll soars from Kenya's curfew crackdown,” The Washington Post, April 16, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yccp6kg2.

[83] Brett Samuels, “Trump: Some governors have gone too far on coronavirus restrictions,” The Hill, April 19, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y8ct9py9.

[84] Isaac Stanley-Becker and Tony Romm, “Pro-gun activists using Facebook groups to push anti-quarantine protests,” The Washington Post, April 19, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yahe9k6h.

[85] Heather Long, “U.S. now has 22 million unemployed, wiping out a decade of job gains,” The Washington Post, April 16, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yby2yet3.

[86] “Cases of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in the U.S.,” U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed April 25, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/qqt3aq6.

[87] Deanna Paul and Shibani Mahtani, “Hong Kong protesters wave ‘Swole Trump’ posters at Thanksgiving rally,” The Washington Post, Nov. 29, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/vecjv74.

[88] “Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” People's Republic of China, Nov. 28, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y83jfupp.

[89] David Brunnstrom, “Trump approves legislation backing Hong Kong protesters,” Reuters, Nov. 27, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y7thythp.

[90] Donald Trump, Twitter post, Jan. 11, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yx82xbea; Donald Trump, Twitter post, Jan. 12, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y8lj72gkl; and Donald Trump, Twitter post, Jan. 13, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yczu63rt.

[91] Ali Khamenei, Twitter post, Jan. 17, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ycpt2ezp.

[92] Florian Bieber, “Authoritarianism in the Time of the Coronavirus,” Foreign Policy, March 30, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ycohshj8.

[93] Thomas Carothers and David Wong, “Misunderstanding Global Protests,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 1, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yc8fbkp2.

[94] “Coronavirus widens Hong Kong anger at government, China,” Reuters, Feb. 21, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y8bhl8k8.

[95] Dawn Brancati, “Coronavirus and the Hong Kong Protests,” Political Violence at a Glance, Feb. 20, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ybwccury.

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About the Author

Bill Wanlund, a former Foreign Service officer, is a freelance writer in the Washington, D.C., area. He has written for CQ Researcher on abortion, intelligence reform, the marijuana industry and climate change as a national security concern.

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