Why is protest employed in the political process

Occupy Wall Street is a great example. The hodgepodge groups that participated had no formal affiliation with one another, no clear hierarchy, and no obvious leaders.

But social networks helped to virally replicate the movement so that the basic patterns of camping, protesting, fundraising, communicating with the media, and interacting with the authorities were similar from place to place. The same message echoed everywhere: It is unacceptable that global wealth is concentrated in the hands of an elite 1 percent while the remaining 99 percent can barely scrape by.

Such a global, massive, and seemingly well-organized initiative should have had a greater impact. By and large the Occupy movement has now vanished from the headlines. In fact, government responses usually amount to little more than rhetorical appeasement, and certainly no major political reforms.

He accused the opposition and protesters of plotting a sophisticated conspiracy against him, and tried to block Twitter and YouTube.

The same dynamic has played out during demonstrations against violence in Mexico City and corruption in New Delhi: massive marches, scant results. How can so many extremely motivated people achieve so little? In , he created a Facebook group to protest the demolition of the historic Stork Fountain in a major square of the Danish capital. Ten thousand people joined in the first week; after two weeks, the group was 27, members-strong.

Veuillez activer JavaScript. Por favor, active JavaScript. Bitte aktivieren Sie JavaScript. Si prega di abilitare JavaScript. How citizens try to influence politics and why. International comparisons of movement and party politics.

Results in Brief. Scientific advances Teaching the next generation to fight rising tide of plastic pollution.

Share this page. While Blake survived the shooting, he is reportedly now paralyzed. Subsequent demonstrations in Kenosha have joined what could be the largest protest movement in U. And those demands have generated substantive policy change. Both Democrats and Republicans have offered federal legislation on police reform, and across the nation, local municipal leaders are cutting bloated police budgets.

And prioritizing voting over protesting is the not-so-subtle way we devalue marginalized groups. Voting is only one way that people can exercise their power to create policy change—now, as national protests grow and Black athletes boycott their games, we are being shown that there are other ways to influence policy.

It was those ongoing protests that led the Minneapolis City Council to vote to eliminate their police department. And it was protests that prompted international corporations—including Apple, Bank of America, Comcast, Nike, and dozens more—to invest billions in fighting racism and inequality.