protest – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Just Stop Oil: do radical protests turn the public away from a cause? Here’s the evidence

Posted on October 24, 2022March 29, 2023 by janet.crompton

Members of the protest group Just Stop Oil recently threw soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery in London. The action once again triggered debate about what kinds of protest are most effective.

After a quick clean of the glass, the painting was back on display. But critics argued that the real damage had been done, by alienating the public from the cause itself (the demand that the UK government reverse its support for opening new oil and gas fields in the North Sea).

Supporters of more militant forms of protest often point to historical examples such as the suffragettes. In contrast with Just Stop Oil’s action, when the suffragette Mary Richardson went to the National Gallery to attack a painting called The Rokeby Venus, she slashed the canvas, causing major damage.

painting of woman's rear, with slash marks — The Rokeby Venus: the 17th century painting by Diego Velázquez was slashed by a suffragette, though later repaired.
National Gallery / wiki

However, many historians argue that the contribution of the suffragettes to women getting the vote was negligible or even counterproductive. Such discussions often seem to rely on people’s gut feelings about the impact of protest. But as a professor of cognitive psychology, I know that we don’t have to rely on intuition – these are hypotheses that can be tested.

The activist’s dilemma

In one set of experiments researchers showed people descriptions of protests and then measured their support for the protesters and the cause. Some participants read articles describing moderate protests such as peaceful marches. Others read articles describing more extreme and sometimes violent protests, for example a fictitious action in which animal rights activists drugged a security guard in order to break into a lab and remove animals.

Protesters who undertook extreme actions were perceived to be more immoral, and participants reported lower levels of emotional connection and social identification with these “extreme” protesters. The effects of this kind of action on support for the cause were somewhat mixed (and negative effects may be specific to actions that incorporate the threat of violence).

Overall, these results paint a picture of the so-called activist’s dilemma: activists must choose between moderate actions that are largely ignored and more extreme actions that succeed in gaining attention, but may be counterproductive to their aims as they tend to make people think less of the protesters.

Activists themselves tend to offer a different perspective: they say that accepting personal unpopularity is simply the price to be paid for the media attention they rely on to “get the conversation going” and win public support for the issue. But is this the right approach? Could activists be hurting their own cause?

Hating protesters doesn’t affect support

I’ve conducted several experiments to answer such questions, often in collaboration with students at the University of Bristol. To influence participants’ views of protesters we made use of a well-known framing effect whereby (even subtle) differences in how protests are reported have a pronounced impact, often serving to delegitimise the protest.

For example, the Daily Mail article reporting the Van Gogh protest referred to it as a “stunt” which is part of a “campaign of chaos” by “rebellious eco-zealots”. The article does not mention the protesters’ demand.

Our experiments took advantage of this framing effect to test the relationship between attitudes to the protesters themselves and to their cause. If the public’s support for a cause depends on how they feel about the protesters, then a negative framing – which leads to less positive attitudes toward protesters – should result in lower levels of support for the demands.

But that’s not what we found. In fact, experimental manipulations that reduced support for the protesters had no impact on support for the demands of those protesters.

We’ve replicated this finding across a range of different types of nonviolent protest, including protests about racial justice, abortion rights and climate change, and across British, American and Polish participants (this work is being prepared for publication). When members of the public say, “I agree with your cause, I just don’t like your methods,” we should take them at their word.

Decreasing the extent to which the public identifies with you may not be helpful for building a mass movement. But high publicity actions may actually be a very effective way to increase recruitment, given relatively few people ever become activists. The existence of a radical flank also seems to increase support for more moderate factions of a social movement, by making these factions appear less radical.

Protest can set the agenda

Another concern may be that most of the attention obtained by radical actions is not about the issue, focusing instead on what the protesters did. However, even where this is true, the public conversation opens up the space for some discussion of the issue itself.

Protest plays a role in agenda seeding. It doesn’t necessarily tell people what to think, but influences what they think about. Last year’s Insulate Britain protests are a good example. In the months after the protests began on September 13 2021, the number of mentions of the word “insulation” (not “Insulate”) in UK print media doubled.

Graph showing mentions of 'insulation' in UK news media over time with a sharp rise between August and September 2021 — Spot when the Insulate Britain protests began. (Author’s own research, using Factiva database to search UK broadsheet and tabloid newspapers)
Colin Davis, Author provided

Some people don’t investigate the details of an issue, yet media attention may nevertheless promote the issue in their mind. A YouGov poll released in early June 2019 showed “the environment” ranked in the public’s top three most important issues for the first time.

Pollsters concluded that the “sudden surge in concern is undoubtedly boosted by the publicity raised for the environmental cause by Extinction Rebellion” (which had recently occupied prominent sites in central London for two weeks). There’s also evidence that home insulation has risen up the policy agenda since Insulate Britain’s protests.

Dramatic protest isn’t going away. Protagonists will continue to be the subject of (mostly) negative media attention, which will lead to widespread public disapproval. But when we look at public support for the protesters’ demands, there isn’t any compelling evidence for nonviolent protest being counterproductive. People may “shoot the messenger”, but they do – at least, sometimes – hear the message.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Professor Colin Davis, Chair in Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Colin Davis

Insulate Britain: blocking roads will alienate some people – but it’s still likely to be effective

Posted on September 21, 2021April 16, 2023 by janet.crompton

Insulate Britain is a campaign group urging government action on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel poverty in the country’s housing stock. Their methods have recently landed them in the news, as activists blocked parts of the M25 – the motorway surrounding London – by sitting on slip roads and in the carriageway until their removal by police.

The long delays their protests caused drew outrage from motorists and much of the media that reported it. So what is the purpose of this kind of disruption, made popular in recent years by Extinction Rebellion (XR)?

The American sociologist Charles Tilly argued that all protest actions were what he called WUNC displays: shows of worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment. The goal was not to stop or make something happen directly, but to demonstrate the strength and appeal and values of the protesters, so that both those in power and the general public would listen to their message.

Direct action groups tend to be slightly different from traditional social movements: their actions typically carry higher risks, and they tend to have fewer organisational resources. While they are very committed, being “respectable” isn’t necessarily so important, and the actions are typically carried out by relatively small numbers of people. Creating disruption helps make up for these shortcomings.

Novelty and attention

Protest is the language of people denied access to power – it is designed to draw attention, to be seen and heard. It is much more likely for protesters to achieve something if they inconvenience others in the process, rather than (as more established groups tend to do) leading a march or a demo. Many activists in Britain drew that lesson from the massive anti-Iraq war protests of 2003, which mobilised so many people and yet achieved little.

Recently, researchers have shown this to be true by comparing various kinds of protest over the past decade. Strikes, sit-ins, occupations and blockades have proven more likely to achieve some degree of success than less disruptive protests such as marches, demos or petitions.

One reason for the efficiency of disruption is that it is much more likely to provide press coverage, particularly when it is novel. It’s instructive to compare the Insulate Britain protests with the recent Extinction Rebellion protests. In April 2019, XR were able to garner widespread media and political attention by occupying central London for nearly two weeks. Since then however, doing the same thing has brought diminishing returns: the police are better prepared, the actions are less disruptive, they mobilise fewer people, and the media has turned elsewhere.

Yet people stopping traffic on the M25 has attracted attention. And the small group of activists have managed to get their demands – insulate all social housing by 2025 and all homes by 2030 – printed in national newspapers. Their clear demands are an evolution of XR’s preference for leaving details of what policies are needed to tackle climate change to a future citizens’ assembly.

A worker in blue overalls rolls out wool in an attic. — A nationwide retrofit and insulation campaign could slash emissions and fuel poverty.
Irin-k/Shutterstock

Is annoying people worthwhile?

Critics say that blocking roads hurts vulnerable people. In this case, talk radio hosts highlighted delays to one girl’s taxi journey to her special needs school. In the case of anti-fracking activists who blocked the A583 in Lancashire in July 2017, the trial judge argued that the inconvenience caused – the police had to set up a contraflow – justified sending three of them to jail on a public nuisance charge.

But as any motorist can tell you, these things happen every day. If you drive a car to work, you’ll know how often you are delayed, by accidents, roadworks, sheer weight of traffic.

Other critics will point to the confused logic of blocking roads for the cause of insulating homes. There is, indeed, little connection between the two, unlike activists occupying the Science Museum to protest Shell’s sponsorship of its climate change exhibition, or blockades of fracking sites. But then again, there isn’t much of a direct connection between marching through London and demanding that British forces don’t invade Iraq, either.

Where groups engage in more indirect forms of disruption, it’s necessary to do more behind the scenes for the protest to make sense, including making the link explicit for onlookers. Insulate Britain held banners with their name and logo – a quick search on the web takes you to a website outlining what the group wants. It is, in other words, all about the target audience, the public, which activists reach through the media. Nothing will be achieved there and then. Britain’s homes will not be insulated as a result of this particular protest.

Of course, disruptive protest annoys people, and protesters sometimes lose support because of this. YouGov measured public support for XR recently and found that nearly half of those polled have a negative opinion of the group. But broad popularity isn’t all that relevant. Direct action groups aren’t running for elections. They don’t need to be supported by a majority. At least 73% of those polled had heard of XR – more than Momentum (33%), Stonewall (50%), ActionAid (60%), or the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (64%).

What Insulate Britain want is to highlight political inertia and force the government to take action. And it is unlikely that people will be against insulating homes just because they get annoyed at protesters. An estimated four million UK households currently live in fuel poverty. Insulating homes is an essential part of lowering Britain’s emissions – and saving British households a lot of money. So, while Insulate Britain may well not be popular, their strategy appears to be to take the hit among some groups who might be irked by their methods in order to get home insulation in the news and up the government’s agenda.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Oscar Berglund, Lecturer in International Public and Social Policy, University of Bristol and Graeme Hayes, Reader in Political Sociology, Aston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Indian farmers’ strike continues in the shadow of COVID-19

Posted on May 10, 2021April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

In what is believed to be the biggest protest in history, in late November 2020 farmers from across India drove 200,000 trolleys and tractors towards Delhi’s borders in a mass protest against agricultural reforms. This was followed a few days later by a general strike involving 250 million people in both urban and rural areas of India as workers joined together to support the farmers.

The strike continues, despite the global public health crisis, which is hitting India harder than any other country in the world. Fear of COVID-19 has not deterred farmers, who have emphatically stated that regardless of whether they contract the virus, the “black laws” will kill them anyway.

The movement first began in the state of Punjab in June 2020, as farmers blocked freight railway lines in protest against these “black laws”, which increase corporate control over all aspects of the food chain from seed to sale. Farmers unions argue that the laws undermine state-controlled prices of key crops, by allowing sales outside of state mandis (markets).

The laws also enable corporations to control what contract farmers grow and how, thus reducing the bargaining power of small farmers. Corporations will be allowed to stockpile key produce and hence speculate with food, which was previously illegal. Finally, the laws provide legal immunity to corporations operating in “good faith”, thereby voiding the ability of citizens to hold agribusiness to account.

Braving tear gas and water cannons, thousands of farmers and their families descended on Delhi and transformed its busy roads into bustling camp cities, with communal “langhar” kitchens.

Undeterred by police violence, farmers fed these aggressors who beat them by day with free food by night. This act of community service not only underscored the peaceful intentions of the protests but also encapsulated one of the key ideas of the movement: “no farmers, no food”.

In the same spirit of solidarity, farmers at Delhi’s borders are responding to the rapidly escalating spread of COVID-19 in the city. They are distributing food packages and essential goods to hospitals, as well as in bus and railway stations for those leaving the capital.

Striking farmers have been supplying food to hospitals and other people in need during the COVID-19 emergency in India. Credit: EPA-EFE/STR. Source.

Farmers from numerous states, of all castes and religions, are coexisting and growing the protest movement from the soil upwards – literally, turning trenches into vegetable gardens. Many farmers refer to this movement as “andolan” – a revolution – where alliances are being forged between landless farm labourers and smallholder farmers. In a country deeply divided by caste and – increasingly – religion, this coming together around land, soil and food has powerful potential.

Women have also taken leading roles, as they push for recognition as farmers in their own right. They are exploring the intersections of caste oppression, gendered labour and sexual violence in person and in publications such as Karti Dharti – a women-led magazine sharing stories and voices from the movement.

Violent response

Despite the largely peaceful protests, farmers have been met with state repression and violence. At various points water supplies have been cut to the protest sites and internet services blocked. Undeterred, farmers have prepared the camp sites for the scorching summer heat that now envelops them.

Amnesty international has called on the Indian government to “stop escalating crackdown on protesters, farm leaders and journalists”. Eight media workers have been charged with sedition, while 100 people protesters have disappeared. In response, parliaments around the world have issued statements and debates on the right to peaceful protest in India, as well as a free and open press.

Women have been key players in the Indian farmers’ strike. EPA-EFE/Harish Tyagi. Source.

The heavy-handed government response and intransigence to the key demands of the movement adds grave doubt for farmers who are now being asked to disband protest sites in the interest of public health. It highlights the hypocrisy of being told to go home, while the ruling BJP was holding mass rallies in West Bengal.

The fear is that COVID-19 could derail the momentum of this movement, as with the protests around the Citizen Amendment Act, which were cleared in March 2020 due to enforced lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19. Farmers repeat that they will leave as soon as the government repeals the laws and protects the minimum support price of key crops.

There has been a groundswell of support from around the globe, from peasant movements, the Indian diaspora community and celebrities – including Rihanna and climate activist Greta Thunberg. This movement is fighting for the principles of democracy on which the Indian state was founded and is part of a civil society movement filling in for the state, which has been found sorely wanting in its response to the calamitous consequences of COVID-19.

The “black laws” are but the latest in a long history of struggle faced by Indian farmers. India’s sprawling fields have been sites of “green revolution” experimentation since the 1960s. This has worsened water scarcity, reduced crop genetic diversity, damaged biodiversity, eroded and depleted soils, all of which has reduced soil fertility.

The financial burden of costly inputs and failing crops has fallen on farmers, leading to spiralling debts and farmer suicides. The impacts of climate change and ecologically destructive farming are primary reasons for this financial duress. However, the movement has yet to deeply address the challenges of transitioning towards socioeconomically just, climate-friendly agriculture.

Peasant movements around the world highlight the importance of collective spaces and knowledge-sharing between small farmers. The campsites in Delhi provide a unique opportunity to link socioeconomic farming struggles to their deep ecological roots. These are indeed difficult discussions, but the kisaan (farmer) movement has provided spaces to challenge caste, religious and gender-based oppression.

The movement’s strength is its broad alliances and solidarity, but it remains unclear whether it will link palpable socioeconomic injustices to environmental injustices and rights. The ecological origins of COVID-19 make these connections ever more pressing the world over.

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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Jaskiran Kaur Chohan, at the University of Bristol Vet School. Jaskiran is a political ecologist with an interdisciplinary background in the Social Sciences.

Dr Jaskiran Kaur Chohan