Why is the world protesting so much? A new study claims to have some answers.
By Adam Taylor
with Claire Parker at the Washington Post
Email: Why is the world protesting so much? A new study claims to have some answers.
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Are we in a historic age of protest? A new study released Thursday that looked at demonstrations between 2006 and 2020 found that the number of protest movements around the world had more than tripled in less than 15 years. Every region saw an increase, the study found, with some of the largest protest movements ever recorded — including the farmers’ protests that began in 2020 in India, the 2019 protests against President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and ongoing Black Lives Matter protests since 2013.
Titled “World Protests: A Study of Key Protest Issues in the 21st Century,” the study comes from a team of researchers with German think tank Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, a nonprofit organization based at Columbia University and adds to a growing body of literature about our era of increasing protests. Looking closely at more than 900 protest movements or episodes across 101 countries and territories, the authors came to the conclusion that we are living through a period of history like the years around 1848, 1917 or 1968 “when large numbers of people rebelled against the way things were, demanding change.”
But why? Here, the authors highlight one particular problem: democratic failure. Their research found that a majority of the protest events they recorded — 54 percent — were prompted by a perceived failure of political systems or representation. Roughly 28 percent included demands for what the authors described as “real democracy,” the most of any demand found by the researchers. Other themes included inequality, corruption and the lack of action over climate change. But the study’s authors say policymakers do not respond adequately.
“Too many leaders in government and business are not listening. The vast majority of protests around the world advance reasonable demands already agreed upon by most governments. People protest for good jobs, a clean planet for future generations, and a meaningful say in the decisions that affect their quality of life,” said Sara Burke, senior expert on global economic policy at the FES and an author on the study.
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