Many have participated in demonstrations, marches, pickets, strikes in recent years and have ultimately felt let down, disappointed, frustrated, apathetic, and ultimately de-motivated. Those in power stay in power, abuse their power, wield their power to repress, and manipulate the rule of law. 

But what do we really mean when we say that a protest “failed”? What do we mean when we say it was “successful”? Is it really just a matter of meeting demands, or are there other measures of success such as shifting public opinion, paving way for more radical candidates, building a large base of support for future coalitions?

To answer these questions, we turned both to the data — through tools like the Carnegie Global Protest Tracker — as well as sociological explanations —  like Zeynep Tufekci’s talk on “how the internet has made social change easy to organize, hard to win” where she makes powerful statements such as "easier to mobilize does not always mean easier to achieve protest goals."

For example, the Civil Rights movement took place over a strenuous 14-year period and was characterized by persistent in-person organization while navigating a minefield of political danger and repression. Change did not happen overnight with Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. But today—as social media has made it easier to mobilize large-scale movements—successful outcomes have not been proportional to the size and energy they inspire.

Key ingredients to movement success include CONSOLIDATED publics, consistency (sometimes up to a decade like in the case of Solidarność), poetic views of the alternative world, and evolving repertoires. We also concluded that movements don’t die but rather hibernate, often sinking under the sand, “like a groundhog, always working under the radar.” We cannot always judge a movement based on the sheer number of people marching on the street—ideas change, policies change, and ultimately politics change.

Thanks to these wonderful students for a successful spring semester!