The Impact of Protest Movements on the Establishment: Dimensions, models, approaches

Abstract

A broad consensus exists within the literature on collective action that protest movements can have a multitude of important, intended, and unintended impacts on the establishment. There is, however, less agreement on how we can measure such effects, a problem that has clearly hindered systematic investigations in this important area of research. This chapter argues that the methodological question of how to study the impact of protest movements on the establishment leads to a much broader theoretical issue and to the main challenge facing researchers of social movement outcomes to date, namely, how to establish a link between movement activities and political, social, and cultural changes. The aim of this chapter is to stimulate theoretical and methodological reflections about how to study the effects of protest movements on the establishment. We do this by extending our field of analysis and focusing not only on the impacts on the establishment, but more broadly on the range of potential outcomes associated with collective action. Throughout this discussion particular attention will also be directed toward how, conversely, the establishment responds to protest. We refer to this response as the external political dimension of social movement outcomes.