Dynamics of protest mobilization in the European poly-crisis

Abstract

Using an original protest event dataset covering 30 European countries and the period 2000–2021, this paper studies the nature and drivers of protest mobilisation across three major crises that have hit European Member States (the Eurozone, refugee, and Covid crises). Contributing a crisis-comparative perspective to social movement research, we explore crisis mobilisation in three steps. First, looking at general protest trends throughout the past decade, we find that the overall level of protest declined significantly, and especially so after the Eurozone crisis. Second, we characterise crisis-specific protest in terms of the action forms and the actors involved. We find a high involvement of institutional actors in the Eurozone crisis, a high share of radical events in the refugee crisis, and a generally non-confrontational protest organised by civil society actors in the Covid crisis. Finally, we explain crisis-specific protest levels by examining the mobilising effect of grievances. More specifically, we study the impact of problem pressure (how hard countries were affected using economic, migration, and public health indicators) and political pressure from public opinion (the salience of crisis-specific issues) and show that both were important drivers in the three crises.