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Who is that (wo)man in the street? From the normalisation of protest to the normalisation

European Journal of Political Research volume 39, pages 461–486 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

The time has long since passed that protests and demonstrations wereregarded as the possible beginning of violent revolutionary ferment. Venting dissatisfaction or making demands in the streets has become commonplace in our ‘demonstration-democracy’. In this article we examine whether this normalisation of street protest also means that more heterogeneous groups of people taketo the streets. Have citizens become potentially peaceful protesters or is protest politics still the domain of union militants, progressive intellectuals, and committed students? In answering these questions wewill use the three research methods most commonly used for studying collective action: population surveys, protest event-analysis and interviews with protesters at demonstrations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Antwerp, Belgium

    Peter Van Aelst & Stefaan Walgrave

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  1. Peter Van Aelst
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Van Aelst, P., Walgrave, S. Who is that (wo)man in the street? From the normalisation of protest to the normalisation. European Journal of Political Research 39, 461–486 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011030005789

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011030005789

Keywords

  • Research Method
  • Collective Action
  • Heterogeneous Group
  • Population Survey
  • Union Militant