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This article argues that concessions can serve as a useful tool for managing protest. In the face of nonrevolutionary protest, concessions may represent a useful option for getting protesters out of the streets. This article theorizes that, in high-capacity states, actors involved in the process of managing protest are more varied and more capable, making the use of concessions, especially relatively cheap ones, more likely. The article then tests the theory using original event-level data on Mexican protests and responses, and leverages subnational variation in state capacity. It finds that higher levels of capacity are associated with a higher likelihood of concessions in response to protest. This finding represents an important distinction between the management of everyday protests and revolutionary ones, in which concessions are associated with state weakness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dados - Revista de Ciências Sociais is the property of DADOS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Although images are very important for political actors and social movements, including the radical right (RR), empirical studies still rarely integrate visual material as relevant data for understanding radical right politics. This article outlines this new and growing field of research (i.e., visuality and the RR), critically reviewing existing studies from the perspective of both visual studies of social movements and contentious politics, which are rarely applied to the RR, and the methodology of working with images, offering empirical case studies (European and beyond) to illustrate the argument. The findings reveal the main functions of the use of visuals for the radical right, as well as the benefits (but also the challenges) of studying radical right politics through the lens of visual analysis. A conceptual framework is proposed to capture this dominant visual politics of the radical right. As shown, two dimensions emerge as the most theoretically relevant for the radical right: The discursive meaning of images (the story itself, telling the story, eliciting the story) and the communicative function of images (visual expression by the movement or others, visibility), which combine agency and addressee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing demand for privatised security has rekindled significant attention to private military and security companies (PMSCs) in international relations and security discourse. Focusing on the Wagner Group, the overarching purpose of this work is to explore PMSCs in Africa to examine the consequences of their operations on the fate of the continent's security. How may PMSCs such as Wagner's operations and competitions with the traditional powers influence Africa's security environment? We attempt to demonstrate how Wagner's expanding footprint in Africa may create conditions for political violence and civil conflicts in Africa. Situating this analysis in the existing literature, we argue that the growing that the growing foothold of the Group and their readiness to compete with Western powers in Africa on behalf of Russia may reinforce states-citizens tensions, widen existing gaps between governments and citizens and radicalise and militarise citizens to drive political violence and civil conflicts. We base the methodological analysis on the qualitative technique and situate the theoretical argument in the contentious politics theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit many regions, including the Eastern Mediterranean. It has profoundly affected Cypriot communities and caused political, economic, and social consequences. The profile article aims to investigate the relationship between the pandemic threat on the island and decisions made by the Greek and Turkish Cypriot administrations. What aspects and to what extent has the pandemic affected relations between the two Cypriot communities? How have these changes influenced the bilateral dialogue and political decisions made by the Greek and Turkish Cypriot administrations? Is the pandemic conducive to developing cooperation, or does it extend existing divisions? The profile article argues a relationship between the emergence of the pandemic and the re-isolation of both Cypriot communities, which is one of its consequences, and the initiatives to resolve the Cypriot conflict by sanctioning the existence of two independent states. Such a change is noticeable, especially in the Turkish Cypriots, owing to the presidential election, the government crisis, and interference by Turkish authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on social movements suggests that when protesters use violence, public opinion often turns against them, unless the observers already view the protesters as extremists. This creates what we refer to as an "asymmetric liability," where by moderate protest movements are held to a higher standard of civility than more extreme ones. Based on a survey experiment surrounding the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, we show that violence undercuts Chinese public sympathy when movements are framed around rights-based agendas but has little impact when protesters are portrayed as separatists. Pairing our survey results alongside media trends offers suggestive evidence that mainland respondents became less sympathetic to anti-government protesters and slightly less sensitive to protest violence as state media began depicting protesters as radical separatists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Global Naga Forum (GNF), a Naga civil society organization, spearheaded the historic Naga solidarity walk on 20 July 2022, to unify the fragmented and dispersed Nagas across borders. GNF's Facebook page acts as a transnationalizing platform in its attempt to amplify Naga voices and build networks for social and political change. A thematic analysis of 321 textual posts extracted from GNF's Facebook page reveals key themes such as peace, unity, inclusivity, solidarity, and resilience. Data show that activity spikes around Naga historical landmarks, and the top three types of posts are videos, pictures, and relay posts, with mostly "like" and "love" reactions to videos, pictures, and news updates. The sentiment analysis of the 863 comments reveals maximum positive sentiments in solidarity with the Naga cause and minimal negative expressions attributed to frustration, condemnation, and skepticism. Naga's contentious politics via social media is constructed as a transnational social movement amplifying their grievances with a non-violent approach. The nationalist factors reveal a strong desire to reclaim the Naga homeland and the right to self-determination. In the role of a choreographer, GNF orients towards the symbolic condensation of the Nagas, based on "a Naga is a Naga" identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the spring of 1968, Sweden was supposed to play a Davis Cup tennis match against Rhodesia, a quasi-apartheid state in southern Africa. The game was scheduled to be played on 3 May in the small town of Båstad in southern Sweden. However, hundreds of anti-racist activists gathered and stopped the game from starting. There were hours of confrontations with police (who used tear gas and a fire hose), making it the most violent protest in Sweden in 1968. Despite this, the Båstad tennis protest is seldom mentioned in historical narratives of the political radicalisation process in Sweden in the 1960s. In this article, the protest is analysed systematically for the first time, with a focus on the planning, how it was carried out, and its violent aftermath (several activists were attacked by local mobs). Not only is the protest analysed, but it is used to problematise traditional narratives about 1968. Two key conclusions are drawn. First, the Båstad protest shows that Sweden in 1968 was more confrontational and violent than is often assumed. Not as violent as West Germany or France, but still, the Båstad protest does not tally with the general assumption that the radicalisation of Sweden was peaceful. Second, Sweden in 1968 not only was marked by left-wing activism; the right mobilised too, although this has been studied far less. In Båstad, the activists were harassed by violent mobs, and local right-wing leaders mobilised local opinion for restrictions on the democratic right of assembly and protest. This right-wing mobilisation was also a part of 1968 in Sweden and should be studied in more detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does material culture shape contentious politics? Things, we argue, influence political contention in ways that are reducible neither to struggles over meaning nor to the thingly aspect of things. The article combines pragmatic semiotics with insights on ritual practice and collective experience. By bringing together three often separate literatures – contentious politics, material culture, and affect – we suggest a thicker understanding of agency. Agency, this article contends, is distributed between primary human actors and objects, which exercise a degree of secondary agency. Our aim is to explore how affect is stored in and channelled through seemingly ordinary objects. Political actors use these affectively charged symbol-index-icons in pursuit of various objectives; specifically, material things are shown to enable and constrain episodes of contention. As a result, our understanding of contentious politics involves not only ideas, texts, and opportunity structures but also the objects that help make social and political change possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the conflict studies literature, the article classifies the latest scholarly writings on the origins of the Donbas conflict into three general groupings: on the role of the history and identity of the region’s inhabitants, on the interference by “third” actors and on so-called contentious politics. The analysis suggests that the initial support of the uprising by Russia is usually greatly overestimated, and the level of social discontent and protest movements is underestimated. The study of contentious politics appears to be the most appropriate tool regarding the origins of the conflict. After 2015, the conflict took on, at least in part, the contours of an interstate clash, but the Donbas insurgency has continued to retain its authenticity. The failure of the 2015 settlement and the path to war after 2018 cannot be understood without considering the actions of Russia and those of Ukraine and leading Western states.

Much of the focus of cyber conflict has been on interstate conflict. This article focuses on two interrelated questions in the important but neglected area of cyber contentious politics. First, how does the public feel about the use of different eco tactics including cyber-based tactics carried out by activists involved in the radical environmental movement, a movement that uses protest and sabotage in service of environmental causes? Second, how do anti-technology sentiment and concerns about climate change influence support for different eco tactics? To answer these questions, we conduct a survey and survey experiment on a nationally diverse sample of Americans. We find that Americans are less supportive of certain eco tactics, particularly those that involve property destruction or physical sabotage compared to cyber-based tactics. We further show that anti-technology sentiment and perceived threat from climate change are correlated with increased support for eco direct actions. Using a survey experiment we show that cyber direct actions that result in sabotage are viewed as more acceptable than kinetic actions even though they both result in the same level of destruction. Finally, we include qualitative data from interviews with activists to better understand the strategy and role that new technology and tactics play in the broader radical environmental movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debt has constituted a pivotal theme of both older and more recent mobilizations and critical public debate. While academia has started new discussions about debt relations, literature on resistance against debt is relatively scarce and mostly focuses on the Global South before the North Atlantic Financial Crisis. The aim of this article is to contribute to filling this gap by studying debt-centered movements in recent anti-austerity politics. The article will argue that the 2007/2008 financial crisis has exacerbated debt-related grievances in the Global North to a degree already common across the Global South. I will argue that and show how in response to this spillover established debt abolition networks decided to now also work on Northern debt, while new movement networks for debt justice emerged from within and as a constitutive part of the 2010/2011 anti-austerity and pro-democracy protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article undertakes a comparative analysis of two cases, Hong Kong and South Korea, each characterized by distinct levels of political and civil liberties to elucidate how the institutionalization of national security operates in shaping the repertoires of popular political actions and the repressive conduct of state actors. In both cases, the legal frameworks serve to curtail popular political action, both online and offline, often through discretionary applications of national security norms, resulting in ambiguity. They bestow legitimacy upon state agencies to engage in protest policing, surveillance, and the suppression of individuals or organizations in the name of upholding national security. In contrast, the national security laws in Hong Kong and South Korea, influenced by varying interpretations and applications of perceived threats to national security, result in differences in the extent and degree of contentious political actions and state repression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do actors react to the politicisation of trade policy? This special issue aims to tackle this question, considering a broad set of actors including members of parliament, political parties, regional and national governments, interest groups, and the European Commission. To set the stage for the contributions to the special issue, in this introduction, we first conceptualise politicisation as the combination of high salience and high contestation. We then present existing research on the politicisation of trade policy, highlighting the relative scarcity of work on reactions to politicisation. The introduction also offers a typology of strategies available to actors in response to politicisation, which distinguishes between dodging, free riding, confronting, and bandwagoning. These strategies differ with respect to the position taken by actors relative to contestation and by their level of activity. Finally, we summarise the main lessons learned from the special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WWI created a global economic crisis, stimulating mass popular protests in all belligerent countries that undermined the state’s legitimacy and triggered the emergence of violence, reminiscing the coercive character of interwar European politics. A central component in this protest on the rear was women’s protests against the misery that ultimately culminated in a series of violent hunger riots denunciating the war effort and political elites. The present article follows this trend in the Bulgarian wartime experience by analyzing the transformation of economic hardships into women-led popular protest. The study focuses on the protesters’ political language and symbolical tactics to politicize everyday social suffering by framing it within the broader context of national solidarity and the war effort. The article argues that the wartime crisis exacerbated the pre-war class conflicts and stimulated mass popular dissent that empowered the women “in the rear” to challenge the state’s authority, insisting on economic redistribution and peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Omran for Social Sciences is the property of Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Why do people opt for different forms of collective action, like lobbying, marching, or rioting, to voice contentious claims? The patterns of these collective action forms, or "tactics" exhibit variations among groups, regions, and nations, evolving over time. Current explanations for such tactical patterns are unsatisfactory due to limited theoretical and empirical exploration of the concept of repertoires of contention. This paper presents a comprehensive theoretical model drawing on social practice and learning theories, centered around the notion of tactical familiarity. The central idea posits that people in diverse societies have learned distinct ways of doing politics, gaining varying familiarity and proficiency with different tactics, developed through three mechanisms: feedback, diffusion, and memory. These mechanisms contribute to the formation of notably distinct repertoires of contention. Based on this theoretical model, this study develops an empirical measure of tactical familiarity. The novel measure allows comparing the impact of tactical familiarity with other factors, like political regime characteristics. Previous research has not conducted such comparisons, as it often focuses on particular tactics, like protests or violence, without delving into the full array of potential tactical choices, including conventional-institutional ones. Using quantitative event analysis and a dataset of 10 Million International Dyadic Events, the paper examines 17,575 global political events from 2000 to 2004. Multilevel multinomial logistic regression highlights repertoires of contention's significant influence on tactical choices, potentially outweighing political regime characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reindeer pastoralism, practiced by groups of the Indigenous Sámi people in Sweden, is being threatened by a new wave of encroachments. In this paper I take stock of how the Sámi movement has mobilized around grievances related to the ecological conditions that support natural pasture-based reindeer pastoralism. I apply the contentious politics approach to social movement theory, and Felix Kolb's conceptualization of five strategies that social movements have used when interacting with the state to achieve political change. Drawing upon 10 years of data from the Sámi public news service, my study makes three main contributions. First, I identify a set of themes found in the public grievances connected to ecological conditions articulated by reindeer pastoralist organizations in the public sphere that are a focus for mobilization. Second, I present an overview of the five strategies that the Sámi movement applies in claims-making to address those grievances: the public preference mechanism, the political access mechanism, the judicial mechanism, the international politics mechanism, and the disruption mechanism, and show how they relate to one another. Third, I discuss the limitations of current mobilization efforts, and argue that cross-movement coalitions are needed to challenge the hegemonic bloc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The worldwide explosion of social welfare has been described as the "quiet revolution" of our time. This paper analyses the expansion of social welfare in India during the early part of the 2000s. What explains this expansion of encompassing social welfare in India, following a history of disparate and fragmented social policies? The answer, I argue, lies in recognizing the importance of the "politics of the poor," the ensemble of negotiations that encompass both electoral participation and contentious politics vis-à-vis the political institutions in India. The paper develops this argument by drawing together insights from discursive institutionalism, Indian politics, and the politics of welfare literature. Doing so enables me to examine the ways in which poor people's political practices were interpreted by India's parliamentarians to justify the legislation of India's flagship social welfare program the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. I analyze the discourses communicated through 78 parliamentary debates in English and Hindi to enact the law. I blend this analysis with process tracing of electoral behavior of India's poor and the Maoist insurrection that exploded in the country's poorest districts at the turn of the century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decades have witnessed a conceptual opening of human rights practices, hitherto prerogative of a chosen few legal experts, towards a multiplicity of subjectivities. This afforded human rights scholarship to address subaltern histories and reckon with past exclusions. Conversely, critical deconstruction and empirical diversification have aggravated the seemingly basic, yet thorny quest for defining human rights activism and identifying human rights defenders. This not only poses a challenge to research but, foremost, opens human rights concepts to abuse and undermines protection regimes. In this contribution to the Journal of Human Rights Practice 's Anniversary Issue, I trace the definition dilemma as it emerges from emancipatory developments in human rights practice scholarship. I am not pretending to solve this dilemma; rather, I offer 'metaphorical dislocations' changing the terms of discussion to elicit new avenues of thought. Taking common allusions to the economy of human rights as my point of departure, I pursue Marx's critique of political economy as a metaphor to describe human rights activism as a labour practice that a) produces discursive value qua rendering violence legible and b) transforms activist cultures socio-politically. Hence, I encounter the subjectivity of human rights defenders in the tensions between the co-dependent dimensions of practice and its political representation. The aspiration of this think piece is to emphasize the importance of co-constructing common foundations in the research on human rights activism, and to provoke responses leading us out of the all-too-well known trenches of debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature suggests that the competitive authoritarian regimes emerging in the twenty-first century are more subtle and nuanced in comparison to the old regimes of the 1990s. Aiming to understand these differences in greater depth, this article explores how new competitive authoritarian regimes react to mass protests. The article focuses on the case of Serbia, a country where protests have been widespread both during the old regime of the 1990s and the current regime. Analysing five protests waves in the past decade, we were able to identify three dominant strategic interactions of the regime with the protests, all of which contrast significantly with those employed by the old regime. First, in contrast to protest bans and oppression mechanisms used by the old regime, the new regime tends to allow, and strategically ignore protests. Second, while in the past police violence was widespread, there is an apparent police absence from the protests nowadays. Finally, there is a clear difference in the ways the two regimes portray the "Others". While in the 1990s the international enemies were clearly identified and explicitly evoked, the new regime tends to make vague and contradictory claims about diverse but unspecific international and regional enemies behind protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Hong Kong's social unrest of 2019, protesters adopted a variety of strategies to express their demands, including demonstrations on the street, political consumerism, and vandalizing stores of retailers perceived to be ideologically opposed to the movement, among others. When the Hong Kong government began to more forcefully suppress and monitor the protest, data became a contentious object as well as a weapon in the repertoire of political struggle. Taking the protesters' collective initiative of doxing the policemen and their families as an example, this article examines protesters' engagement with data during the 2019 Hong Kong Anti-ELAB Movement. Specifically, we explore how movement participants adapted doxing practices in response to shifts in the political opportunity structure namely the passage of the National Security Law 2020 (NSL). This article investigates how the discourses, targets, strategies, and sentiments within the doxing changed following the introduction of the NSL. It also discusses the meanings and challenges of data activism and the contentious nature of doxing under different political opportunity structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Aposta is the property of Aposta and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Athenaeum: Polskie Studia Politologiczne is the property of Faculty of Political Science & Security Studies Nicolaus Copernicus University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Why does the scale and intensity of protest vary so widely across Russian cities? This article answers this question by disaggregating political opportunity structures to consider the interaction between formal and informal political factors through a paired comparison of two similar Russian cities during the turbulent 1990s. Drawing on archival documents, interviews, and an analysis of local media, I argue that the observed variation depends on elite strategies for social control and local governmental institutions. Specifically, when a city's institutions and political elite strategy match, either with undemocratic institutions and a closed political elite strategy, or with democratic institutions and an open political elite strategy, protests are likely to be small and insignificant. In contrast, when the institutional architecture and political elite strategies mismatch, protests are more likely to be large and intense because there is an opening for protest, but not institutionalized paths for participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the contentious political dynamics of the largest workfare program in the world, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) of India? Combining quantitative analysis with a close reading of government documents and a survey of the existing literature, we suggest that the Indian government's counter‐insurgency strategy against the Maoist unrest is a significant dynamic shaping the distribution of MGNREGA benefits. In our empirical analysis, we examine the effect of Maoist incidents on household income due to MGNREGA by merging a nationally representative household survey (Indian Human Development Survey‐II) and a Maoist incidents dataset. Controlling for relevant household and district characteristics, we show that higher intensity of violent conflicts is associated with higher MGNREGA benefits. This result is robust to using a variety of alternative specifications and estimation methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 2019 to 2020, Hong Kong faced public unrest due to the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement. Political graffiti became a prevalent way to express dissent and different perspectives. This study uses linguistic landscape theory to examine the sociolinguistic and political characteristics of the graffiti that emerged during the protests. The goal is to highlight the counter-narratives that developed during this time. The findings, based on primary data (photos of graffiti) and secondary data (newspaper reports and social media posts on graffiti) collected from August 2019 to February 2020, suggest that protesters aimed to push forward the discourse on Hong Kong as a global economic hub that is succumbing to 'mainlandization.' As a result, much of the graffiti was written in English and other global languages. Although many of these messages were insightful and timely, some promoted radical ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, the army has traditionally been a central pillar of the authoritarian regimes, responsible for the security and integrity of the state and a symbol of national sovereignty and social unity. Nevertheless, the 2011 Arab revolts witnessed stark differences in the response of the armies. This article argues that a relational reading of the Structure of Political Opportunities and Threats, particularly when its dimension of the state's capacity and propensity for repression is informed by a MENA-salient regime feature—army embeddedness—offers a compelling solution to the puzzle. An analysis of the Egyptian, Syrian, and Libyan episodes of contention, based on a comparative method that combines mechanism-based process tracing and typological theorizing, demonstrates the theoretical payoffs of this sensitized dimension. Cross-case similarities underscore the value of thinking about the army as a full-fledge agent embedded within a web of relations with social and political forces. Specifically, findings reveal how army embeddedness shapes the respective operation and effect of the mechanisms "political opportunities" and "political threats," and highlight the importance of differentiating between the state's capacity and the state's propensity for repression. Within-case variations highlight the historically specific development of such embeddedness and how it plays out distinctively in each case, forming different scenarios of high and low capacity and propensity for repression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The protests of December 2001 in Argentina were the most visible manifestation of a larger cycle of contention, which continues to have a substantial influence on the forms, tactics and goals of social movements throughout the country. This paper provides a critical overview of these lasting effects. In particular, we focus on three areas where the consequences of the crisis for collective action have been particularly strong: performative politics, coalition‐building, and institutional support for grassroots networks. We conclude by reflecting on the implications for participatory democracy and the consolidation of a highly engaged civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Leaderless movements' are hallmarks of contemporary contentious politics. Yet, scholars have not reached a consensus on the definition of leaderless movements – with some highlighting 'spontaneity' while others explore 'organisation-ness'. This study informs the theoretical debates by conceptualising leaderless movements as a shifting interplay of leaders, spontaneity and organisation-ness, using the case study of the 2019–20 Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Bill Movement. This study found that a plurality of social movement organisations had integrated both spontaneity and organisation-ness when mobilising, spanning from organisation formalisation to managing resources and advancing actions. The empirical findings of this study point to the need for rethinking the dynamics of leaders, spontaneity, and organisation-ness in contentious politics, suggesting a new definition that guides future studies of leaderless movements worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the conf lict studies literature, the article classifies the latest scholarly writings on the origins of the Donbas conf lict into three general groupings: on the role of the history and identity of the region's inhabitants, on the interference by "third" actors and on so-called contentious politics. The analysis suggests that the initial support of the uprising by Russia is usually greatly overestimated, and the level of social discontent and protest movements is underestimated. The study of contentious politics appears to be the most appropriate tool regarding the origins of the conf lict. After 2015, the conf lict took on, at least in part, the contours of an interstate clash, but the Donbas insurgency has continued to retain its authenticity. The failure of the 2015 settlement and the path to war after 2018 cannot be understood without considering the actions of Russia and those of Ukraine and leading Western states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic changed contentious politics worldwide. After causing a short-lived decline in global protest activities in early 2020, it has led to the emergence of a variety of pandemic-related protests. While previous work has mostly looked at how event frequencies have changed over time, this paper focuses on changes in protest issues. It applies quantitative text analysis to protest event descriptions and makes the following contributions. First, it traces the rise and fall of pandemic-related protests globally between 2020 and mid-2022, showing that, on average, more than 15% of protest events were pandemic-related. Second, it identifies the most dominant pandemic-related protest issues--masks and vaccination, the economy, business restrictions, health care, education, mismanagement, and crime--and their salience over time. Third, the paper explores potential explanations for differences in the prevalence of pandemic-related protest issues between countries. Multivariate regression analyses suggest a global divide. Protests in developed countries and liberal democracies were more likely about government restrictions. In contrast, citizens in less developed countries took to the streets to demand better healthcare provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on contention tends to conflate contentious actions and audience's interpretation of those actions. This is problematic because interpretation is central to how contention unfolds and brings about social change. We theorise that interpretation is patterned by one or more cultural models of contention. These provide background assumptions about what actions count as political and what actions are legitimate. We show the fruitfulness of our approach in two survey studies of 1429 US citizens. It allows us to explore patterns in how the US public interpret contention. Furthermore, we investigate how interpretation varies across political and apolitical contexts, finding little variation between these. Finally, we study heterogeneity in how the public interpret contention, finding variation between individuals but also shared patterns. The article contributes to the literature on contention by providing a theoretical framework to study the public's interpretation of contention and a fine-grained empirical analysis of this interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]