Does Protest Matter?

Catalog description

This course asks whether protest makes a difference in effecting significant social change? This question is important in today?s world in which protest over a range of issues happens on a daily basis. Protest occurs almost all the time just about everywhere; the BLM protests during the summer of 2020, the January 6 insurrection, the current protests against ?Critical Race Theory,? the movements for LGBTQ rights and for gay marriage, among many others. What makes one set of protests effective but not others? Does protest make a difference only under certain conditions such as support among elites or powerful allies? Is there a difference between protests on the right or left of the political spectrum in terms of their ability to effect change? What about the role of violence (on the part of authorities or protesters) and disruption? We?ll discuss these questions with the help of short readings in the sociology of social movements as well as narratives and documents from social movement activists themselves.