Protest Beats Politics

Fascinating little piece in last week’s New Scientist (Aug 28th edition).

A study by Jon Agnone, a University of Washington sociologist, has found that sit-ins, rallies and boycotts were highly effective at forcing new environmental laws 1960 –1994.

The study compares the number of bills passed by Congress with the tactics employed by green groups in the same year. Each protest raised the number of pro-environment bills by more than 2%. Neither the state of public opinion at the time nor the effort spent schmooozing politicians, by contrast, had any influence whatsoever.

He also found that, unsurprisingly, more bills pass when both houses controlled by sympathetic parties – in US terms, the Democrats – and protests in an election year are more effective than at other times.

Agnone, addressing the American Sociological Association meeting in San Francisco, said protest groups lose effectiveness when they become part of the system, and the most effective weapon is disruption.

“If you make a big enough disturbance then people have to recognise what you’re doing.”

Greenpeace USA agreed. Director John Passacantando said, “Unless a politician feels real pressure, or a CEO senses a threat to his market, everything else is just talk.”

This agrees neatly with what Canberra politicians were saying when they decided it was OK to ban gay marriage: they weren’t hearing anything, so they felt safe to go ahead.

Moral: it doesn’t matter if the general public doesn’t like it, it doesn’t even matter if it upsets some of our own constituency – make enough of a stink and you CAN get stuff passed. Just don’t expect to be liked or thanked for it.