Beyond the Ballot Box: Changing Patterns of Political Protest Participation in Germany (1974–2008)

Abstract

This article deals with the development of 'unconventional' political participation in Germany between 1974 and 2008. Our aim is to describe empirically the evolution of protest actions across time and differences between east and west. Moreover, we strive to unveil explanatory factors by analysing data from the Political Action Survey (1974/75) and the European Values Study (2008) in regard to lawful demonstrations. For this purpose, we draw on scholarly writing and test the causal effects of socio-demographic, social-structural and attitudinal factors. Our findings show that participation in lawful protest forms is not anymore a minoritarian, exceptional or unconventional act of political claims making, but a normal aspect of political behaviour. Demonstrations do not recruit exclusively a specific constituency with a clear social profile, but rather citizens from different social backgrounds and orientations. Moreover, our data suggest a gradual convergence between East and West Germany.

Differentiation in Protest Politics: Participation by Political Insiders and Outsiders

“…The perspective on the protest arena presented in this paper, namely that differentiated groups of individuals participate as a result of issue-specific mobilization, challenges a narrow understanding of normalization equated with conventionalization (e.g., Aelst & Walgrave, 2001 ; Lahusen & Bleckmann, 2015 ). At the same time, seen more generally, the Covid-19 crisis furthers the trend of normalization by providing an opportunity for political outsiders to participate in noninstitutional forms.…”

“…The first uses general-population surveys and emphasizes conventionalization as a key component of normalization. This research tradition shows that those who participate in noninstitutional forms are on average younger, more likely to be male, better educated, more politically interested, somewhat less trusting towards the state than voters, and more ideologically left-wing (e.g., Borbáth & Gessler, 2020 ; Dalton et al, 2010 ; Hooghe & Marien, 2013 ; Lahusen & Bleckmann, 2015 ; Norris et al, 2005 ; Saunders, 2014 ). The conventionalization literature suggests that some of these differences—particularly the socio-demographic ones—shrink or even disappear over time, as protest becomes normalized and part of the action repertoire of a broad segment of society.…”

“…In this context, they introduced the idea of the normalization of protesters and observe that with the partial exception of less affluent people with low education, all social groups were increasingly present in public demonstrations. Looking at Germany, Lahusen and Bleckmann ( 2015 ) compared the predictors of participation in lawful demonstrations in 1974/75 using the Barnes and Kaase ( 1979 ) dataset with the European Values Study-EVS (1981, 1990, 1999, 2008). In line with the normalization of the protesters hypothesis, they found that educational and class-based inequalities in participation considerably shrunk over time.…”

“…However, the label “unconventional” became the most contested part of the study, particularly because participation rates were high across all the forms of protest they examined. In addition, a series of later findings demonstrated that people who protest are politically interested and tend to also vote or otherwise participate in representative channels (Aelst & Walgrave, 2001 ; Lahusen & Bleckmann, 2015 ; Norris et al, 2005 ; Saunders, 2014 ). As a result, the subsequent literature largely abandoned the label “unconventional” in favor of alternatives such as “noninstitutional” participation (e.g., Hooghe & Marien, 2013 ).…”

Generations and Protest in Eastern Germany: Between Revolution and Apathy

“…The political participation of West Germans constitutes an interesting benchmark to contrast the effect of radically different experiences of political socialization in Eastern Germany. While previous research has found diverging patterns of protest participation in Eastern and Western Germany (Lahusen and Bleckmann 2015), it is unclear whether these differences are driven by period or cohort effects.…”