Do disasters trigger protests? A conceptual view of the connection between disasters, injustice, and protests—The case of COVID-19

Abstract

People around the globe are affected by disasters far beyond the disaster properties. Given that certain social groups are affected disproportionately, disasters need to be considered as political events which may cause political actions. Therefore, we aim to discuss, from a social psychological perspective, how and why protests might occur during or after a disaster. We argue for an elaborated model of collective action participation suggesting that disasters enhance the predictors of protest mobilization and participation though emerged or enhanced social injustice. We also suggest that disaster properties can be used to delegitimise protests and social movements, limiting the mobilization and collective resilience during and after a disaster. Finally, we discuss the gaps in current research and emphasize the need for more attention to the disaster-protest link as we can expect more disasters due to climate crisis, likely to lead to more protests and political collective action.

“I’ll be the first one on the street to protest against the lockdown”: Economic grievances and antilockdown protests during the COVID-19 pandemic in high-income countries

“…As mentioned earlier, the COVID-19 pandemic led to one of the most severe economic recessions since the 2007–2009 Great Recession and caused significant hardship to many people worldwide (van der Zwet et al, 2022; World Bank, 2020). As we observed many people in national contexts rally to demand the cancellation of the COVID-19 restrictions (e.g., Gerbaudo, 2020; Vestergren et al, 2022), we sought to explain this phenomenon from a social-psychological perspective. Across three studies conducted in high-income economies at the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed a positive, linear relationship between perceived economic grievances and both willingness to participate and actual participation in antilockdown protests.…”

Review on Social Laser Theory and Its Applications

“…Social networks resonated these excitations. This led to generation of local spikes of protests, world-wide and especially in Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, France, UK, Canada, and even Sweden (see, e.g., [41]- [43]). In Sweden the COVID-19 restrictions were really mild by comparing with majority of countries: no lockdowns, no masks.…”

“…The role of social networks as lasing resonators is illustrated by the massive protests during COVID-19 pandemic (cf.,e.g., [41,42,43].…”

What makes people adapt together? An empirically grounded conceptual model on the enablers and barriers of collective climate change adaptation

“…Regarding the violation of moral convictions, studies showcase how climate change is an increasingly political issue, opening up the possibility to use it for politicization, that is, the polarization of individuals through local or political leaders or the alignment of political positions with climate change beliefs (Bliuc et al, 2015;Fielding and Hornsey, 2016). Vestergren et al (2022) demonstrate that more frequent and intense disasters can increase feelings of injustice, mobilizing people through shared fate. Other studies confirm that the identification with other people at risk in one particularly exposed area creates strong, risk-based social identities and social memories (Ratter, 2013) that solidify with increasing frequency and intensity of hazards (Barnett et al, 2021), facilitating collective responses.…”