The Transformation of Protest Politics

This Element discusses many processes of transformation of protest politics, such as expansion, normalization, changing scales, and so on.

This Element identifies a number of processes of change as outlined in the literature, going from the expansion of the repertoires of contention to the normalization of protest and of the protesters, and the shifting scale of contention to more individual-level processes such as the individualization and digitalization of protest.The central questions addressed in this Element are: How has protest politics changed over time, especially but not exclusively in the most recent times. And what are the implications and consequences of these transformations? In this vein, the Element identifies a number of processes of change as outlined in the literature, going from the expansion of the repertoires of contention to the normalization of protest and of the protesters, and the shifting scale of contention to more individual-level processes such as the individualization and digitalization of protest. The Element's aim is to provide a critical discussion of scholarship on the transformation of protest politics and social movement activism.