More on The Rebel's Dilemma
I ended my post below by mentioning the Rebel's Dilemma, an interesting book I read a few years ago that tries to explain in what circumstances people will protest or revolt, and the demographics of the people that do. The author's point is that rebellion is essentially irrational, by a similar logic to the Prisoner's Dilemma:

Any individual incurs costs by protesting - at the very least losses of time and money, and in more extreme cases imprisonment and death
Any individual's protest makes very little difference
If the protest *is* effective, non-participants gain the same benefits as participants

So by that logic, it's hard to see why anyone protests at all. The book demonstrates how the opposing sides in the protests work to change the balance of the logic in their favour: rebels highlight the amount of difference one person can make, protests are held on weekends to reduce the cost and so on, while governments work to increase the cost to participants (by tightening laws), try to deny protests publicity (to reduce the impact of individuals) and try to marginalize them.

He points out how protesters are usually those with the least to lose - students, the unemployed and those without families - and that protests are better attended in good weather. And lots of other good stuff - well worth a read, although it does go on a bit.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 15 Nov 2010, 15:07, 6 replies)

protest is only irrational
if you assume that it's irrational to be anything other than completely self interested. no?
( tickle I was away, Mon 15 Nov 2010, 16:09, closed)

Not at all
But *if* your protest won't have any impact on the outcome, then rational self-interest says there's no point to it. That's why getting people to protest is hard. You have to persuade them that they *can* make a difference, which is worth the personal cost. And the problem of the shared benefit is hard to overcome too.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 15 Nov 2010, 16:14, closed)

Don't you HAVE to be self interested to protest?
Don't people generally only protest against something when it's going to adversely affect them?

I find it hard to believe there are groups of people out there who go and protest against stuff that won't or can't affect them....
(repooc, Tue 16 Nov 2010, 1:06, closed)

Yes but
"Any individual incurs costs by protesting - at the very least losses of time and money, and in more extreme cases imprisonment and death"

This assumes that people protest purely out of self-interest rather than for a common (altruistic) purpose and that personal cost is irrational

"Any individual's protest makes very little difference"

Yes of course, but protesting is about numbers. It's as a collective that the difference is made.

"If the protest *is* effective, non-participants gain the same benefits as participants"

Of course, but unless you're approaching this from the belief that protest is purely motivated by self-interest ("Why should other people benefit from my efforts") then this doesn't matter, and is surely a desired result.

Those with the least to least lose generally protest because they have the most to gain.
( rofl harris, Mon 15 Nov 2010, 16:57, closed)

To restate the point above
I'm not saying protest is impossible - obviously it happens. My point is that because it *does* fly in the face of any self-interested analysis, it takes exceptional circumstances to make most people do it. We grumble and moan, but most of us don't participate in any direct action. The job for anyone trying to raise support for a cause is to find ways to persuade people that it is worth devoting time, effort and potential loss of life and liberty for. I don't think that's a particularly exceptionable thing to point out - what's nice about the book is that by framing the problem in terms of rational actor theory it becomes easier to study - as with the better-known Prisoner's Dilemma.

Regarding 'Those with the least to least lose generally protest because they have the most to gain', I'm not sure that's borne out by the facts. Students generally don't have much more reason to protest than others, but they're much more willing to do it. Conversely it's quite hard to get poor people in low-paid jobs to protest because they're more concerned about their loss of income.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 15 Nov 2010, 17:10, closed)

And to see examples of all these arguments, you only have to look at some of the answers on this qotw
Eg www.b3ta.com/questions/protest/post969104
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 15 Nov 2010, 17:15, closed)