PRO-GOVERNMENT COUNTER-PROTESTS IN DEMOCRACIES – WHY THEY ARE UNLIKELY TO HAVE FAVORABLE OUTCOMES
Keywords:
protests, counter-protests, United States, Eastern Europe, EgyptAbstract
The 2010s and 2020s have seen a surge in protest activities in a multitude of countries around the globe. Many of the protests have targeted incumbent parties and on a number of occasions have spiraled into revolutions or even protracted conflicts, which have taken the shape of civil wars and even seen the involvement of third states. While the motivations behind political protests have in many cases been analyzed at length, a significantly less explored topic concerns the somewhat related phenomenon of counter-protests – demonstrations that oppose the goals of the original protest movements and are often in favor of the ruling governments – as well the nature of the interactions between demonstrations and counter-demonstrations. The paper employs a qualitative methodology, which entails the integrated analysis of a selection of secondary sources within the social sciences. It fulfils three primary objectives. Firstly, it argues that organizing counter-protests is on the vast majority of occasions a gamble that is unlikely to pay off for governments in consolidated and semi-consolidated democracies. On the one hand, while in authoritarian regimes counter-protests may have a deterrence effect by signaling the strength of the ruling autocrats, in democratic countries they are unlikely to successfully mask government weaknesses, unless the participants in them very clearly outnumber the people who original protests. Secondly, counter-protests may invite further violence and civil disorder or raise concerns that the democratically elected government is losing its monopoly on violence in society, which is not a good look with regard to the credibility of any government. Thirdly, counter-protests may find it especially difficult to satisfy the standard of authenticity because they are almost by definition a reaction to an ongoing protest activity that is usually perceived by the silent majority of people (who do not physically involve themselves in protest activities) to be motivated by at least a partially legitimate cause. The article also briefly examines two instances of counter-protests in Egypt and Bulgaria in order to illustrate the abovementioned points. Thus, in a political climate in which conviction politicians and protesters who are committed to their cause are as a rule viewed with acclaim, counter-protests that are organized in a top-down fashion may only serve to further reduce the legitimacy of the incumbent government.
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