The Persuasive Power of Protest. How protest features affect the calculations of political elites

What makes protest powerful? Research on the impact of protest has mainly focused on contextual elements that boost the political influence of protest. Evidence on how features of protest events themselves shape perceptions of political elites is rare. This study presents results on the power of protest by means of an experiment conducted with Belgian political elites. In a survey-embedded video vignette experiment elites were exposed to manipulated television news items covering a single protest march. The claim of the demonstration was held constant (asylum seeker protest). Following Tilly’s well-known but never tested ‘WUNC‘-theory of protest impact, five features of the protest event were manipulated: the diversity, worthiness, unity, numerical strength, and commitment of the demonstrators. Results show that on top of strong effects of elite predispositions, protest features affect elites’ perceptions—the salience attached to the protest issue, the position taken on the protest issue, and the intended action to be undertaken. Some of the five dWUNC-features matter more than others. The size of a protest event (numbers) and whether the protesters agree among themselves (unity) prove especially persuasive. Worthiness and commitment produce position and saliency effects respectively. In closing, we discuss the role of agency in social movement success.