Pride parades today provide the most visible manifestation of LGBT movements and politics. In this paper we will interrogate the potential tension between normalization and contention within contemporary Pride parades. We will conduct a comparative study of participants in Pride parades in six European countries: the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, on the basis of quantitative survey data collected during Pride events.We assume that the interaction of nation and mobilizing context produces a specific type of Pride demonstration, which in turn brings a specific group of participants into the streets. Our hypothesis is that within mobilizing contexts which facilitate a normalization of Pride parades, participants will span the party political, occupational and age spectrums, whereas in contexts where the LGBT movement has a weaker position, participants will more often identify with left-wing politics and will be significantly younger than those participating in the former context.
