Attrition of Moderates: An Empirical Analysis on Protest Radicalism

Does protest duration affect whether protesters engage in violent behavior? Moreover, does protest size explain protester violence? We argue that the likelihood of protester violence increases as protests last longer. The mechanism behind the positive association between protest duration and protester violence is the existence of moderates in protest movements. With each passing day, the cost of protest activity increases. Rising costs is a deterrent for all participants, but non-moderates have a higher tolerance for costs since they are more pertinacious and devout than moderates. After a certain amount of time, moderates leave the streets, movement begins to attract extremists more, and non-moderates become the dominant group. As a result, violent behavior by protesters becomes more probable. Furthermore, individuals within large crowds should not be expected to have political views in unison even if they share the same political objectives. As the crowd grows, the diversity of political beliefs will also increase. Therefore, we assume that when participation in a protest is high, the crowd contains both moderates and extremists together. The rising involvement of moderates will reduce the temptation to resort to violence and thus, we argue that the likelihood of protester violence decreases as participation in the protest event increases. To test our hypotheses, we conduct multi-level logistic regression analysis on 152 nations between 1960 and 2019.