Erica Chenoweth
Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment
Civil Protest
Protest is the bedrock of democracy. But why do people take to the streets, and how do protestors achieve change? At the Ash Center, we’re working to answer these questions.
Related Programs
From the Boston Tea Party and the U.S. civil rights movement to contemporary climate action demonstrations, civil protest is a fundamental tool for influencing political change. While protest movements are an indelible part of contemporary political life, little is often understood about what motivates people to take to the streets and how they achieve nonviolent political goals.
Our scholars analyze protest movements, learn from protestors themselves, and develop tools to help understand why some protests succeed and others fail.
Meet the Experts
Zoe Marks
Lecturer in Public Policy
Liz McKenna
Assistant Professor of Public Policy
Soha Hammam
Research Project Manager, Nonviolent Action Lab
Christopher Shay
Research Associate, Crowd Counting Consortium
Matthew Cebul
Lead Research Fellow for the Nonviolent Action Lab, AY2025-2026
The Latest News, Research, and Resources
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Pro-Palestine Wave Persists and Grows
Over the past few weeks, the burst of pro-Palestine protests, rallies, demonstrations, vigils, and direct actions in the U.S. that followed Hamas’ October 7th attacks on Israel and Israel’s military response to them has swelled into a sustained wave that is almost certainly broader and larger than any previous pro-Palestine protest wave in U.S. history.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Pro-Palestine Wave Accelerates
Over the past 10 days, the wave of U.S. street activism supporting Palestine has accelerated. Since October 7, 2023, when Palestinian militants launched attacks on Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, CCC has logged 420 pro-Palestine rallies, protests, demonstrations, and vigils in more than 180 different cities and towns across 46 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Recent U.S. Protest Activity in Support of Israel and Palestine
Since the October 7 attacks on Israel, the U.S. has seen hundreds of vigils, rallies, demonstrations, and protests in response to those attacks and the political and military reactions to them.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Tracking the Growth of Active Clubs
Commentary
Can you trust AI? Here’s why you shouldn’t
In a new article for The Conversation, Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders highlight some of the reasons to feel skeptical towards AI.
Q+A
As youth and LGBTQ+ protestors increasingly take to the streets, are their voices being heard?
In a new study, Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks examine youth and LGBTQ+ nonviolent protest participation rates and the impact they might be having on evolving patterns of civil resistance around the world.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Love Won
After a year that saw historic levels of anti-LGBTQ+ protest activity, legislative action, and online jawboning, millions of people turned out in May and June 2023 for hundreds of LGBTQ+ pride celebrations across all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Housing Crisis Begets Housing Protests
On Saturday, May 20, 2023, more than 1,000 tenants, union members, community organizers, and politicians gathered at Cadman Plaza in the rain and then marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to call for lower rents in New York City and the passage of state legislation to protect tenants from eviction without good cause.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: The Hate Drags On
In late 2022, I guessed that the surge in anti-LGBTQ+ right-wing protests we saw in the summer and fall of last year would ebb after the elections.
Feature
Hope Persists for Champion of Egyptian Democracy
Shady ElGhazaly Harb MC/MPA 2023, a prominent youth activist during the 2011 uprising, finds new ways to understand the continuing struggle for democracy in Egypt during his time at Harvard Kennedy School.
Video
Reinvigorating People Power: Lessons Learned from Civil Resistance Leaders
The Ash Center invites you to watch a panel discussion with civil resistance leaders from around the world discussing their experiences and lessons learned from fighting dictatorships over the past ten years.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: 2023 Trans Day of Visibility
Each year since 2009, people around the world have gathered on March 31 (or close to it) to mark International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV).
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Pushing Back Against Anti-LGBTQ Legislation
For the past three legislative cycles, state lawmakers have tabled record numbers of bills that harmfully target LGBTQ+ people or seek to enforce chauvinistic ideas about sexuality and gender norms.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Echoes of Police Violence
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Review of Left-Wing Protest Activity in 2022
CCC logged more than 13,400 left-wing protests across more than 2,000 different U.S. cities and towns