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
Counting Crowds Consortium: Review of Right-Wing U.S. Protest Activity in 2022
CCC logged more than 5,700 right-wing events in 2022
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: 2020 Anti-Racism Protests and Their Aftermath in Connecticut
This is a guest post by Mason Holland, an undergraduate student at the University of Connecticut majoring in Political Science. He also serves as President of the Student Body.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Escalating Right-Wing Attacks on the LGBTQ+ Community
Article
PROTESTS UNDER TRUMP, 2017–2021
The Trump presidency featured a high volume of contentious mobilization. In this research article, the authors describe the collection and aggregation of protest mobilization data from 2017 to 2021 and offer five observations.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Demographic Change and Anti-CRT Protest in U.S. Counties
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Right-Wing Backlash Against COVID-19 Mitigation Measures
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Pro-Palestine Movement of 2021
Video
Social Movements in the Post-Trump Era: Organizing for Policy Change
In this discussion, Ash Center Democracy Postdoctoral Fellow Johnnie Lotesta talked with leaders from the environmental justice, gun violence prevention, labor, and immigration movements about how they balanced these commitments in the course of their work.
Video
Book Talk — Prisms of the People: Power & Organizing in Twenty-First Century America
The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation hosted a book talk on Prisms of the People: Power & Organizing in Twenty-First-Century America with co-authors Elizabeth McKenna and Michelle Oyakawa.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Protest Themes in Biden’s First 100 Days
So far, the Crowd Counting Consortium has logged just over 5,300 events since Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: FIPS Codes!
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Monthly Review: March 2021
The Crowd Counting Consortium recorded more than 1,800 protest events in the U.S. in March 2021, with roughly 88,000 to 125,000 participants in the events.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Stop Asian Hate
Since the Atlanta-area murders, we have logged 126 events focused on this issue, most of them this past Saturday and Sunday, March 20–21.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consoritum: Say Her Name: Breonna Taylor
So far, the Crowd Counting Consortium has identified 47 events honoring Taylor on the anniversary of her death in more than 30 localities.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: It’s the Climate Change, Stupid!
One issue has dominated environmental protest activity in the U.S. for at least the past four years, and that’s climate change.