Erica Chenoweth
Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment
Protest and Dissent
Our team explores how protest and dissent serve as vital forces in democratic societies, shaping public discourse, advancing social change, and informing scholarly research on civic participation and institutional accountability.
Related Programs
Protest and dissent are essential expressions of democratic life, enabling individuals and communities to voice grievances, demand accountability, and advocate for political and social change. Through public demonstration, artistic expression, digital activism, and other forms of collective action, dissent shapes public discourse and influences institutional reform.
Our scholars research on protest and dissent examines their role in strengthening democratic responsiveness, protecting fundamental freedoms, and navigating the tensions between authority and civic participation.
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
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Israel/Palestine Protest Data Dashboards
To make it easier to find up-to-date information on pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protest activity in the United States since October 7, 2023, the Crowd Counting Consotium recently created a pair of interactive data dashboards separately covering the two.
Video
Crowd Counting Consortium – Data on Pro-Israeli and Pro-Palestinian Protests in the U.S.
On Tuesday, December 5th, 2023, experts from the Crowd Counting Consortium, a network of researchers tracking political demonstrations across the U.S., shared their most recent data on the multitude of pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protests held nationwide since October 7.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Update on Israel/Palestine Protests
Since October 7, the Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC) has recorded nearly 2,300 U.S. protests, rallies, marches, caravans, demonstrations, vigils, banner drops, and direct actions in support of Palestine or Israel, with hundreds of thousands of total participants on different sides of this mass mobilization.
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
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.