Most people who agree with you won’t protest: Predictors of marches and demonstrations from six decades of research

Protest and activism are endemic and potent features of many nations’ political life and critical potential counters to democratic backsliding and authoritarianism. In this review article, we meta-analytically examine six decades of research findings on what explains participation, focusing particularly on two well-studied protest forms: marches and demonstrations. Focusing on these iconic and common forms of protest participation ensures accurate research comparison, allowing us to identify sets of variables that are consistently important, others that are not consistently important, and still others that need additional research. Our focus on survey-based studies also allows us to compare research that includes both participants and nonparticipants, which is critical for methodologically sound comparisons. Our analysis of 181 survey-based studies (with more than 1800 different estimates) shows that survey research strongly supports the relevance of political interest, political ideology, membership in organizations, and digital/social media use in explaining participation, as well as demographic variables such as education, age, and living in an urban center. Our review also offers important suggestions for future survey research and micromobilization research more broadly.