In some cases, it simply dissipates — mass protest as release valve.
In others, it is repurposed by more strategic actors with clearer objectives, often political agents friendlier to the establishment and working to enclose the protest energy in a big centrist tent.
In still others, the initial protests present the provocation around which outraged others can mobilize a reactionary backlash.
The pattern holds not just across the poorer parts of the world, where Bevins concentrates, but in more affluent and outwardly “stable” parts of Europe and North America as well.
Here, recent protests have been characterized by the same two distinctive features: their enormous scale and their mercurial shapelessness.
Persons:
Bevins, “, Lula
Organizations:
Occupy Wall, Tea Party
Locations:
Gezi Park, Turkey, Brazil, Chile, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Jair, Europe, North America