The Impact of Banning Protests

UCL Uncovering Politics · Jun 8, 2023 · 39m

Governments in many countries have powers to authorize – or not authorize – planned demonstrations. So what are the effects of such decisions? We might think the main effects are going to be on whether the demonstrations happen or not, but new research suggests that the impacts can be much subtler than that: they influence whether the demonstrators gain public support, with knock-on consequences further down the line.

The research, which will shortly be published in an article in the journal World Politics, has been carried out in Russia – a country where public attitudes towards those in…