Their “guerrilla protests” on Britain’s roads, at art galleries, museums, and cultural and sporting events have enraged the press, politicians and the public alike. But now experts have said they believe climate activists’ most important weapon could be “the strategic use of nonviolent disruptive tactics”.
Nearly seven in 10 of academics surveyed rated disruptive protest tactics as “at least quite important” to success of a movement, ranking it as more important than gaining media coverage or even strictly avoiding violent tactics.
The findings will boost the morale of climate activists, often derided as “eco-zealots” causing chaos for “hardworking people”. The results also contradict public opinion: polling by YouGov in February shows the vast majority (78%) of Britons think disruptive protest hinders activists’ causes.
The findings come as Just Stop Oil’s supporters complete their 12th week of slow marching protests on London’s streets and amid uproar about lengthy queues at Wimbledon, where security was tightened to counter climate protests.
James Özden, director of Social Change Lab, the protest thinktank that organised the survey, said: “We were really struck by the contradiction between what the public and media say about disruptive protests and what academics said. The experts who study social movements not only believe that strategic disruption can be an effective tactic, but that it is the most important tactical factor for a social movement’s success.
“This points out how our intuitions can be flawed when it comes to understanding social change, and how we shouldn’t take people’s first reactions as the indicator of an effective protest.”
Apollo Surveys, which specialises in academic surveys, polled 120 experts in sociology, political science and related disciplines for Social Change Lab, asking them what makes some social movements more successful than others.
Protest groups, in particular climate activists, have in recent years escalated the scale and frequency of disruptive protests. Just Stop Oil has staged slow march protests in London almost daily for the past 12 weeks, while also targeting high-profile events such as Wimbledon, Pride, the Ashes, the Glyndebourne festival and the Premiership rugby final.
In each case, they have provoked public and political backlash, but experts said that despite that, their protests could make a difference. One survey respondent, Louisa Parks, associate professor of sociology at University of Trento, in Italy, said: “If we are talking about the long-term effects to disruptive climate justice protests, broader cultural changes could be provoked despite short-term backfire effects.
“The example of soup-throwing or the recent protests by Last Generation in a number of European countries are all sophisticated comments on what we as a society protect and value, and what we don’t. But it might take time to get through the outrage.”
Another respondent, Prof Bart Cammaerts, professor of politics and communication at the London School of Economics, said: “Whether we like it or not, the history of social change is also a history of political contestation and disruption. Disruption of everyday life is often the best way to receive media attention, generate visibility for a cause and above all to push political and economic elites to compromise and accept change, if only to protect their own interests.”
But disruption was not a tactic that could be relied on by all causes, the experts said. While about seven in 10 said movements that have high public awareness and support, such as climate crisis organisations, could enjoy its fruits, only 30% thought disruptive tactics were effective for issues with high awareness but low support, such as anti-vaccination.
The survey contained a number of other lessons for activists. According to experts, the most important governance and organisational factor for a social movement’s success was the ability to “mobilise and scale quickly in response to external events”. They added that having decentralised decision making was the least important.
Meanwhile, the most important internal factors that threatened social movement success were “internal conflict or movement infighting” and a “lack of clear political objectives”.
Responding to the findings, James Skeet, a Just Stop Oil spokesperson, said: “There are two strands to civil resistance. One is disruption and the next is dialogue. Time and again, we see that public disruption is necessary to spark the conversations that result in much needed political pressure.
“Public disruption elicits outrage that sparks discourse, and though people may ‘shoot the messengers’ the social science is clear that society, in part, hears the message. For example, after the highly controversial Insulate Britain campaign in 2021, mentions of housing insulation in the British press more than doubled. We now have a cross-parliamentary committee calling for a ‘wartime effort’ on insulation.
“These sorts of tactics are uncomfortable for everyone concerned, but sadly this is how social change works.”
