Similar But Different

Constructing Equivalent Protest Measures in Comparative Research

Bibliographic Data

ID3755497
AuthorsJan W Van Deth (0000-0002-3497-6947, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume66
Issue4
Pages489-509
Publication date2022-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/00027642211021646
OpenAlexW3169857041
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited28

Protest emerges in different forms in different countries. A strategy is presented here to deal with country-specific forms of protest by developing equivalent instead of identical measures in 13 advanced democracies around the world. The main substantive results show, first, a clear distinction between direct forms of protest and organizational actions. Yet the specific compositions of these two modes differ between countries. Second, common cross-national subsets of items comprising only three forms for direct actions (demonstrating, petitioning, boycotting) and also for organizational protest (humanitarian/charitable, self-help, consumer organizations). Third, several forms of protest can be used as country-specific expansions of the common three-item sets. Apparently, constructing equivalent instead of identical measures for protest is most important for the detection of relatively small sets of common cross-national indicators and for the accompanying disclosure of country-specific forms of protest. Due to the small percentages of protesters, applying equivalent measures and identical measures of protest largely produces the same results for the positioning of countries from a cross-national perspective

Comparative research · Perspective (graphical) · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social Capital and Networks · Social Media and Politics

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