Visible pressure hardens the people it is meant to persuade

The argument

The second argument concerns the reaction a protest provokes. Proponents of this position argue that a demonstration is not received as a neutral signal but as a confrontation, and that the people on the other side of it respond accordingly. A government that concedes under visible pressure appears to have been coerced, which is a position no government wants to occupy, so proponents argue it acquires a reason to refuse that it did not have before the march and to be seen refusing. The same effect, on this account, operates on the public. Proponents argue that disruption falls on bystanders rather than on decision-makers: the blocked road, the cancelled service and the closed street are experienced by people who had no part in the dispute, and the resentment generated attaches to the cause rather than to the authorities. They add that a protest is also judged by its worst participants, so a single act of violence or vandalism supplies opponents with the image they will use from then on, and that the protesters cannot control who joins them or what those people do. Proponents argue that the net result is frequently to make the cause harder to advance. Sympathisers become reluctant to be associated with it, opponents acquire a grievance of their own and mobilise in turn, and the authorities gain public support for restricting the protest rather than for addressing the complaint. The argument concludes that because demonstrating converts a dispute about an issue into a dispute about the protesters, and gives those in power both a reason and the cover to stand firm, protest tends to set its own cause back rather than advance it.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics answer that this is an argument against particular tactics rather than against protest, and that it would rule out every form of public pressure including the ones now regarded as plainly justified. They add that the backlash described is often the mechanism by which a cause advances, since an overreaction by the authorities moves people who were previously indifferent, and that a dispute which stays polite is usually a dispute nobody has to settle. Critics also point out that the premise about appearing coerced assumes governments are more concerned with dignity than with office, whereas a government facing a durable movement has electoral reasons to accommodate it.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Governments are more concerned with holding office than with appearing uncoerced, and one facing a durable movement has electoral reasons to accommodate it rather than to be seen refusing. [Rejecting P2] Disruption that inconveniences bystanders is often what recruits them, since people obliged to notice a dispute take a view on it, and a protest nobody notices costs nothing to ignore. [Rejecting P3] Being judged by the worst participant is a reason to organise and steward a protest well, not a reason to expect every protest to be discredited. [Rejecting C] At most it follows that some tactics set a cause back, which is an argument about how to protest rather than about whether protest works.