Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
A one-stop source for following crucial trends in the most significant antigovernment protests worldwide since 2017. Last updated on July 6, 2023
Use Carnegie’s Global Protest Tracker to analyze and compare the triggers, motivations, and other aspects of many of the most significant antigovernment protests since 2017. Designed for researchers, decisionmakers, and journalists, this comprehensive resource helps illustrate how protests impact today’s global politics.
Ongoing protests only.
All protestsResets the table to include all protests.
COVID-19Protests related to COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. See the note under “Protest significance” on the “Limitations” tab.
LargeProtests with a peak size of 100,000 people or more.
Protests with a duration of at least three months
OutcomeProtests that have resulted in a significant government policy or leadership change.
ViolentProtests that have experienced violent government crackdowns.
Time span between the first and last reports of the protests.
Freedom rating (Status)Rating of a country in the Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World report at the time the protest started, reflecting the status of political rights and civil liberties in that country.
Key participantsNotable groups protesting, although not exhaustive.
MotivationsSystemic concerns that underlie the protest movement. To encapsulate a broad range of antigovernment grievances, the three overarching categories of motivations are economic, political, and corruption. Corruption is considered separately because it can be economic and/or political in nature and often stems from government officials’ conduct rather than government policies. These categories of motivations are not exclusive: protests are often driven by a diverse range of concerns.
Estimated peak number of protesters.
OutcomesReported near-term policy changes or leadership changes in response to the protests.
Protest nameProtests’ commonly used name, if any (for example, the Yellow Vest protests), or an abbreviated description of the protests.
Significant protestsSizable street protests that express opposition to the national government as a whole or to its recent policies or actions.
Start dateWhen the protests are first reported in local or national news.
TriggersSpecific issue(s), event(s), or policy change(s) that sparked the protest.
The tracker focuses on antigovernment protests. It excludes rallies in support of a political cause, party, or political figure.
DurationProtests may be intermittent rather than constant, stopping and starting over weeks or months.
OutcomesThe tracker focuses on outcomes that are direct responses to the protests—specifically, policy or leadership changes that occur in the short term during or after a protest. As a result, it excludes events or changes that occur later, of which the protests may only be one of many causal factors.
Protest sizeReliable and accurate information on the number of protesters is not always available. In many cases, the only sources of information on a protest’s size are local authorities, who often underestimate the size of protests, or protest organizers, who may overestimate the size of protests.
There is no scientifically precise way to define a significant protest. The word significant here is understood in terms of political importance: the impact of a protest on a country’s political life. While a protest’s size can give some indication of its importance, it is not determinative on its own. A large protest in a country where protesting is legal and occurs frequently may not be as significant as a small protest in a country where public demonstrations are banned and authorities are known to use violence against protesters. To account for the varying environments for protests across regime types, this tracker generally considers protests in contexts with a Freedom in the World rating of “free” or “partly free” to be significant if the protest’s peak size reaches or exceeds 10,000 protesters, and protests with a Freedom in the World rating of “not free” to be significant if the protest’s peak size reaches or exceeds 1,000 protesters.
Although most protests directly related to the coronavirus outbreak are so far quite small, they have been included in the tracker because of their potential impact on governance and policy at the local, national, and international levels and because of the overriding importance of the pandemic crisis.
Reliance on English-language sources Data for this tracker are drawn from English-language news sources.The data are based on reporting from credible news sources, with some cross-referencing for verification when possible. Publications and television outlets used to compile this data include (but are not limited to) Al Jazeera, the Atlantic, Balkan Insight, BBC, Bloomberg, CNN, DW News, the Economist, Euronews, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, France24, the Guardian, the Nation, NBC News, New York Times, NPR, Reuters, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Vox, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and World Politics Review.
Information on the status of political freedoms and civil liberties in each country is drawn from the annual Freedom in the World reports.
David Wong, a James C. Gaither junior fellow with Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program for 2019–2020, is primarily responsible for the compilation of the information in the tracker.
Thomas Carothers, “Dictators in Trouble,” Foreign Affairs, February 6, 2020.
Thomas Carothers and David Wong, “Misunderstanding Global Protests,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 1, 2020.
Thomas Carothers and David Wong, “The Coronavirus Pandemic Is Reshaping Global Protests,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 4, 2020.
Moisés Naím and Brian Winter, “Why Latin America Was Primed to Explode,” Foreign Affairs, October 29, 2019.
Richard Youngs, ed., After Protest: Pathways Beyond Mass Mobilization (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2019).
Richard Youngs, “After Protest: Pathways Beyond Mass Mobilization,” openDemocracy, November 10, 2019.
Additional publicationsCynthia Arnson, Benjamin Gedan, Michael Penfold, Rossana Castiglioni, Catalina Lobo-Guerrero, Augusto de la Torre, and Jim Schultz, “Postcards From the Edge,” Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2020.
S. Erdem Aytaç and Susan Stokes, “Why Protest?” Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2020.
Samuel Brannen, Christian Stirling Haig and Katherine Schmidt, “The Age of Mass Protests: Understanding an Escalating Global Trend,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 2, 2020.
Erica Chenoweth, Sirianne Dahlum, Sooyeon Kang, Zoe Marks, Christopher Wiley Shay, and Tore Wig, “This May Be the Largest Wave of Nonviolent Mass Movements in World History. What Comes Next?” Washington Post, November 16, 2019.
Jonathan Pinckney and Miranda Rivers, “Nonviolent Action in the Time of Coronavirus,” United States Institute of Peace, March 25, 2020.
Robin Wright, “The Story of 2019: Protests in Every Corner of the Globe,” New Yorker, December 30, 2019.
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