Protests with a duration of at least three months

Systemic concerns that underlie the protest movement. To encapsulate a broad range of antigovernment grievances, the six categories of motivations are economic, political, corruption, gender, and COVID-19. Corruption and gender are considered separately because these issues can be economic and/or political in nature and may stem from government officials’ conduct rather than government policies. COVID-19 was added as a separate category in 2020 due to the impact of coronavirus-related protests on governance and policy at the local, national, and international levels and because of the overriding importance of the pandemic crisis.

These categories of motivations are not exclusive: protests are often driven by a diverse range of concerns.

Sizable street protests that express opposition to the national government as a whole or to its recent policies or actions.

When the protests are first reported in local or national news.

Specific issue(s), event(s), or policy change(s) that sparked the protest.

Protests that have experienced violent government crackdowns.

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 at least 1,000 protesters, and protests with a Freedom in the World rating of “not free” to be significant if the protest’s peak size reaches at least 100 protesters. Other key factors taken into consideration in determining a protest‘s significance include a country‘s geographic size, population, and the amount of press coverage and government attention a protest receives.

Data for this tracker are drawn from English-language news sources.