Protesting as Political Participation

Since the model of civic voluntarism was developed (Verba et al. Reference Verba, Schlozman and Brady1995), we know that political participation is determined by the extent to which individuals are resourceful, which is understood not only as having material resources, such as capital and education, but also as the degree to which individuals are politically informed, interested, involved, and have the time, connections, and skills to participate. Therefore, politically active individuals tend to be educated, politically informed members of the employed middle class, civically engaged, who perceive their participation as effective (Dalton Reference Dalton2002; Klesner Reference Klesner2009; Norris Reference Norris2011; Putnam Reference Putnam2000).

Long outdated are the studies that conceived protest participation as deviant social behavior. However, because of its contentious nature, protest activity is still considered the least conventional form of political participation. Because of this, scholars have long been interested in analyzing whether the same individual features that explain political participation in general also help to explain why people decide to take part in protest demonstrations (Norris et al. Reference Norris, Walgrave and van Aelst2005; Schussman and Soule Reference Schussman and Soule2005). In general, studies have shown that protest participants also tend to be better informed individuals who are interested and involved in politics and other community and professional networks; their motivations to protest vary depending on their individual interests and grievances, collective identities, and mobilizing issues that attract different groups of people (Dalton, Reference Dalton2002; Dixon and Roscigno Reference Dixon and Roscigno2003; Bennett and Segerberg Reference Bennett and Segerberg2012; Klandermans et al. Reference Klandermans, van der Toorn and van Stekelenburg2008, Reference Klandermans, van Stekelenburg, Damen, van Troost and van Leeuwen2014; Klesner, Reference Klesner2009; Norris, Reference Norris2011; Norris et al. Reference Norris, Walgrave and van Aelst2005; Schussman and Soule Reference Schussman and Soule2005; van Aeslt and Walgrave Reference Van Aeslt and Walgrave2001; van Stekelenburg and Klandermans Reference Van Stekelenburg, Klandermans, Klandermans and Roggenband2007; Reference Van Stekelenburg and Klandermans2014; van Stekelenburg et al. Reference Van der Meer, van Deth and Scheepers2009; van Zomeren et al. Reference Van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer and Leach2004; Verhulst Reference Verhulst2011; Walgrave and Klandermans Reference Walgrave and Klandermans2010; Walgrave and Wouters Reference Walgrave and Wouters2014).

However, there is no consensus on whether protest participants decide to take to the streets because they trust that authorities and state institutions will be responsive to their demands, or whether they do it in relation to their satisfaction with the functioning of their political regime (Verhulst Reference Verhulst2011). In some postindustrial democracies, citizens may decide to protest because they are dissatisfied with the functioning of the democratic regime, while at the same time showing relatively high levels of trust toward the different institutions and authorities of the state (Norris et al. Reference Norris, Walgrave and van Aelst2005). In other contexts, it is still not clear whether citizens take their demands to the streets because they are disenchanted with democracy (Marien et al. Reference Marien, Hooghe and Quintelier2010; Norris Reference Norris2011) or because they perceive the institutionalized channels of interest representation as weak (Machado et al. Reference Machado, Scartascini and Tommasi2011).

There is also no consensus yet on whether protest participants tend to lean more to the left or the right on the political spectrum. The literature shows that this depends on the context of the contention (Bernhagen and Marsch Reference Bernhagen and Marsh2007; Norris et al. Reference Norris, Walgrave and van Aelst2005) and that each type of protest demonstration may attract different types of participants (Norris et al. Reference Norris, Walgrave and van Aelst2005; Quaranta Reference Quaranta2014; Verhulst Reference Verhulst2011). Not even sociodemographics appear as consistent characteristics of demonstrators. For a long time, it was assumed that the confrontational nature of protest activity should attract young males (Dalton Reference Dalton2002; Verba et al. Reference Verba, Schlozman and Brady1995). However, research has shown that this is not always the case. Although protest activism still attracts younger individuals (Norris et al. Reference Norris, Walgrave and van Aelst2005; Schussman and Soule Reference Schussman and Soule2005), as the number of women with a college education and in the workforce has increased, so has their political participation, including their participation in protest activity. Recent studies have shown that it is no longer valid to generally assume that men are more likely to take part in contentious politics (Schussman and Soule Reference Schussman and Soule2005; van Aeslt and Walgrave Reference Van Aeslt and Walgrave2001). As with any other social group, the mobilization of women also depends on the mobilizing issues, networks, and recruiting mechanisms (Cable Reference Cable1992).

Thus, it seems as though the diversity of protest participants tends to reflect the plurality of a given active civil society that requires political knowledge, involvement, interest, and recruitment, but that varies in terms of socioeconomic characteristics and political attitudes and opinions depending on the mobilizing event. If protest behavior in Mexico is triggered by the same mobilizing factors that bring individuals out to the streets in the Global North, we should observe that in general, protest activity tends to be driven by resourceful, politically engaged individuals. That is, protest participants, in general, should be significantly more educated individuals, who are more interested in politics, have more political experience, and are more involved in civic organizations than nonparticipants (H1).

Differences across demonstrations should still be evident. For example, we could observe that participants in more ritualistic demonstrations tend to be less interested in politics than participants in more reactive demonstrations, which respond to dramatic political events or significant policy changes. Ritualistic demonstrations tend to be reunion opportunities and jovial commemorations of past gains and struggles (Saunders et al. Reference Saunders, Grasso, Olcese, Rainsford and Rootes2012). As a consequence, they tend to have a lower participation threshold because these events tend to be celebratory in nature. Therefore, participants face minimum levels of risk and uncertainty (Ebert and Okamoto Reference Ebert and Okamoto2013), even if they still symbolically challenge multiple societal institutions (Armstrong and Bernstein Reference Armstrong and Bernstein2008).

In contrast, reactive protests are responses to immediate changes in the sociopolitical system or in the economy, such as legislative decrees, police abuse, elections, or sudden price hikes (Tilly Reference Tilly1978; Meyer Reference Meyer2014). Reactive protests involve relatively higher levels of risk and uncertainty, as less information is known beforehand on the probable unfolding of events and the outcome of the mobilization. Hence, they require less risk-averse but more politically aware participants.

Participants in demonstrations organized by unions or political organizations should manifest more organizational membership and political experience and interest than those events organized by less formal organizations, such as reactive events mobilized online. Unions and political organizations provide their members with more opportunities for engagement and other forms of political participation, increase the level of awareness about mobilizing issues, and facilitate connectivity and collective identities (Dixon and Roscigno Reference Dixon and Roscigno2003; Kitts Reference Kitts2000; Krinsky and Crossley Reference Krinsky and Crossley2014; Lim Reference Lim2008; Scacco Reference Scacco2010). However, organizational membership is also relevant for other social movement organizations, such as LGBT, even when their mobilizations tend to be more ritualistic in nature.

In addition, because different mobilizing events attract different participants with different collective identities and commitments to different socioeconomic or political campaigns (Norris et al. Reference Norris, Walgrave and van Aelst2005; Saunders et al. Reference Saunders, Grasso, Olcese, Rainsford and Rootes2012; Verhulst Reference Verhulst2011), we should also observe that the explanatory power of the same protest participation predictors may vary from protest event to protest event (H2). Hence, there should be some variation in the degree to which sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, and socioeconomic class) and political attitudes (political trust, efficacy, satisfaction with democracy, and ideology) predict participation in different demonstrations.

For example, it could be the case that participants in pre- and postelectoral demonstrations, motivated by their dissatisfaction with the results or specific candidates, could show lower levels of political trust and satisfaction with democracy than those taking part in ritualistic demonstrations because their desire for change could be based on their lower level of trust in political authorities (Machado et al. Reference Machado, Scartascini and Tommasi2011). However, their sense of efficacy could be higher than for those taking part in more ritualistic demonstrations because with their protest, they challenge the political status quo (Norris et al. Reference Norris, Walgrave and van Aelst2005). We could also observe that union members, students, and those taking part in the LGBT Pride parade tend to hold a more left-leaning ideology than those attending events organized by popular or neighborhood organizations, such as marches against criminal violence and political corruption.

In terms of sociodemographic characteristics, it is expected that younger, more educated individuals would have taken part in demonstrations organized by students, while those organized by unions and political organizations should have attracted more older, male members of the working class. Self-identified gender should be more diverse among LGBT Pride participants, while female participation should be more equal to that of their male counterparts in events organized by students.

Because of their involvement in other organizations, protest participants tend to be more socially connected (Dixon and Roscigno Reference Dixon and Roscigno2003; Kitts Reference Kitts2000), and therefore would be more likely to take part because they would be personally invited to do so (Schussman and Soule Reference Schussman and Soule2005; Lim Reference Lim2008; Walgrave and Wouters Reference Walgrave and Wouters2014). Thus, we should observe that individuals are more likely to take part in protest activity when they are invited to do so (H3). In particular, we should observe that for those participating in more ritualistic demonstrations, personal networks and organizational membership play a larger role in bringing them out to the streets. However, it is also likely that personal recruitment plays a larger role in mobilizing students.

Methods: Protests Surveyed

The survey data comprise 1,006 protest participants and 291 nonparticipants surveyed during 6 different demonstrations between 2011 and 2013 in Mexico City. Protest events include the 2011 commemoration of the 1968 Student Movement; 2012 May Day rallies of traditional corporatist and independent unions; the 2012 LGBT Pride parade; a #YoSoy132 pre-electoral march against Enrique Peña Nieto, then–presidential candidate of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI); a postelectoral rally called by Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), then–losing candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD); and a march against energy reform organized by AMLO and the then-nascent political party MORENA (Movimiento de Renovación Nacional) in October 2013. A more detailed description of each surveyed demonstration is included in the online appendix.

Standardized Sampling Technique

The CCC standardized survey sampling technique involves applying a face-to-face questionnaire to randomly selected respondents during demonstrations of at least five thousand participants (Klandermans et al. Reference Klandermans, van Stekelenburg, van Troost, van Leeuwen, Walgrave, Verhulst, van Laer and Wouters2010; van Stekelenburg et al. Reference Van Stekelenburg, Walgrave, Klandermans and Verhulst2012). Pointers, and not surveyors, randomly select survey respondents within the geographical area of the protest event in order to reduce potential biased selection. The reported response rate of the six demonstrations fluctuated between 46.64 percent and 72.18 percent, with a total average of 62.61 percent (see table 1).Footnote ¹ A more detailed description of the survey technique is included in the online appendix.

Table 1

Surveyed Protest Participants and Nonparticipants per Protest Event

Passersby were surveyed, following the same random sampling technique, from streets surrounding each demonstration event. Including a sample of passersby is the best available proxy to compare protest participants to nonparticipants in the same mobilizing context because, first, passersby are less prone to be mobilized than bystanders (McPhail Reference McPhail1991; Marwell and Oliver Reference Marwell and Oliver1993; Fillieule and Tartakowsky Reference Fillieule and Tartakowsky2013). As such, the differences in mobilizing factors between passersby and protest participants are expected to be more evident, because bystanders are witnesses of demonstrations. In a way, bystanders are passive participants, and because of their proximity to the demonstration, they may hold political attitudes and opinions close to those held by demonstrators (Snow et al. Reference Snow, Zurcher and Ekland-Olson1980; Klandermans Reference Klandermans1997). Passersby, on the other hand, although they may be influenced by the event, have been caught in it unintentionally on their way to their destination and have decided not to take part.

Second, because passersby are individuals who decided not to participate in the demonstration, they can be considered closer to nonparticipants in the general population, as it is likely that they have different opinions on the event and hold political attitudes different from those held by demonstrators. A comparison of the study sample to Mexico’s 2012 World Values Survey sample showed that the sociodemographic characteristics of both samples were comparable (see online appendix). Third, because passersby experience the same mobilizing event as protest participants do, their responses are contextualized, and therefore more comparable than if we were to compare protest participants to the general population not affected by the demonstration (Walgrave and Rucht Reference Walgrave and Klandermans2010).

The completion of each survey took between 20 and 25 minutes. Because each surveyed protest event lasted more than five hours, research teams had enough time to conduct surveys despite rejections. In order to avoid surveying repeating demonstrators across protest events, surveyors asked their interviewees if they had participated in the survey in a previous demonstration.

This survey method has a number of advantages over conventional research designs for political participation. Again, because protest participants are surveyed during demonstrations, memory errors and false attributions—present in national surveys—are reduced (Opp et al. Reference Opp, Voss and Gern1995). By surveying protest participants during demonstration events, the reliability of the respondents’ information regarding their motivations to participate and how they were mobilized increases, and their political attitudes can be contextualized by protest event. The comparability of their survey responses to those of passersby also increases because both groups of respondents are surveyed at the same time. Moreover, conducting research on protest activity using national surveys does not provide an accurate portrait of protest demonstrators. Usually the number of national survey respondents who acknowledge taking part in protest demonstrations accounts for less than 10 percent of the surveyed sample.Footnote ² In addition, the CCC survey allows for comparisons across different types of protests and mobilizing contexts (Walgrave and Rucht Reference Walgrave and Klandermans2010).

Data

The survey results were analyzed for the following variables.

Protest participation. A dichotomous variable that identified protest participants (1) from nonparticipants (0) surveyed in each protest event.

Organizational membership. A dichotomous variable that distinguished members of different organizations (1) from nonmembers (0), as most survey respondents mentioned being active or belonging to only one organization in the previous 12 months (see appendix for further detail).

Past participation. A dichotomous variable that recognized whether survey respondents had taken part in another political activity in the last 12 months (1) or not (0), because here again, most respondents mentioned only one of the different options given to them (see appendix for further detail).

Interest in politics. A five-point scale that categorized the respondents’ interest in politics from “no interest in politics at all” (0) to “very interested” (4).

Political efficacy. A five-point scale that ranked the respondents’ perception of the effectiveness of their participation in influencing public policies in the country from “not effective at all” (0) to “very effective” (4).

Trust in the political system. An index was created, using six questions in the survey: the national government, political parties, trade unions, the judicial system, the police, and the army. A five-point scale ranked their trust from “no trust at all” (0) to “a lot of trust” (4). After conducting a factor analysis (α = 0.69), all variables were combined in a normalized index from 0 to 1.

Satisfaction with democracy. A scale from 0 to 10 that ordered survey respondents’ satisfaction with the functioning of the democratic regime in the country, on which 0 marked no satisfaction and 10 total satisfaction.

Left-right ideology. To measure survey respondents’ self-identified political ideology, they were asked, “In politics people often talk about ‘left and right.’ Where would you locate yourself on a scale from 0 to 10, on which 0 stands for “extreme left” and 10 stands for “extreme right”? The whole scale was used for variability purposes, as additional models run with an extreme left dichotomous variable did not change the results.

Personal recruitment. A dichotomous variable that identified whether survey respondents were asked to take part in the demonstration by someone (1) or not (0). Possible personal recruiters were a partner or family member (1), a relative (2), a friend (3), a peer or colleague (4), a fellow member of an organization (5), or an acquaintance (6).

The distribution of personal recruitment shown in table 2 indicates that most surveyed protest participants (69.68 percent) and nonparticipants (87.36 percent) were not personally invited to take part in protest events. Although it was not tested in this study, it is likely that they might have heard about the events though their organizational or social networks.

Table 2

Personal Recruitment

Education level. A seven-point scale indicating the respondents’ highest attained level of education, as follows: no education (0), elementary education (1), middle school (2), high school (3), college (4), master’s (5), doctorate (6).

Social class. Using a six-point scale, respondents self-identified as a member of one of the following social classes: lower class (1), working class (2), lower middle class (3), upper middle (4), upper class (5), or none (0).

Age. Respondents were asked to report the year they were born. This variable was used to compute their age.

Gender. A dichotomous variable identified males (1) and females (0).

Results

Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics by protest event. The socioeconomic indicators show that participants and nonparticipants of each demonstration are comparable groups. On average, survey respondents have a high school education and identify themselves as working class or lower middle class. Their average age ranges between 30 and 45, and except for the #YoSoy132 pre-electoral protest, in which only 51 percent of participants were male, all other events were attended by a clear male majority (about 70 percent). It is interesting to note that this trend held even for the LGBT Pride celebration, despite survey respondents’ being free to self-identify their gender to surveyors.

Table 3

Descriptive Statistics per Protest Event: means and (standard errors)

Protest participants and nonparticipants also show comparable political attitudes. On average, they expressed very low levels of political trust. Both groups show levels as low as 10 percent and as high as 20 percent. However, their lack of trust has not had an apparent effect on their level of interest in politics. On average, all groups stated being “quite interested” in politics and perceived their general participation “efficacious” in influencing policy, partially confirming hypothesis 1. In terms of their political involvement, we see that participants in the commemoration of the 1968 Student Movement and MORENA’s march against the energy reform showed higher levels of organizational membership. About 63 percent of them listed being a member of an organization. Sixty-five percent of those taking part in the commemoration of the 1968 Student Movement and the rallies organized by AMLO and MORENA mentioned having participated in other political activities in the previous year.

Only 32 percent of LGBT Pride paraders stated having political experience, and about half of May Day and #YoSoy132 attendees mentioned having taken any other political action in the previous 12 months. LGBT Pride participants voiced the highest satisfaction with democracy (40 percent). Demonstrators in all other events reported having a 20 percent or less satisfaction with democracy, while their nonparticipant counterparts showed about 35 percent satisfaction with the functioning of the democratic regime.

In general, all groups leaned heavily toward the left end of the political ideology spectrum; however, those taking part in the events organized by AMLO and MORENA were the most extreme (1.75 and 1.73 on a ten-point scale). LGBT Pride participants showed the most centrist ideology (4.56), very similar to that expressed by nonparticipants across demonstrations. May Day ralliers, #YoSoy132 protesters, and 1968 Student Movement commemorators conveyed a relatively leftist ideology (about two points in a 0–10 scale).

The statistical significance of protest participation correlates in table 4 shows that there are no common protest predictors across different demonstrations—disproving hypotheses 1 and 3 but strongly confirming hypothesis 2.Footnote ³ In other words, there is no single profile of demonstrators. Protest participants are diverse, and different political attitudes will get mobilized depending on the demonstration issue.

Table 4

Protest Participation per Surveyed Event (coefficients, with linearized standard errors)

^*** p < 0.01

^** p < 0.05

^* p < 0.10

Beginning with participants in the LGBT Pride event, it is surprising that the only two statistically significant predictors appear to be age and gender. Younger males dominated the event. Predictably, the commemoration of the 1968 Student Movement attracted more educated and affluent participants with a significantly lower level of trust in political institutions. May Day demonstrators tended to be male, relatively affluent (lower middle class) but with lower levels of education, members of organizations, interested in politics, and personally recruited. It is interesting to note that although they tended to be members of unions, and unions are one of the institutions included in the trust index, a lower level of trust in political institutions appeared as a statistically significant predictor for their participation.

#YoSoy132 demonstrators seem to have been motivated to participate by their level of political involvement—measured by their interest in politics, political experience, organizational membership, and the perceived efficacy of their participation—but also by their lower levels of satisfaction with democracy and a more left-leaning ideology. Participation in the postelectoral rally held by López Obrador was triggered mostly by the participants’ relatively more affluent socioeconomic status, their higher interest in politics, their sense of effective participation in politics, their higher dissatisfaction with democracy, and the fact that they were personally invited to attend. Participants in MORENA’s march against the energy reform tended to be older, relatively more affluent males, who were mobilized through their organizational membership, their political interest, and experience. They also tended to have higher levels of distrust in political authorities and a more extreme left ideology.

Comparing these results to those of the WVS model, we can observe that the CCC data offer a superior, more detailed analysis. That analysis shows that protest participants are diverse and mobilization for different events would be triggered by different factors, while the WVS model shows only the general trend: older individuals, who are more involved in politics—measured by their organizational membership and their level of political interest—are the ones who reported having taken part in protest activity in the previous year.

When we look at the predicted probabilities of protest participation across demonstrations shown in table 5, we can observe the different effects of predictors more clearly. Beginning with the effect of the level of interest in politics, we see that this variable had almost no effect in predicting people’s participation in the LGBT Pride parade and the commemoration of the 1968 Student Movement. Their participation was not related to their level of political interest. This may be because the 2012 LGBT Pride parade and the 2011 commemoration of the 1968 Student Movement were more ritualistic than contentious. As such, they were events intended to celebrate identities and past struggles and achievements to reinforce social solidarity (Collins Reference Collins, Goodwin, Jasper and Polletta2001; Johnston Reference Johnston and Johnston2009; Klandermans Reference Klandermans2012), and tended to be less confrontational and contentious than the same annual events in more recent years.

Table 5

Predictive Probabilities of Significant Protest Participation Predictors (with confidence intervals)

In 2012, in particular, organizers of the June 2 Pride parade wanted to make a clear statement about the apolitical character of the event (Bruciaga Reference Bruciaga2012; Marcha del Orgullo 2012). However, a similar probability of participation was predicted for those participating in the march against the energy reform, which was expected to be a more reactive demonstration. Nevertheless, we should not forget that this event had a significant organizational membership component because it was one of the first mobilizing events organized by MORENA as a political organization. For the other three demonstrations, the level of political interest was significantly influential in predicting protest participation after participants expressed at least being quite interested in politics (a value of 2 on a 0–4 scale). Still, in all cases, we can observe that the level of participants’ political interest was relatively similar across events.

Organizational membership mattered in student demonstrations: the commemoration of the 1968 Student Movement and the pre-electoral march organized by #YoSoy132. For all other events, this factor shows a relatively lower and more stable effect. This is surprising, as organizations are expected to be relevant mobilizing vehicles, especially when they are the organizers of demonstrations. However, the effect of organizational membership becomes evident when we consider the role that organizations play in personally connecting people; being personally invited to participate was more important for participants in more ritualistic demonstrations or those that required organizational mobilization. It was particularly important for predicting participation in the May Day rallies, but it was also influential for LGBT Pride paraders and those who attended the events organized by AMLO and Morena. All of these demonstrations were mobilized by formal organizations.

In comparison, being personally invited to participate was not a significant predictor for demonstrations organized by students. In particular, demonstrators in the pre-electoral march organized by #YoSoy132 appear to be “lone wolf” participants. Their participation did not depend on being invited. Most probably, they were committed to the movement’s cause, given their level of political involvement discussed earlier. On the other hand, personal invitations did not have any effect for the commemorators of the 1968 Student Movement. These results suggest that the power of organizations to mobilize people is strong, regardless of whether demonstrations are ritual or reactive, while students seem to be more prone to take part regardless of their organizational membership or personal mobilizing efforts.

Table 5 also shows that not all demonstrators are radical leftists. Holding an extreme left ideology was a significant predictor for participation only in the preelectoral march and the energy reform protests. However, the adjusted Wald test run on this predictor shows that its explanatory power did not differ significantly across demonstrations. This result, however, was expectable, as Mexico City has been a leftist bastion since 1997, the year in which the city’s head of government became an elected position.

The effect of the level of political trust on protest participation also varied significantly across demonstrations. For LGBT Pride paraders and postelectoral ralliers, having a higher level of political trust increased the probability of their participation, while for 1968 Student Movement commemorators, having a lower level of trust had a stronger effect in predicting their attendance. These results speak about the specifics of each demonstration but also about the sophistication of demonstrators. For example, given that since 2010, same-sex marriage and adoption are legal in Mexico City (CDMX n.d.), it is not surprising that LGBT paraders would show higher levels of trust in authorities in comparison to the rest of demonstrators.

The finding that postelectoral ralliers’ decision to take part was partially influenced by a relatively higher level of trust in political authorities may be a good sign for the functioning of the political system, because while they protested against the electoral results and expressed being dissatisfied with the functioning of the democratic order, they do trust the different institutions that compose the political system. A higher level of dissatisfaction with democracy was also expressed during events organized by students, #YoSoy132 and the commemoration of the 1968 Student Movement, but it was not a predictor for participation in the LGBT Pride parade, May Day rallies, or the march against the energy reform.

Another interesting divergent pattern appears when we analyze the predicted probabilities of protest participation by socioeconomic status. While the probability of participating in protest activity increased as participants self-identified social class increases, this was not the case for those taking part in the LGBT Pride demonstration. This is a result that deserves more research. This study did not gather enough information to infer a possible explanation, except that as this event tends to attract younger people, their socioeconomic status would be lower. Predictably, younger people showed a higher probability of participating in protest activity, especially in ritualistic events, such as the LGBT Pride parade and the Student Movement commemoration. However, this was not the case for other ritualistic events that required stronger organizational mobilization, such as May Day and the events organized by political organizations like MORENA, which showed the participation of older demonstrators, although the difference was negligible. Here again, more research would be required.

Finally, protest activity in Mexico City is not always dominated by male participants. Equal participation of men and women can be expected for reactive events, such as pre- and postelectoral protests, while more ritualistic events register a higher participation probability of men. While this result can be expected for May Day rallies, which are organized by unions, in which male unionists still are a majority, more research is needed to better understand why this tendency was also present at the commemoration of the 1968 Student Movement and the LGBT Pride parade.

Conclusions

The results of this analysis confirm general arguments already made in the literature about mobilization and political participation; namely, that the more politically embedded and resourceful individuals tend to participate more in protest demonstrations and other political and civic activities. The novelty of these results lies in showing the variation in the intensity of mobilizing factors’ effects across demonstrations. This variation not only shows the sophistication of demonstrators at different events, but it also identifies the plurality of Mexico City’s active civil society. The fact that there is no one single type of protester contests stereotypical perspectives on protest activity and protesters as a deviant practice of troublemakers.Footnote ⁴ It also speaks about the plurality of opinions that underlie contentious politics and, by extension, political participation.

The implications of these results are threefold. First, these findings help us affirm, with more detailed empirical evidence, that protest activity in Mexico City has been normalized as just another conventional form of political participation. This is important because it could signal that the socialization process of the country’s transition is alive and well despite the corruption and impunity that have plagued its political system. Second, these results contribute to legitimizing protest activity in the country, especially when institutional channels have proven so far to be insufficient means for the articulation and representation of political interests and socioeconomic grievances. Such legitimization is important if we are to achieve the long-sought state responsiveness and accountability in Mexico.

Finally, these results suggest that despite the institutional and developmental differences that separate Mexico and other incipient democracies in the so-called Global South from more advanced and stable democracies in the Global North, the political behavior of their citizens is not that different. As such, these results should open the debate about the theoretical utility of such terms and distinctions, especially if we are to fight against the increasing popularity of discriminatory and bigoted political discourse.