Gezi’s protest lacked a clear demand or target, unlike other 2011 revolts

Evidence

None of this had been planned. And there was no obvious demand for them to make, no stupidly clear target to match their escalated sense of purpose—no dictator that had been in power for decades, for example—and so, the causes remained nearly as diffuse as the participants. In the Turkish context, getting the military to defy the president (as had happened in Egypt and Tunisia) would certainly not be a revolution—it would just be another coup. Gezi was not as “leaderless” and horizontal as Tahrir, Plaza del Sol, and Occupy Wall Street, since the Taksim Solidarity umbrella organization quickly formed in an attempt to give some direction to the revolt. But this didn’t always work out in practice, as it wasn’t exactly clear who was under that umbrella. Anyone could come to the park, and participation was diverse. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 343

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader comparative frame of Tahrir, Occupy, and Plaza del Sol running through this book’s prior chapters. — connects to: Leaderless protest movements of 2011 lacked the infrastructure to convert discontent into programmatic change. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 26; Mass protest wins tactical concessions while structural demands remain unmet — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 278
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: did the absence of a single demand actually shape Gezi’s aftermath — did its diffuseness doom it to cooption or dissipation?

Broader Connections

• Leaderless protest movements of 2011 lacked the infrastructure to convert discontent into programmatic change. #expands (0.85) — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 26
• Mass protest wins tactical concessions while structural demands remain unmet #qualifies (0.70) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 278