Leaderless protest movements of 2011 lacked the infrastructure to convert discontent into programmatic change.

Evidence

As an early response, people flocked to squares in several Western cities throughout 2010 and 2011, both in Europe and the States. Known as the “Indignados” in Spain, “Occupy” in the US, “tuition protesters” in the UK, and the “Aganaktismenoi” in Greece, these leaderless movements tickled the popular imagination. Yet they offered only a hazy path forward and had no clear civil-society infrastructure behind them. The upsurge in Spain, for example, relied on spontaneous gatherings by students and workers reading out testimonies of the crisis, and refused to spell out an explicit set of demands. In Greece, protesters set fire to a Christmas tree and almost stormed parliament—powerful demonstrations of discontent, but lacking a clear road map for change. … Without an identifiable leadership, the movement would quickly fall prey to demagogues and cynics or get sucked into the nationalist maelstrom that was fast engulfing the West. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 26

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the observed pattern in the reader’s library that mass spontaneous political energy without central organization tends to be captured by opportunistic forces — echoes the mobilizational dynamics in Base Nation and the anti-authoritarian dissent documentation themes. — connects to: The 2011 square movements broke from older left protest forms in scale and organization — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 87; Left protest shifted from workplace to spectacle because it lacked embedded organizations. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 156; Protest events alone do not change anything without ongoing political organization (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Protest events alone do not change anything without ongoing political organization #corroborates (0.90)
• Left protest shifted from workplace to spectacle because it lacked embedded organizations. #expands (0.82) — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 156
• The 2011 square movements broke from older left protest forms in scale and organization #qualifies (0.75) — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 87