Preexisting organized groups, not new ad hoc ones, reap protest explosions

Evidence

Rodrigo Nunes was one of the evangelists of the Brazilian alter-globalization movement in its fully horizontalist phase. Looking back on the 2010s and looking forward to a new era of organization, he reached for a metaphor that is more appropriate to the challenges of our planet—in Neither Vertical nor Horizontal, he writes about an “ecology” of organizations and affirms that different types of organizational schema can, and should, interact with one another. To put it in the terms that emerged in this book, a mass explosion can make a ruckus and create a political vacuum, and it would be rational to do so if the people back the group that will fill it. The crucial distinction is to not use the explosion in order to form the organization. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, it was the groups that were already there, prepared, that did the best when the explosion came—whether they were Hoxhaist Communists in Tunisia or the nationalist extremists in Ukraine, these groups punched above their weight. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 904

Categorization

• XREF: Pays off the earlier claim that organized leftists helped a mining rebellion outgrow police control, and that organized blocs beat fragmented revolutionaries. — connects to: Organized leftists helped a mining rebellion outgrow police control — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 191; Protesters reproduce familiar routines rather than adopt unfamiliar effective tactics — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 64; Large organized outfits can build momentum gradually through repeated marches — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 743 (+2 more)
• SEED: Possible essay angle: the lesson from the 2010s protest decade, that prepared organizations outperform improvised ones at filling power vacuums, and what this means for aspiring reform movements.

Broader Connections

• Protesters reproduce familiar routines rather than adopt unfamiliar effective tactics #expands (0.85) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 64
• Hierarchical organization correlates with protest movement success #corroborates (0.85) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 847
• Large organized outfits can build momentum gradually through repeated marches #corroborates (0.80) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 743
• Digital protest crowds behave like swarms that cannot be organized durably #contradicts (0.80) — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 343