Protest movements need determinate goals and institutional embedding to last

Evidence

As I say, the student protest was different because they had a determinate goal that produced this criterion of success and failure. Also: because of the sustained nature of it. There wasn’t just something over in a day. It was something over a period of weeks. It built up and had managed to embed itself in the structure of universities, by the occupations. That produces a very different dynamic to a kind of anti-capitalist carnival that happens for a day or a short period of time. The problem ultimately was that, as we discussed earlier, that did fizzle out. I think that then just poses different challenges about how — since people have been politicised by that issue — how do we sustain that kind of struggle over a longer period, and how do we keep it embedded into everyday life. I think that link between people’s working life, or the life of students, and politics is crucial — that politics is not something that is just performed by a professional class of administrators at some spectacular distance. It’s something that directly connects with how we live and work. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2158

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A major Brazilian protest movement organized as consensus-based and leaderless by design — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 149; Mass protest without a vanguard naturally occupies symbolic space rather than seizing state power — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 225; Spanish 2011 protesters organized horizontally with consensus-based assemblies — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 261 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Protest movements must become robust institutions to have lasting impact #corroborates (0.95)
• Sheer mass protest changes nothing without organization, goals, and structures #corroborates (0.95) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2163
• Modern protest movements are transient swarms held together by stimuli, not durable organizations #complicates (0.85) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 229
• Hierarchical organization correlates with protest movement success #corroborates (0.80) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 847