Great timing for our new publication on how the Hungarian opposition reacts to democratic backsliding, after this weekend's huge #BudapestPride2025 march!

We study the strategic choices of the United for Hungary coalition in the 2022 elections.

🧵with link and takeaways👇

Focusing on the differences in their network embeddedness, membership in an organization decreases the odds of being a coordinator, as opposed to a boundary spanner position, by a quarter. While having activist friends does not significantly distinguish the two groups.

Interest in politics, as well as writing online about protests, increase the odds of being a coordinator as opposed to a boundary spanner.

Focusing on how coordinators and boundary spanners differ from each other, caring for a dependent significantly increases the odds of being in a coordinator rather than a boundary spanner position.

Having written online about protests increases the odds of occupying a brokerage position by a factor of 2.

Membership to an organization increases the odds of being a potential broker by a factor of 1.4 while having friends who have either participated in a protest or are involved in a social or activist organization increase the odds of occupying a broker position by a factor of 5.7.

Moving to the characteristics of those people who occupy brokerage positions, poorer individuals are more likely to occupy a brokerage position. Also, being a man increases the odds of occupying such a position by about a third.

At least 40% of the protesters in each country have participated in more than one protest in the 2 years before our survey fieldwork. Moreover, except for Denmark, in the rest of the countries, at least one in five protesters joined three or more demonstrations.

Using survey data from Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Romania and the UK, we mapped protest networks in the 6 countries and identified two distinct brokerage roles:

- Coordinators: Connect within same-issue contentious episodes.

- Boundary Spanners: Connect across different-issue episodes.

🚨New publication!
In our latest paper in the International Journal of Sociology, Matthias Hoffmann, @danmercea.bsky.social and I study brokerage in protest networks. We explore how individuals connect protest episodes and the characteristics of those occupying brokerage positions. A 🧵

Over the moon 'Social Movements that Care: Empathy, Solidarity, and Empowerment in the Fight Against Evictions' is finally out!

Interested?
🔁Repost so it reaches more people
📖Order a copy of the book at your library
🗣️Invite me to give a talk at your institution

Link👇

We found that between 30% and 40% of the population would be willing to protest, while people with protest experience represent between 12% and 29% of the population. This means that people willing to join a protest are more than those who would never consider this option.

Thrilled to share our latest work, with @DanMercea and Matthias Hoffmann, published at @PolStudies. Using nat. rep. survey data from 6 European countries, we explore what differentiates actual and potential protesters between themselves and in relation to non-protesters.

A short 🧵

Moreover, movement party voters prefer anti-elitist candidates and candidates who want to ensure the smooth running of the political system.

Instead, we tested for a progressive policy (climate change) and a conservative policy (migration) and found out that movement party voters have stronger policy preferences than conventional party voters.

We conducted a choice-based conjoint survey experiment across six European countries. Contrary to previous assumptions, movement party voters neither favor institutional outsiders nor candidates actively participating in protests.

Hello world! 👋
As a first post, here is a thread with my latest publication with @danmercea.bsky.social, exploring what drives support for movement parties.
We find that their voters don't favor institutional outsiders or candidates with protest experience. They prioritize decisive policy change.