Seminar series Does protest affect bystanders? Field experimental evidence from Germany Add to calendar 2025-05-22 17:00 2025-05-22 18:30 Europe/Rome Does protest affect bystanders? Sala del Capitolo Badia Fiesolana YYYY-MM-DD Print Share: Share on Facebook Share on BlueSky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email Scheduled dates May 22 2025 17:00 - 18:30 CEST Sala del Capitolo, Badia Fiesolana Organised by Department of Political and Social Sciences In the context of the Comparative Politics Seminar Series, this session features a presentation by Heike Klüver (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin). Do protests matter? Only a handful of studies convincingly test causal claims about protests' effects on politics, which is crucial when studying the actual impact of protests. There is a gap of empirical research capable of testing causal claims about protests and the detailed micro-foundations of the theoretical mechanisms developed in protest research. We attempt to address this by designing and conducting a large-scale field experiment, randomly assigning citizens to observe climate strikes by Fridays for Future (FFF) in Berlin, Germany. Theoretically, we argue that observing political protest serves as a visible cue that conveys summary information about societal attitudes and behaviours, creating the impression of shifting public opinion and social norms. We find that while bystanders adapt their behaviour in favour of protesters' demands, their attitudes, vote intentions and perceptions of social norms remain unchanged. These findings fill an important gap in the literature by unveiling the mechanisms through which protests translate into shifts in political outcomes.