See You Next Year?: Testing the Persistence of the Women’s March

• In Event: No Way: Mass and Elite Resistance to the Neo-Populist Agenda

Abstract

The Women’s March of January 2017, was an unprecedented mobilization both in terms of the number of protestors and the number of events across the United States and the globe. Following the March, the question was raised on whether this mobilization adequately represented diverse women and whether this movement could be sustained? I argue that these questions concerning inclusion and persistence are linked. In order to understand the connection between inclusion and persistence, I argue we must pay attention to the protests characteristics in terms of the purported goals of the action, the diversity of leadership and the spaces were protest occurred during the 2017 March. I argue that paying attention to the spatial aspects of protest allow us to better understand movement’s democratic potential, in terms of the movements ability to meaningfully engage diverse participants and build continued activism. I argue that Marches which were both able to signal a commitment to inclusion of diverse women, through the spaces they chose to occupy, their leadership, and goals are more likely to build the coalition necessary for long term persistence. Therefore, Women’s Marches in 2017 with more diverse leadership and which organized in spaces that were accessible to a diverse collection of women, are more likely to to sustain mobilization in 2018. I test this argument using an original dataset that covers 80 cases of Women’s Marches in 2017 and 2018.

Author

• Kaitlin Kelly-Thompson, Purdue University