A novel framework for an empirical evaluation of social movements

Social movements have historically been classified by scholars by evaluating their stated missions or ideological goals; however, this practice risks normative bias and limits comparative analysis across social movements with different missions or goals. This study proposes, and then empirically tests, a framework for classifying protest movements based on intrinsic, observable, and measurable organizational and tactical characteristics rather than political or social objectives. We first identified and operationalized dimensions, or features, of protest movements, including language, violence, demonization, principles, power, focus, and theory of change. Using this framework, we conducted a national survey of 218 U.S. academics in political and social science disciplines, who evaluated eight social movements—including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, the Tea Party, and the First Palestinian Intifada—across the proposed standardized dimensions. Results from a correlation analysis show high inter-rater consistency for the dimensions of “principles” and “theory of change,” and substantially greater variability for “violence” and “demonization”, suggesting that some features of protest movements can be assessed with greater objectivity than others. These findings demonstrate that academics can meaningfully evaluate certain characteristics, but not all, of protest movements without consideration of ideological alignment. This enables multidimensional comparison across movements that have disparate or even contradictory goals that conventional mission-based or binary classification schemes fail to capture.