New Scientist - USA (2019-06-22)

22 June 2019 | New Scientist | 21

Extinction Rebellion

protests have disrupted

London in recent months

goal. The bill became law in March

2010 and still stands today.

Veuger says the effects of

protest may be more local, or more

diffuse. “The ACA passed before

the first election in the fall of 2010

in which the Tea Party could have

an impact. But they were still

successful. Nothing along those

lines has passed after the 2010

midterms,” he says.

The effects of protest can also

hit policy-makers where it hurts:

the economy. Daron Acemoglu

at the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology and his colleagues

looked at how the Egyptian stock

market was affected by the mass

demonstrations in Tahrir Square

in Cairo in 2011, which ended

with the resignation of president

Hosni Mubarak.

The team analysed stock returns

of 177 firms listed on the Egyptian

stock exchange between 2005

and 2013 and found that more

protesters in the streets led to

lower market valuations for those

firms whose shareholders and

board members were connected

to the National Democratic Party,

the party of Mubarak. A turnout

of 500,000 protesters in Tahrir

Square was correlated with a

0.8 per cent lower valuation in

those companies than the firms

unaffiliated with members of the

political party in power.

Economic pressure can affect

policy-makers and the same goes

for social change. For example,

although the Women’s March

suffered from not having specific

policy goals, that doesn’t mean it

wasn’t successful, says Hennessey.

After January 2017, the MeToo

movement to bring to light and

end sexual violence really took

hold. “I don’t think the MeToo

movement would have gained

traction in the same way without

it. You need a crack and then the

water starts to seep in,” she says. ❚

protests in their districts.

Larger protests correlated with

higher turnout at subsequent

town hall meetings with

congressional leaders, while

smaller protests lowered the

probability of a representative’s

vote aligning with protesters’

demands by 8.7 per cent.

And every Tea Party protester

in a district was related to an

increase of between seven and

15 Republican voters in the area.

The sustained Tea Party protests

also led to more media coverage

of the movement and its aims to

limit government spending, and

added members and financial

contributions to the movement.

It wasn’t fully successful,

however. When it came to

major national legislation, such

as the Affordable Care Act (ACA)

healthcare bill that was so

vehemently opposed by the

Tea Party that the movement’s

proponents in Congress shut

down the government over it,

the protesters didn’t achieve their

invasion of Iraq, yet it still went

ahead. Although the marches

rallied people to the cause, they

ultimately failed to change the

policy the movement opposed.

Still, protests do sometimes

appear to directly affect policy,

as a case study of the Tea Party

movement in the US found.

In April 2009, there were a

series of rallies that began with

hundreds of thousands of people

gathering in US cities to protest

against spending by the Obama

administration. That was followed

by rallies throughout the following

spring and summer targeting local

taxes and budgeting decisions.

According to Stan Veuger at

the American Enterprise Institute,

they were successful. He and his

colleagues analysed the sizes

of these protests and measured

related changes in voting patterns

and policy change by comparing

the way members of Congress

voted before and after the protests.

They found that members of

Congress were more likely to vote

conservatively – in line with Tea

Party principles – after large

▲ Tiny bagels

Spare a thought for those

brunching in the Bronze

Age. Archaeologists have

found what seem to be

3000-year-old bagels.

You’d need a lot – they are

just 3 centimetres across.

▲ Space oddity

It is one giant leap for DJs.

Luca Parmitano is due

to perform the first DJ set

from space in August

from the International

Space Station.

▼ Fake CEOs

A video of Facebook’s Mark

Zuckerberg speaking with

the emotion of a robot has

appeared online. Yes, we

were surprised it was an

AI-generated fake too.

▼ Face control

Your face could soon be

your passport. But if data

breaches occur, like the US

one last week, you may

need to get a new face ...

▼ Blood crystals

It is a new age for the

new age. Healing crystals

are having a revival,

but mining them is bad

news for the planet.

Working

hypothesis

Sorting the week’s

supernovae from

the absolute zeros

More Insight online

Your guide to a rapidly changing world

newscientist.com/insight

“It wasn’t people with

Molotov cocktails and

bandannas. It was Sharon

from down the street”

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