What happens after the protests? Understanding protest outcomes through multi-level social change

Abstract

Over the last few years, large-scale social movements and the consequences of these movements from the perspectives of protesters have been gaining increased attention across the globe. Psychological research has tended to focus on individual or group level change; however, understanding the consequences of these social movements involves realizing that social movements bring about change in different ways: at the individual level, the group level, and the systemic or policy level. The current research attempts to examine not only the individual and group level change but also system level change from the perspective of participants of the Gezi Park protests in İstanbul, Turkey. The consequences of the protests in the subsequent 3 years will be discussed through a series of expert interviews. Overall, results indicate that a number of gains occurred on all 3 levels, but there were overall losses over time. With the impact of other political factors, many of those gains were lost as well.