‘Profile: the diffusion of global protests after George Floyd’s murder’

ABSTRACT

In what countries did people protest after George Floyd’s death? This article offers a detailed count of ninety-three countries and territories where antiracism protests took place outside the United States after George Floyd’s murder on 25 May 2020. We suggest that media coverage – or non-relational diffusion – may explain this rapid spread. But we also note that the protests were not simply amplifying US grievances. Rather, in many news reports we found evidence of the localization of protests. The US protests opened the door to a wave of events that allowed local activists and protestors to air their concerns around racism, police brutality, monuments, and related issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Global protest
• diffusion
• antiracism
• Black lives matter
• localization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. 2019 had been a major year of protest around the world, but that wave slowed due to the pandemic. See Chenoweth et al. (2019). On the impact of COVID-19 on protests, see Chenoweth (2022), Gerbaudo (2020), Pleyers (2020), and Pressman and Choi-Fitzpatrick (2021).

2. The claim that a protest took place on Antarctica is unconfirmed (Reddit, 2020).

3. There were eleven countries or territories that did not have a reported Global Freedom Status but were included in the count of countries reporting Black Lives Matter protests: Aruba, Bermuda, Bonaire, Curacao, Faroe Islands, Gambia, Guadeloupe, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, and Palestine.

4. While this article is about diffusion from the United States to other countries, we recognize protest influences move in different directions. For example, on racial grievances and social movements, the United States has long been influenced by external events and movements (Azaransky, 2017; Blain, 2018, 2020; Dudziak, 2011; Pineda, 2021; Skrentny, 1998).

5. See also Heaney (2020).

6. We are grateful to Hilary Green for sharing her statue and monument data with us, which we then supplemented with a few additional examples.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeremy Pressman

Jeremy Pressman is a professor of political science at the University of Connecticut and co-director of the Crowd Counting Consortium. His most recent book is The sword is not enough: Arabs, Israelis, and the limits of military force (Manchester University Press, 2020).

Elannah Devin

Elannah Devin is a student at the University of Connecticut where she is majoring in political science and economics.