Popular opinion suggests protest has become ubiquitous in advanced postindustrial democracies. In order to assess this perspective scholars have increasingly relied on so-called protest surveys to gauge protesters' attitudes and characteristics while in the act of protesting. This growing body of literature has neglected the design of protest surveys and has yet to systematically test the reliability of the evidence they produce. This study attempts to make a contribution on both fronts. After reviewing the available studies relying on protest surveys, it proposes a standardized method to sample respondents in moving crowds. The sampling procedure is tested in 22 demonstrations across a variety of issues and countries. Based on a series of field experiments, the paper puts forward a specific protest survey fieldwork method by which selection bias and response bias can be reduced to a considerable degree.

The study aims to extend the existing knowledge about the dynamics of first-time participation in protest events. To tackle that puzzle we rely on extensive and innovative protest survey evidence covering 18 separate demonstrations in eight countries across nine different issues. On the individual level, age, motivation, and non-organizational mobilization appear to be consistent and robust predictors of first-timership. On the aggregate level, demonstrations staged just after or during a protest wave, large demonstrations, and demonstrations of old or new emotional movements are attended by a relatively larger share of first-timers. We conclude that it is thus the interplay of individual-and aggregate-level determinants that produces first-time participation.

This article presents the theoretical underpinnings, design, methods, and measures of the project, Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation. This effort examines street demonstrations that vary in atmosphere, organization, and target. The project particularly focuses on participants, exploring who participates, and why and how people got involved. Data are collected before, during, and after a number of demonstrations, and captures the entire "demonstration moment." We develop standardized measures and techniques for sampling and data collection at the individual demonstrator level and at the contexual level. Evidence was gathered not only from the demonstrators but also from police, organizers, and the mass media. Data-gathering efforts were standardized through identical methods, questionnaires, fact sheets, and content analysis protocols. The CCC project examines demonstrations in Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain, Switzerland, and Sweden between 2009 and 2012. Teams from Italy, Mexico, and the Czech Republic joined the project at a later stage. The project has covered 61 demonstrations and 12,993 questionnaires have been completed to date.

This study tackles the question to what extent the composition of protest events is determined by the stance of governments. Established contextual theories do not formulate propositions on how context affects individual protesters. The article engages in empirically testing whether the macro-context affects the internal diversity of the crowds that took to the streets on Feb. 15, 2003, the massive day of protest against the upcoming war on Iraq. Drawing on a survey of 6,753 individual demonstrators in eight countries, we find that the composition of the marches is determined by the stance of the government and the opposition in the countries at stake. Apart from government stance, also the support in public opinion and the type of mobilization (media support) matter for internal diversity.To what extent is the composition of a protest event determined by the stance of the government? This basic question has not received a clear answer. To be sure, social movement scholars have tackled the question whether and how social movements and protest events are affected by the political context. The basic tenet of, probably, the most influential of all social movement theories, the political opportunity structure approach, is precisely that social movements are determined by their political environment. POS emerged more than two decades ago, stating that social movements are dependent upon the political environment in which they operate (Kitschelt 1986; Tarrow 1998). Devised to comparatively account for the strength of social movements -their constituency, organizational structure, mobilization level, turnout, militancy etc. -the POS does not make claims, however, regarding the features of individual activists or demonstrators. Moreover, the classic POS-approach focuses on permanent and stable arrangements that structurally mould general protest behavior in a given country; it is not meant to explain variable traits of specific protest events or campaigns, let alone to account for the traits of individual protesters. So, POS, and the other contextual social

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