This article asks how the social backgrounds of participants in 2019 Fridays for Future (FFF) protests across European cities related to who joined the protests and to protesters' strategic beliefs about how to address climate challenges. Using unique protest survey data collected at FFF events, the authors examine variation in participants' socioeconomic profiles and whether those backgrounds shaped preferences for institutions and approaches to climate and environmental action. The contribution is a nuanced account that rejects single-story portrayals of protesters as uniformly privileged or uniformly poor and highlights links between social composition and movement strategic orientations.
Unique protest survey data Cross-city European sample Links between social background and strategic preferences
Data and methods
The study draws on protest survey data gathered at Fridays for Future events across European cities in 2019 (the brief and article cite these as unique protest surveys). The paper analyzes the social composition of attendees and relates participants' socioeconomic characteristics to survey items about which institutions and approaches they trusted or preferred to tackle climate and environmental problems. The abstract frames the work as an exploration of structural bases of organized collective mobilization rather than an experimental test.
Main findings
The authors report heterogeneous social composition within FFF protests, which they argue complicates narratives that cast climate justice protesters as chiefly privileged or chiefly disadvantaged. They further report that protesters' social backgrounds were associated with differences in attitudes about which institutions and approaches could be relied upon to address climate and environmental challenges, indicating a link between class-position and strategic choices within the movement.
- The evidence points to cross-class participation rather than a single-class constituency.
- Social background covaried with preferred institutional targets and tactics for climate action.
