Economic situation not source of protest

Jón Gunnar Bernburg, Professor at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences has studied the mass protest 2009; the Pots-and-Pans Revolution (Icelandic: búsáhaldabylting) from a Social Science viewpoint for the last four years. He examines the series of events from the economic collapse in the autumn 2008 until 26 January 2009 when the government abdicated.

Bernburg says that what inspired his research is the fact that mass protest against the government is rare in democratic countries. These events thus provide a unique opportunity to ask important sociological questions about the forces that cause extensive protests in well-to-do democracies. “When the economic crisis hit I was studying issues connected with social inequality and people’s perception of injustice, but then came the economic crisis so I found it ideal to turn my attention to the protests,” says Bernburg.

The research process is manifold. “I had historical data and a questionnaire for probability sample consisting of 600 individuals in the Greater Reykjavík area. Furthermore, I analysed and examined speeches held during the protests and newspaper articles written by the protests’ spoke-persons to map out the discourse at that time. Furthermore, we interviewed protesters, organisers and authors of newspaper articles,” adds Bernburg on his and collaborators’ study.

The main results of the study are that apparently people were not primarily motivated by economic factors to participate in the protests. “The protesters had not necessarily lost more money or were deeper in debt than others. The main driving force for participation was ideological. I connect this with what I call ideological framing which took place at that time; how the crisis or economic collapse is framed into the general discourse during the autumn of 2008,” says Bernburg. Asked about the social value of the study Bernburg claims that it sheds light on general definitions of mass-riots and revolutions. “It also helps us understand how a revolution can occur in developed democratic states.”