In a recent journal essay, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Erica Chenoweth and research fellow Matthew Cebul reviewed patterns in Gen-Z-led protest alongside trends in youth protest over time.
Protests with extensive youth involvement are over twice as likely to succeed
Protest movements often rely on young people. If a nonviolent campaign has extensive youth participation, it’s over twice as likely to succeed than campaigns with limited youth participation, according to one recent study. Young people may be especially committed, creative in their protest tactics, and able to build broad coalitions across socio-cultural divides. They’re also especially vulnerable to economic challenges, as stagnant economies may leave them facing unemployment and thwart their hopes for upward mobility.
Young people have led powerful protests over the past century, such as the second People Power Movement in the Philippines that removed Joseph Estrada from power in 2001, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon in 2005, and the uprising in Sudan in 2019 that prompted the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir.
Youth protest is associated with more intense repression
Youth protests aren’t more likely to use violence, but they’re associated with more intense repression. Some scholars argue that autocratic regimes tend to find youth particularly threatening and respond with violence.
Chenoweth and Cebul point to a positive association between young people’s participation in a protest and measures of liberal and egalitarian democracy in the following years. That said, young people don’t always see the benefits of their protest, even if it is successful. One study found no association between youth protest participation and improved youth unemployment, and young people may find that a new head of state doesn’t improve their day-to-day economic well-being.
Gen Z protests are taking on corruption and economic instability
Despite the fact that surveys tend to find that members of Gen Z (young people aged 13-28) are disillusioned with democracy, they have played a significant role in many movements to hold ineffective governments to account.
Many Gen Z protests have taken place in countries with weak economies, high unemployment, and large youth populations—with governments run by leaders much older than the average citizen. And many Gen Z protests have rallied against corruption, taking on political elites who thrive amidst widespread suffering and poverty in Nepal, Serbia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and beyond.
To evaluate whether Gen Z’s protests are indeed a “rising bulwark against the global illiberal tide,” Chenoweth and Cebul looked at global trends in youth movements. They found:
- Gen Z protests neither fully embrace nor enforce nonviolent discipline (despite nonviolence being effective in achieving democracy). Many Gen Z protests began peacefully but were overtaken by a few violent rioters, or were met with violent repression that led to chaos.
- Gen Z movements tend to be decentralized, without a leader or hierarchical structure. Young people often prefer horizontal ties and digital organizing, which can make their movements quicker to mobilize, more responsive, and harder to repress.
- Many Gen Z protests aren’t specifically about democracy, even if they’re fighting for democratic ideals; they’re more focused on socioeconomic issues, inequality, corruption, and nepotism.
In recent years, Gen Z protests have faced violent responses to resistance, from the killing of thousands of protestors in Bangladesh and Tanzania, of dozens of people in Kenya, and the abduction and imprisonment of thousands of protestors in Morocco.
A movement or a moment?
Gen Z movements are succeeding even as democratic backsliding continues worldwide, but it is too early to know whether their efforts will lead to lasting change. Electoral politics can help movements channel short-term wins into long-term reforms, but many young people are understandably disillusioned by established political systems and parties that haven’t served them. When they do leverage their political power, such as in the 2025 New York City’ mayor’s race, they can have a striking impact. Zohran Mamdani’s authentic engagement with young people—and his direct appeal to issues facing youth voters—helped drive his win.
Globally, Gen Z protests, even when they are successful, can still result in challenge and uncertainty in the face of regime change. As Chenoweth and Cebul explain, “Although some Gen-Z protests have deposed offending heads of state, their countries’ futures remain up for grabs.” Bangladesh, for example, experienced a constitutional crisis; Nepal’s interim government is “under pressure to restore order in time to hold secure, free, and fair elections,” Madagascar is vulnerable to renewed protest, and dissatisfaction continues in Peru.
A “global political awakening”
Chenoweth and Cebul take stock of this moment, assessing Gen Z’s role in agitating for democracy worldwide:
“Ultimately, Gen Z may be experiencing a global political awakening,” they write. “Today, young people constitute a large and growing demographic—there are an estimated 2.8 billion people between the ages of 10 and 29, or roughly a third of the global population.”
“If young people continue to build on their momentum and commit to sustained political activism—and sclerotic governments work to bring young people into the fold,” they argue, “2025 may prove to have marked the beginning of a profound generational transformation in world affairs. For global democracy’s sake, greater youth engagement cannot come soon enough.”
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Photo credit: Banner photograph by Luis Tato/AFP/Getty Images; Inline image by Andrej Isakovic/AFP/Getty Images.