From Contentious Politics to Contentious Rights: Mass Mobilization and Support for Protest Rights in Brazil

The right to peaceful protest is a core democratic principle, yet governments increasingly respond to mass mobilization by restricting this right. While public resistance to such measures is crucial for countering authoritarian encroachment, we know little about how citizens’ support for protest rights shifts in response to mass mobilizations. Drawing on an original survey experiment in Brazil (N=3,008), we show that support for protest rights is highly malleable and responsive to recent information about protests. Specifically, information about disruptive protests—whether violent or nonviolent—increases support for government restrictions on the right to peacefully protest, suggesting that even nonviolent disruption can trigger backlash that erodes support for democratic rights. These effects hold across different protest issues and regardless of respondents’ predispositions toward the protest cause. This study contributes to research on citizens’ democratic commitments by showing how support for core democratic rights shifts in response to contentious political events.