Group Size and Protest Mobilization across Movements and Countermovements

Many social movements face fierce resistance in the form of a countermovement. Therefore, when deciding to become politically active, movement supporter has consider both her own movement’s activity and that opponent. This paper studies decision attend protest faced with counterprotest. We implement two field experiments among supporters right- left-leaning ahead protest–counterprotest interactions Germany. Supporters were exposed low or high official estimates about their opposing group’s turnout. find size group no effect on supporters’ intentions. However, as gets larger, right-leaning less while more willing protest. argue difference is best explained by stronger motives political left.