Citizens, Leaders, and (Non-)Trust : Democratic protests and peaceful attitudes in Malawi

Sammanfattning: Non-violent protests are extensively connected to successful democratization, but they also constitute socially fragmenting events. This is particularly dangerous in societies with pre-existing ethnic divisions which is why the protests’ democratizing effects need to be studied on a subnational level. A protest movement will, regardless of its size, only manage to actively include a minority of a country’s population, which is why the ‘spill-over effects’ on non-participants also need to be studied. This study thus addresses the question: How do democratizing spill-over effects from non-violent protest campaigns affect different socio-political groups? I hypothesise that non-aligned groups are less likely to see the effects as social echo-chambers are likely to minimize their exposure to the movements’ democratic ideals. I test the hypotheses by interviewing respondents from different socio-political groups on opposite sides of Malawian politics, and particularly on opposite sides of the 2019 protest movement. Only partial support was found for the theorised echo-chamber effects, but this is explained by the findings that these groups were less isolated than expected and shared a general distrust of Malawian leaders. The main democratizing effect of the 2019 non-violent protest movement was a broad sense of ‘empowerment’.