Key point 1 is misleading. There were five high-quality studies, but only four found positive effects of nonviolent protests (the fifth only covered violent protests[^1]), and only three of those four were included in the meta-analysis. So we only have three strong studies showing a positive effect.
Key point 2 is fair.
Key point 3 is partially correct. Social Change Lab’s review did overstate the strength of some of the evidence, but I would not say it “misrepresented” individual studies. It did have a single incorrect numerical figure, which I suspect wasn’t a mistake, it was probably just pulled from an older revision of the study than the one I looked at.
Key point 4: I am not sure what “~12 vote share points per 100 protesters” is supposed to mean but it sounds incorrect. The mean effect was an increase of 12 turnout-adjusted voters per protester (that is, the electoral effect per protester was the same as if they’d moved 12 voters[^2] and there had been 100% turnout).
Key point 5 is fair.
Key point 6 is fair.
[^1] Technically Wasow (2020) covered both violent and nonviolent protests, but the part about nonviolent protests was purely observational (no natural experiment).
[^2] Where “moving” includes both persuading someone to turn out, and persuading someone to change who they vote for. (Those two things are not equivalent when you’re looking at absolute vote count, but they’re equivalent with respect to vote share.)
My review of this summary:
The executive summary is fair.
Key point 1 is misleading. There were five high-quality studies, but only four found positive effects of nonviolent protests (the fifth only covered violent protests[^1]), and only three of those four were included in the meta-analysis. So we only have three strong studies showing a positive effect.
Key point 2 is fair.
Key point 3 is partially correct. Social Change Lab’s review did overstate the strength of some of the evidence, but I would not say it “misrepresented” individual studies. It did have a single incorrect numerical figure, which I suspect wasn’t a mistake, it was probably just pulled from an older revision of the study than the one I looked at.
Key point 4: I am not sure what “~12 vote share points per 100 protesters” is supposed to mean but it sounds incorrect. The mean effect was an increase of 12 turnout-adjusted voters per protester (that is, the electoral effect per protester was the same as if they’d moved 12 voters[^2] and there had been 100% turnout).
Key point 5 is fair.
Key point 6 is fair.
[^1] Technically Wasow (2020) covered both violent and nonviolent protests, but the part about nonviolent protests was purely observational (no natural experiment).
[^2] Where “moving” includes both persuading someone to turn out, and persuading someone to change who they vote for. (Those two things are not equivalent when you’re looking at absolute vote count, but they’re equivalent with respect to vote share.)