In 2019, youth took to the street to express their fears and ambitions in relation to climate change. Alongside, many adult and senior citizens expressed their solidarity. While the media present environmental issues as being generationally dividing, we know little about potential differences between generations in terms of environmental attitudes. In this paper, we analyze data collected in the framework of street demonstrations in Switzerland and longitudinal data collected in the Swiss population. Our analyses of survey data on climate strike demonstrators in Switzerland show that while the early demonstrations attracted mostly youth, the age composition of climate strike demonstrators became more diverse over time increasingly including members of different generations. Furthermore, we explore how age differences evolved over the last 20 years using the Swiss Household Panel data. Our analyses show that the share of individuals who favor the environment over the economy is greater among younger generations and that the climate strike generation stands out with the largest share of pro-environmental attitudes. However, all generations have moved in parallel over the last twenty years following a non-linear but generally upward trend illustrating that the political context affects all generations. Overall, our analyses contribute to understanding incremental changes in public attitudes in the environmental area and the role played by generational renewal in these regards.

The Eurozone crisis triggered deep political dissent in Southern Europe. As the crisis unfolded, citizens took massively to the streets in attempts to prevent austerity policies but also to call for more democracy. We analyze protest waves in four Southern European countries: Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. We argue that protest events are reactions to austerity measures when austerity is the only game in town. Hence, we test the effects of elections, the presence of new challengers, and austerity votes on protest. We use a data set of protest events based on the coding of newswires covering protest in its different forms from 2000 to 2015. We show that protest waves took place in the four countries and that they reveal widespread dissatisfaction with austerity policies. Our article contributes to the understanding of the links between protest and institutional politics during the Eurozone crisis.

Research shows that anger triggers participation in social movements, while fear inhibits action. Therefore, fear is less likely to contribute to citizens’ engagement in protest. However, in the case of climate change, fear may play a distinct role and thus contribute to participation. Given the long-term consequences of climate change, we argue that it triggers different emotions across disparate age groups. We investigate the extent to which young, adult, and senior climate strikers experience fear and anger in relation to climate change. Furthermore, we analyze the contribution of these emotions to younger and older citizens’ motivation to demonstrate. Using a unique dataset collected among climate strike demonstrators in eleven cities around the world in September 2019, we examine the importance of anger and fear in explaining motivations to take part in the demonstration – to pressure politicians or to defend one’s interests. Overall, we find that protesters aged above 60 years old are less likely to fear climate change but are more likely to feel anger in relation to this issue than younger generations. On the other hand, those aged below 35 report the highest levels of fear in relation to climate change and are significantly less angry than senior citizens. In all age groups, both anger and fear are associated with motivation to defend one’s interest and to pressure politicians.

Demonstrations have become more visible across Europe since the Great Recession. To clarify the connection between crisis and protest, we open the black box of crisis-related grievances, suggesting a typology for this subjective phenomenon and addressing the mediating role of emotions on protest. Using panel data, we explore the dimensionality of thirty different items that Spanish citizens have claimed to endure as a consequence of the crisis, and then we test their potential of these grievances as triggers of protest. Results show that both financial deprivation and grievances related to worker-citizens' status and rights encourage protest activity. Crisis-related grievances trigger negative emotions, and curiously enough, both anger and anxiety boost protest. Our findings hold, regardless of political ideology, previous participation, or perceptions of self-efficacy.