The significance of uniting different social classes in non-violent protests: A comparative analysis of the 1989 Tian’anmen square protest and the 2011 Egyptian revolution

Abstract

The 1989 Tiananmen Square Protest and the 2011 Egyptian Revolution are two of the most influential non-violent protests at the junction of the 20th century and 21st century. Although they share many similarities, the two movements reached completely different results: the Tiananmen Protest was harshly repressed by the Chinese government, whereas the Egyptian Revolution successfully overthrew the authoritarian Mubarak government. Although most existing research has attributed the different destinies of the two revolutionary movements to government control over the military, this paper focuses instead on the implications of the protestors social classes. The research method employed is a qualitative comparative analysis on these two events based on existing literature and primary sources. Two objectives were formulated for this study: to examine how the social class composition of the protest movements influenced the development process of the two revolutions and to provide insights for future non-violent revolutionaries on how to avoid failure due to a lack of diversity in social classes among protesters.