THE PHENOMENON OF POLITICAL PROTEST: ESSENSE, TRADITIONS AND INNOVATIONS

Abstract

The article describes the main problems associated with different scientific interpretations of the essence of political protest, traditional approaches to the content and transformations that occurred during the last two decades in different regions of the world. The social nature of political protest is shown, which is based on the political interests of various social groups and strata of society. In the author's understanding the political protest behavior of the masses is presented not only as a destabilizing factor in society, but also as a stimulus with a positive potential, contributing to overcome the political passivity, apathy of many people, caused by the feeling of their political weakness ingrained in the public consciousness.