Ilana Shpaizman | The Dream to Have a Dream: Hope in Mass Protests Against Democratic Backsliding

The Moynihan Institute’s Middle Eastern Studies Program and the Campbell Public Affairs Institute present a talk by Ilana Shpaizman from Bar-Ilan University - Israel.

Abstract: Democratic backsliding—the gradual erosion of democratic institutions by elected leaders—increasingly meets resistance from mass, ongoing protests. While scholarship on democratic resilience has identified the importance of mass resistance, it has largely left unexamined the emotional resources that enable ordinary citizens to mobilize and persist in protesting against democratic backsliding. This paper argues that hope is an indispensable emotional resource for sustaining mass protest against democratic backsliding. Drawing on an original dataset of speeches delivered at 109 weekly demonstrations in Israel between January 2023 and February 2026, we theorize and empirically examine three types of hope: endogenous hope, which constructs the collective identity of the protest movement; exogenous hope, which articulates the specific democratic futures protesters are fighting for; and hollow hope, in which hope becomes an end in itself as a bulwark against despair. Using a mixed-methods approach, we find that overall hope increases as backsliding deepens, that the content of exogenous hope shifts in response to changing political realities, and that hollow hope grows markedly over time, eventually becoming a commodity that protesters demand their government restore. These findings illuminate the dynamic, multifaceted role of hope in sustaining long-term pro-democratic resistance, with implications for understanding popular resilience to democratic backsliding.

Lunch will be provided.