Factors of the Using of Violence at Protests in European Democracies (2010 – 2020)

This paper examines the reasons for the use of violence at protests in European democracies from 2010 to 2020. This period is not chosen by chance. In the last ten years, there has been an increase in the number of protest actions in the European Union countries. At the same time, the information background formed under the influence of violent protests creates a sense of a global social crisis in European countries for observers. However, is this really the case? This paper demonstrated that the traditional factors of the use of violence by protesters, namely the high level of economic inequality and poverty, are not universal for European democracies. Based on the theory of historical institutionalism and the principle of anecdotal evidence, we tried to find factors that were not widely used by researchers before. An empirical analysis of selected cases from France, Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic revealed a certain "rut of dependence" on the development of the institution of civil resistance in each society, which is built up as a result of turning points - major protest campaigns in the past. Depending on the nature and outcome of the protests, the "rut of dependence" is formed in favor of violent or peaceful protests. However, there may be situations when the" rut " is not built in favor of a specific nature of the protests. Then today's protesters will face the uncertainty of protest methods, which will lead to spontaneous, chaotic actions of the demonstrators. This study will also help to understand in which European countries from the selected cases large-scale violent protests are possible in the short and medium-term.