History Council of Victoria Annual Lecture 2026: Direct Action, Protest and Democracy, Prof Sean Scalmer

Across the globe, many polities are currently marked by the eruption of ‘direct action’ campaigns: for environmental protection; for peace; and  against racial, gender, and class inequality. People march, demonstrate, disrupt, occupy, and boycott. They typically justify these actions as a legitimate response to the failures of political authorities. They also present their actions as an authentic form of ‘direct’ or ‘participatory’ democracy. Political elites sometimes tolerate these campaigns and selectively incorporate their demands. Increasingly, however, they seek to restrict the scope for ‘direct action’, and to portray ‘direct action’ as a threat to legitimate order, and as a violent assertion of minority interests.