Proud protest and parading party: The meanings that Pride parades in six European countries have to their participants

In this study, the effects of different national contexts on motives for participation in Pride parades are explored trough a comparison of ten events taking place in seven different European countries. The analysis is based on data from the protest survey research programme “Caught in the act of protest: Contextualizing contestation”, gathered between 2011 and 2014 in the Czech Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. Open survey responses were coded based on a synthesis of typologies used in previous studies as well as inductive analysis of salient themes in the data. A subsequent quantitative analysis of the coded responses shows that the frequency of different motive types among the respondents vary significantly between different countries. While Pride participants in all countries express several different motives for participation, a more politicized protest orientation is most common in Italy and Poland, where the LGBT movement received comparatively little support from both elites and the general public. Conversely, in the Netherlands, where both elites and public opinion are supportive, participants tend to emphasize visibility, meeting friends and entertainment as motives for participation. Apart from the significant country variation, the analysis also demonstrates that some of the individual factors that contribute to political participation in general also seem to increase the likelihood of emphasizing political motives among the possible reasons for participating in Pride events.