Arab Spring to Jantar Mantar: The global playbook behind political protests and their origins
This article analyzes a recurring pattern of political uprisings across various nations between 2024 and 2026. It suggests that these movements, often led by digitally savvy youth, follow a strategic playbook involving non-violent beginnings that shift toward institutional confrontation.
Why it matters
Highlights potential geopolitical trends and the evolving nature of civil unrest in the digital age.
Between 2024 and 2026, popular uprisings removed or destabilised elected governments across three continents. Bangladesh, Kenya, and Serbia in 2024 were followed by Indonesia, Madagascar, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Peru, the Philippines, and Timor-Leste in 2025; in two of those cases, governments fell outright. Such a wave reached New Delhi in July 2026 with the resignation of a cabinet minister after seven weeks of agitation led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). The dominant explanation, reproduced across much Western commentary, is generational: a cohort facing unemployment, inequality, and elite corruption mobilising through platforms it understands more fluently than its rulers. That account is accurate as far as it extends, but incomplete in a manner that matters for policy. Some grievances are domestic, but the mechanism that converts grievance into governmental collapse is not.
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