Results show that protests were most likely to occur between 1976 and 1980, 1994 – 5, and since 1998. Demands were most likely to be cross-disability except in France. There they were most likely to relate to mobility impairments, and they were much less likely to be cross-disability, than the other countries. Protests related to deafness were also more likely to occur in France than in other countries. Protest demands were most likely to relate to ‘services’ in the UK and to ‘rights’ in France, but they were equally divided among the three categories of demands (‘rights,’ ‘services’ and ‘other’) in other countries. All countries were most likely to address their demands to governmental targets (unlike similar protests in the US).
Socio-cultural factors, such as having a strong rights tradition (France) or a strong religious orientation (Spain), social policy factors such as the move to outsourcing disability determinations to a private company (UK), as well as factors in social movement diffusion, are considered in explaining results related to timing and foci of the protests. The paper also raises questions about data comparability, conceptual equivalencies in the definition of disability, and media biases and their effects on studying protest patterns.
