How do people evaluate social movements tactics? In this manuscript, we test the relative importance of personal demographics and tactical dimensions in shaping the perception of a tactic’s disruptive capacity or effectiveness.We build on existing work investigating the influence of tactical properties on perceptions of protests, considering the additional impact of perceivers’ locations in broader sociopolitical systems. We conducted a survey experiment on tactic opinions with a random sample of U.S. voters. Employing Bradley-Terry models for our paired choice data, we find that while tactical dimensions influenced perceptions of both disruption and effectiveness, respondent sociodemographic and political characteristics matter for perceived effectiveness but not disruption. Our research on varying tactical perceptions across different demographic groups highlights the need for scholars to focus on the interactive nature of protest events.
