This article focuses on providing new insights into the nature of public opinion about protest action in South Africa. Since the mid-2000s the country has experienced one of the world’s highest levels of popular protest and strike action, combined with the recent resurgence of an active student protest movement. Sociological research into these protests has suggested that they represent distinct phenomena and that local protests have assumed plural forms that cut across simple violent/non-violent and orderly/disorderly binary distinctions. Despite the rapid growth of literature on South African protests, surprisingly little is known about public opinion relating to various forms of protest. Consequently, this article aims to examine differences with regard to the acceptability, perceived effectiveness and participation in respect of three categories of protest action, namely orderly, disruptive and violent protests. The article uses data from a protest module included as part of the 2016 round of the South African Social Attitudes Survey, a nationally representative series conducted annually by the Human Sciences Research Council. Apart from determining the nature and extent of variation in opinion regarding the three types of protest action on aggregate, the article explores patterns of similarity and differentiation across societal groups, based on class, age, race, gender and geography. Finally, we analyse how and for whom perspectives on the three forms of protest have changed over the course of a generation by drawing on functionally equivalent data collected in 1995. The article concludes by reflecting on whether the evidence supports key hypotheses regarding the ‘rebellion of the poor’1 in the country.

中文翻译：

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注意抗议：对当代南非不同形式抗议活动的态度

本文着重于提供有关南非抗议活动的舆论性质的新见解。自2000年代中期以来，该国经历了世界上最高水平的群众抗议和罢工行动之一，再加上最近活跃的学生抗议运动再次兴起。对这些抗议活动的社会学研究表明，它们代表着不同的现象，而当地的抗议活动则采用了跨越简单的暴力/非暴力和有序/无序的二进制区别的多元形式。尽管有关南非抗议活动的文献迅速增长，但令人惊讶的是，人们对与各种形式的抗议活动有关的舆论知之甚少。因此，本文旨在研究可接受性方面的差异，在抗议活动的三类方面（即有序，破坏性和暴力抗议）的有效性和参与度。文章使用了抗议活动模块中的数据，该模块是2016年一轮“南非社会态度调查”的一部分，该报告是人类科学研究委员会每年进行的具有全国代表性的系列调查。除了确定针对集体抗议的三种抗议行动的意见分歧的性质和程度外，本文还根据阶级，年龄，种族，性别和地理位置，探讨了不同社会群体之间的相似性和差异性模式。最后，我们利用1995年收集的功能上等效的数据，分析了在一代人的过程中对三种抗议形式的看法是如何以及为谁而改变的。