The experiences motivating people to protest vary a great deal: outrage, feeling threatened – or just the fun factor, says Jan Matti Dollbaum.

Protest is often explicitly intended to be apolitical. And it starts in the places where people are directly affected: right outside their own front doors. Carine Clément on different kinds of protest.

How does political protest arise in Russia? From the bottom up, as a grassroots movement? Or are activists deliberately recruited by political actors? Both of these are true – and both are false, says Jan Matti Dollbaum.

The Putin system is stable, and the probability that pressure from the street will result in a change of government is low, according to political scientist Graeme Robertson and an anonymous expert. But making predictions is a tricky business – particularly considering how creative Russian society can be.