Different countries have different political traditions. In some, politics is carried out in a concealed way through kinship and patron-client relationships. In others, people accept rule by autocrats, perhaps on the basis that the order they provide is better than an anarchic alternative. In others, such as the UK, representative politics gives ordinary people a degree of control over the institutions that govern them, and free public debate over the conduct of government allows them to form their opinions and make their choices.

But in other countries there is (perhaps in addition to one or more of these practices) a tradition of direct action by the people, or elements of them, through protests and demonstrations.