The impact of moral injury on social movements: the demobilization of Jordan's 'Arab Spring' protestors

This article draws on the psychological construct of moral injury to examine the demobilization - and lack of remobilization - of Jordan's 'Arab Spring' protests. It argues that unforeseen failures during these protests created morally injurious events that resulted in cognitive dissonance among novice participants. The dissonance led to two distinct outcomes. Older novices were better able to resolve the dissonance and, as a result, did not develop moral injury and typically remained active in the movements. However, the younger novice participants proved less able to resolve the dissonance, which resulted in the development of symptoms of moral injury. These symptoms typically led to reduced participation, an exit from social movements, and an unlikeliness to remobilize. Through its examination of Jordan's 'Arab Spring', the article introduces moral injury into the social movement literature, thereby helping to address the under-developed connection between emotions and social movement demobilization.