ABSTRACT
Over the last two decades, one significant management challenge that government leaders in Canada and internationally have faced and handled with varying levels of success is pop-up, grassroots-driven political protest with a strong social media component – referred to as “unknown unknowns” in this book chapter. This chapter takes interest in how elected and government officials understand, evaluate, and manage flows of social media-driven grassroots politics. Specifically, how are they adapting to their immediate political environment to manage public perceptions and achieve organizational goals, especially in a context where they are focusing on the business of managing a government while positioning themselves for future elections in a context of permanent campaigning. The chapter argues that political management needs to better understand the transition of dealing with such movements from the context of governing rather than campaigning. This chapter unpacks question through a case study approach focusing on the 2022 Freedom Convoy in Canada. This protest movement – which was decentralized in nature – posed significant management challenges to the Canadian federal governments as it disrupted many sectors of social, economic, and political life, upended the daily routine of members of the public, and challenged the functioning of representative democracy.
