Protest Cycle Research Articles

No todos fueron rebeldes

El presente trabajo se orienta a reconstruir el repertorio discursivo y el accionar de los grupos estudiantiles que apoyaron la reestructuración autoritaria del sistema universitario nacional argentino implementada por la dictadura de la autoproclamada “Revolución Argentina”, o que, en dicho escenario, presentaban una marcada tendencia conservadora e incluso reaccionaria frente a las luchas y movilizaciones populares. La escala de análisis elegida corresponde al ámbito de lo local, particularmente al espacio universitario de la ciudad de Santa Fe. Y en cuanto al recorte temporal, el análisis se centra en la primera etapa de la dictadura, aquella presidida por Juan Carlos Onganía -etapa conocida como Onganiato- y que constituye el núcleo del ciclo de protesta estudiantil iniciado en respuesta a la reestructuración autoritaria mencionada.

Changing Repertoires of Contention in Hong Kong: A Case Study on the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement

Introduction The movement opposing the Extradition Law Amendment Bill (反對修訂逃犯條例 faandeoi saudeng toufaan tiulai, below Anti-ELAB movement) in Hong Kong has reignited a new protest cycle after a period of abeyance following the 2014 Umbrella Movement (UM). Back in February 2019, the HKSAR government put forward a proposal to amend existing ordinances to allow Hong Kong to detain and transfer fugitives to countries and territories where there is no formal extradition agreement, including mainl...

HOW PROTESTS EVOLVE: HONG KONG’S ANTI-EXTRADITION MOVEMENT AND LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE UMBRELLA MOVEMENT*

This article analyzes the Hong Kong’s 2019 anti-extradition movement and how it learned from the unsuccessful lessons of the 2014 umbrella movement. Existing theories, such as protest cycles, spillover, and abeyance provide inadequate explanations of the linkage between these two movements. This article contends that collective learning from the previous setbacks enabled Hong Kong’s protesters to launch a more challenging protest five years later. Such learning was made possible because (1) the occupation zones of the umbrella movement served as an incubator for new and experimental tactics that were later deployed, (2) post-occupy organizations sustained a network of participants scattered across different professions that emerged as the mobilizing infrastructure, and (3) in order to avoid the same mistakes, participants recognized the need for more decentralized decision making and tolerance for radical protests.

The persistent protest cycle: A case study of contained political incorporation

For more than a decade, widespread protests have erupted within South Africa’s impoverished black townships and informal settlements. The mobilizations resembled what Sidney Tarrow refers to as a ‘cycle of contention’ or ‘protest cycle,’ as they represented a diffusion of heightened conflict across society. In contrast to Tarrow’s protest cycle, however, resistance failed to converge around ‘objective coalitions’ and a generalized challenge, and it persisted rather than reaching exhaustion. Drawing on a case study of protest and organizing in Bekkersdal, this article argues that the fragmentation and localization of resistance reinforced this peculiar combination. Bekkersdal activists responded to democratization by seeking administrative fixes to local government. Political parties also pulled activists in different directions, yet without facilitating bridges to activism in other areas. While providing a highly visible example for activists in other areas to replicate, the Bekkersdal resistance thus failed to produce broader concessions that might have discouraged protests elsewhere. The case study shows how local containment of political incorporation processes may enable the persistence of protest cycles.

Democracia participativa, protestas sociales y autoritarismo en el socialismo del siglo XXI: el movimiento estudiantil venezolano

Siguiendo el enfoque de la estructura de oportunidades políticas y la noción de identidad colectiva, uno de los objetivos de este trabajo es analizar las movilizaciones y ciclos de protesta en los que participó el movimiento estudiantil venezolano, el actor con mayor credibilidad, durante el periodo 2007-2019. El propósito es conocer el impacto del cierre del sistema político a la participación, la polarización y el creciente autoritarismo y represión en su éxito o fracaso.

Pandemia y orden público: el espacio de la protesta

One of the most striking issues arising from state responses to the covid19 crisis is the level of securitization and militarization of public health policies they imply at the global level. Drawing on WHO's discourse and the figure of the state of exception, this text constitutes an attempt to interrogate the moral and biopolitical reordering of public space involved, taking into account the differentiated levels of risk and exposure to violence this process entails depending on gender, race and class, among other variables. For that purpose, I take examples from various political and geographic contexts over the background of the last cycles of urban protest.

Egyptian Movement Poetry

Abstract Poetry has long had a central place in the repertoires of modern Egyptian protest movements, but just as social science accounts of these movements downplay the role of expressive arts (such as poetry), literary studies of colloquial Egyptian poetry have downplayed the performative dynamic of this poetry, as well as its role within social movements. This essay develops the concept of “movement poetry” within the Egyptian social movements, with a special focus on the protest cycle of 1968-1977. In so doing, it discusses the work of Abdel Rahman el-Abnoudi (ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Abnūdī), Ahmed Fouad Negm (Aḥmad Fuʾād Nijm), Samīr ʿAbd al-Bāqī, and others, and considers the conventions and repertoires that extend to Egyptian activists in the present.

The structural whiteness of academic patronage

ABSTRACT In this essay, we describe the protest cycle that begins when scholars from the margins make demands on an institution or on the discipline for changes to ameliorate structural inequalities and offer two interventions related to the gridlock described above. First, we chart the patronage dynamic that produces pathological economies of liberal reform in the field of rhetoric. And second, we present possible solutions to break those cycles to produce a more equitable academic culture. We ultimately argue for divesting from cis-hetero whiteness and masculinity, particularly as it is sedimented in the distributed academic property rights through which white scholars retain control over disciplinary boundaries, publication decisions, faculty hiring, and tenure and promotion.

Indigenous Movements, Collective Action, and Social Media: New Opportunities or New Threats?

Indigenous peoples remain among the most marginalized population groups in the Americas. The decline of the Indigenous protest cycle in Latin America by the mid-2000s meant that research on collective action turned elsewhere just as the use of social media was becoming more prominent in the tactical repertoire of collective action, and we know little about how Indigenous groups have adapted new technologies for the purpose of civic engagement. If social media has begun to take the place of disruptive action (the most effective tactics in the 1990s according to Indigenous leaders), if personalized action is replacing collective identity (a strength of the Indigenous movements in the 1980s–1990s) and if their access to technology is limited, what does this mean for the ability of Indigenous communities to pursue their claims? Based on 2 years of fieldwork, this article addresses this question from the perspective of Indigenous organizations in three Latin American countries, Bolivia, Chile, and Ecuador. We find that some Indigenous organizations have benefited from the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in terms of enhanced communication, access to information, visibility, interest promotion, and commercialization of products and services. At this point in time, however, it appears that the disadvantages outweigh the benefits.

Mobilizing media: comparing TV and social media effects on protest mobilization

ABSTRACTThe year 2017 saw a cycle of protest ignited by President Trump’s election and subsequent policies. This research seeks to investigate the role of social media and television in raising awareness of protest events and increasing participation in marches and demonstrations. This paper uses data from two surveys conducted in May and June 2017, during the peak of this cycle of protest. We explore the role of social media for protest participation (in general) as well as for awareness and participation in the Women’s March and March for Science. We find that Twitter use offers more consistent effects compared to Facebook in relation to the cycle of protest. In contrast, television use has no impact on awareness and thus, limited potential for mobilization. Social media is distinctive in relation to mobilization, because of social networking features that allow people to learn about specific events, discuss the issues, expose people to invitations to participation, as well as identify members of one’s social network who are also interested in participation.

Individual Conditioning Factors of Political Protest in Latin America: Effects of Values, Grievance and Resources

Theories about political protest point to three sets of variables responsible for promoting engagement in such actions: resources, grievance and values. There is consensus on the importance of resources, but the influence of grievance and values remain inconclusive. Discontent alone is not enough to motivate protest, but in societies at intermediate levels of development, grievance could be an explanatory variable. By contrast, values would have a limited effect, given that value change in developing countries could only be incipient. In view of the new cycle of protest in the region and wishing to contribute to the debate on the subject, we aim to discover what the relationship is between these three sets of variables as regards Latin Americans’ predisposition to protest. Given that these countries find themselves at an intermediate level of economic and social development, it would seem that the primary motivation for protest is discontent, as under such circumstances the relative scarcity of resources presents little obstacle to mobilization. On the other hand, as the societies in question are not advanced industrial societies, the associated low dispersion of emancipatory values would exercise limited effect. To test these hypotheses, we looked at data from the sixth wave of the World Values Survey with reference to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. The results suggested that grievance was irrelevant as an explanatory factor. Participation in protests in the region is determined by the mobilization of resources and values.

The dynamics of class mobilisations: evidence from protest event analysis in Bulgaria and Slovenia

Following the recent interest of bringing capitalism back into social movement studies, this article contributes to the debate with the application of new techniques for examining the dynamics of social class in protest politics. Questioning the declining importance of labour mobilisation in the recent anti-austerity cycles of protest in eastern Europe, I draw on a unique protest event dataset to propose a new way of exploring the relations between social class, repertoires and claimmaking. I show that this innovation can bring greater clarity to a systematic analysis of social class politics in the protest arena. The empirical exploration highlights that more than one-third of the protest events in Bulgaria and Slovenia in the aftermath of the financial crisis were driven by specific social class actors. The article suggests that, contrary to individual-level data, social class can be observed through the basic conceptions of workers and independents; and then through site and sector: production; services; and socio-cultural. These typologies help in understanding where mobilisations arise, under what conditions and for what demands.

¿Violenta y desordenada? Análisis de los repertorios de la protesta social en Colombia

El ciclo reciente de protestas sociales en Colombia ha puesto en el centro del debate la necesidad de emprender ajustes institucionales encaminados a brindar mayores garantías a un derecho fundamental que cada vez más ciudadanos están dispuestos a ejercer. No obstante, la respuesta de las autoridades ha ido en contravía de este clamor. Bajo el supuesto que toda protesta es violenta y desordenada, varios tomadores de decisión han formulado iniciativas que endurecen aún más la respuesta estatal. En este artículo, evaluamos la validez de este supuesto. A partir de un modelo de regresión multinomial que toma una muestra de 22.167 eventos de protesta registrados entre 1975 y 2016, se analizan las variables que influyen en el uso de unos repertorios sobre otros. Los resultados muestran que la violencia es una táctica marginal y que la probabilidad de que sea usada está asociada a pocas variables en las que la presencia de los grupos armados ilegales no parece tener mayor relevancia.

El Centenario y la participación de las trabajadoras textiles en la protesta obrera. Una perspectiva generizada del proceso huelguístico de 1910 en Buenos Aires. Establecimientos Gratry, Argentina

Aquí analizaremos las experiencias de las obreras textiles y la participación del anarquismo en sus luchas en el ciclo de protestas del Centenario de la Revolución de Mayo, las que terminaron confluyendo en la declaración de una huelga general. Hacemos este examen por medio de un estudio de caso: la huelga de las obreras de los Establecimientos Americanos Gratry. Una de las conclusiones fundamentales a que arribamos es que las trabajadoras fueron tan protagonistas como los trabajadores de la huelga y que esta participación estuvo delimitada por diferentes roles de género pues las trabajadoras tenían una importante función en la militancia de base y los trabajadores en la dirigencia del conflicto. El estudio se realizará desde una perspectiva que incorpora elementos fundamentales de la historia social y los estudios de género, incluyendo así, la dimensión de sexo-género en los estudios de clase, siendo este enlace conceptual de fundamental importancia.

Relações entre coletivos com as Jornadas de Junho

Resumo Este artigo aborda organizações políticas denominadas coletivos e suas relações com o ciclo de protestos conhecido como Jornadas de Junho de 2013. Na pesquisa exploratória foram entrevistados membros de 21 coletivos da cidade de Teresina e sistematizadas informações de 725 páginas de coletivos cadastradas na rede social Facebook. Os resultados indicam que os coletivos foram criados principalmente nos últimos seis anos, sendo que membros de alguns deles conheceram a forma de organização política do tipo coletivo depois das Jornadas. Além dessa relação, os coletivos criticam partidos políticos e organizações tradicionais pela presença de hierarquias e ineficiência, críticas também presentes nas Jornadas. Justamente para se contraporem a esse modelo de organização política, alguns coletivos defendem práticas mais autônomas e horizontais. Para que se entenda a emergência de organizações após os protestos, são retomadas reflexões de teóricos dos movimentos sociais. O texto contribui com os estudos sobre mobilizações sociais ao analisar legados das Jornadas, como o incentivo aos coletivos.

Tensões criativas e inovações táticas no movimento sindical urbano: os casos dos teleoperadores e dos rodoviários no Rio de Janeiro

Resumo Este artigo analisa as experiências recentes de ativismo sindical de duas categorias de trabalhadores do setor de serviços urbanos: os teleoperadores e os rodoviários. Mais especificamente, são tratados como objetos a greve dos teleoperadores do estado do Rio de Janeiro, em 2014, e a luta dos rodoviários cariocas entre a criação do Sintraturb-Rio, em 2009, e a greve de 2014. Argumenta-se que o ciclo de protestos iniciado em 2013 revelou e reforçou o entrelaçamento entre a luta pelo direito à cidade e a luta por condições dignas de trabalho nos grandes centros urbanos. As tensões criativas entre gerações distintas de militantes e as inovações táticas observadas nos casos dos teleoperadores e dos rodoviários no Rio de Janeiro apontam nessa direção.

Alliance building and eventful protests: comparing Spanish and Portuguese trajectories under the Great Recession

ABSTRACT Social movement research has shed light on the relationship between processes of alliance building and multiple factors related to political opportunities, framing, identities, networks and resource mobilization. However, less is known about the impact of eventful protests on coalition building dynamics. Drawing on a paired comparison between the Portuguese and Spanish cycles of protest under the Great Recession, we aim at accounting for social movement alliances over time. While these countries present parallel protest dynamics until 2011, after that point two eventful protests lead each country into different trajectories. While the cycle in Portugal was marked by intermittent large protest events dominated by institutional actors, in Spain the peak of mobilization was consistently high between 2011 and 2013. When comparing these cases two factors stand out: the mobilization capacity and the autonomy of new emerging actors vis-à-vis institutional ones. Eventful protests were a key factor in articulating these elements. In Spain, the strength and autonomy of 15M assemblies and anti-austerity actors facilitated the formation of strategic alliances with trade unions. In Portugal, transversal initiatives and sustained alliances did not follow after the Geração à Rasca events. These emerged only later in the cycle, however were nonetheless hampered by overlapping membership and a lack of autonomy from institutional actors. Two original protest event analysis datasets are used to illustrate these arguments.

Making Memory by Dissociating the Past from the Present: Narratives of Movement Intellectuals of the Post-Fukushima Protest Cycle in Japan

Making Memory by Dissociating the Past from the Present: Narratives of Movement Intellectuals of the Post-Fukushima Protest Cycle in Japan

Managing the 1986-87 Sino-Indian Sumdorong Chu Crisis

ABSTRACTHow did China and India manage to prevent the 1986-87 Sumdorong Chu Crisis from escalating into a war? I argue that it was a combination of changing geopolitical factors (Sino-Soviet rapprochement and the end of Soviet support for India in the context of Sino-Indian tensions) and military factors (conventional deterrence and perceptions of limited revisionism) that help explain crisis management. While these geopolitical and military factors helped avert immediate escalation, the crisis truly ended only after China and India sought a new modus vivendi during Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s landmark trip to China in December 1988. The absence of great power (Soviet) support meant that India had to make a costly signal to China in the form of Gandhi’s trip that happened during the 1987-89 cycle of protests in Tibet against Chinese rule. Nevertheless, Gandhi’s visit took place after India had demonstrated its military strength and resolve in its ability to defend the status quo on the border, and therefore should not be interpreted as a sign of weakness. In other words, I argue that successful deterrence requires broader foreign policy reorientation. At the same time, considerations of power (in the form of internal/external balancing) are central to strategic stability in the Sino-Indian dyad, and that any recourse to diplomacy that ignores the realities of military power is unlikely to be successful for crisis management.

‘Our patience has run out’:* tracking the anti-government protest cycle in Bulgaria

ABSTRACT The increase in protest intensity that Bulgaria experienced over the 2012–14 period had dramatic effects, bringing down a government and maintaining pressure on its successor. These protests started with a campaign over high energy prices, but grew and shifted to address broader issues of governance, encapsulated in slogans such as ‘24 years of fake transition are enough.’ Dramatic though they were, the lasting effects are unclear in environment where the legacies of the communist regime led to a weak civil society and low levels of trust. This paper uses a unique catalogue of protest events over the 2010–2016 period to identify the character and form of protest observed in Bulgaria. Drawing on Tarrow’s concept of protest cycles, the aim is to determine why the protests grew and whether there may be more lasting effects after they subsided. The findings point to the importance of the longevity of the cycle in creating spaces for the establishment of social relations that may have more lasting effects.