Violent Protests Research Articles

How Metaphors Make Sense of Crisis: The Case of South African #FreeHigherEducation# Movement

Public universities in South Africa are embroiled in an era of unplanned radical change driven by violent student protests between 2015 and 2018 to ask for free higher education for poor students and overcome past inequalities amidst a broader, unstable economic climate. This paper uses a discourse dynamics approach to metaphor analysis to contextualize how higher education leaders experience and respond to a crisis. The power of metaphor analysis lies in the fact that it can help organize, interpret, and make sense of matters that are difficult to verbalize, particularly under constant pressures from many directions. Data were collected through 37 semi-structured interviews with senior managers from different portfolios within 16 public universities during a violent student protest and the instant implementation of free higher education policy in South Africa, which are combined and called #FreeHigherEducation# movement. The findings from this study advance the literature of leadership language in crisis by subtly understanding leaders' emotions via the way they use metaphors to convey what is truly felt and develop a framework of crisis adaptation. They also suggest recommendations for policymakers and higher education managers to steer change better.

The geostrategy of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AFCFTA) and third parties: a focus on China

The primary objective of this article is to interrogate Sino-Africa Relations and questions if Africa a passive receiver of both Chinese and Western influence? This paper is divided into four sections. The first section of the paper outlines the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. It is followed by a discussion of the political factors, driving Africa's desire for greater integration. The second section explains the potential trade impacts of the AfCFTA on African states and illustrates the rationale and appetite for the AfCFTA. Section three examines bilateral relations with third-parties, with a focus on China, speculating about the future of Sino-African trade relations and the AfCFTA. Finally, section four concludes the study. The discussion and findings suggest the following. Firstly, that African officials perceive the role of China in a positive light, and China is seen as a fellow developing country. Secondly, African leaders laud China for its contribution to the growth of African nations. Thirdly, however, China is criticized for poor working conditions, China is seen to negotiate unfair deals and for some scholars China perpetuates the neo-colonial relationship and, in some countries, there have been violent protests against China. This study encompassed a qualitative, exploratory approach, which relied heavily on both primary and secondary sources of data.

Assessing the conditions and ingridients of political clientelism within the South African context

The study examines the conditions, associated with political clientelism, as well as the ingredients of clientelism within the South African context. The study brings the understanding about the relationship between politicians who go out on a periodic basis to canvass for votes and then not much happens in the lives of ordinary people. Despite this, a large number of the same politicians is re-elected to another five-year term. The broad argument in this study is that there seems to be an observable patronage type of relationship between elected parties (politicians) and citizens, and that no matter what service delivery challenges citizens confront (coupled with violent protest in some cases), voting patterns do not change much come election time. The study adopted a conceptual approach, relying on secondary data. Clientelism refers to the relationship that exists between citizens/voters (clients) and politicians (patrons) who make electoral promises in order to gain office. The first section describes what clientelism entails, followed by a discussion of clientelism’s relevance to the present study. Then, anecdotal evidence from the research site will be examined to demonstrate some elements of clientelism, as well as its significance and utility in examining service delivery challenges in local government. Following that, essential components of democratic states will be explored because they have an impact on available research evidence, showing clientelistic elements are prevalent in democracies around the world. The chapter's closing will shed some light on how leadership will be approached in this study, which stems from the fact that leadership is a key concept in this research and is implied in clientelism

Unpacking the Addis Ababan Exceptionalism—Living and Making Sense of Violent Protests in Ethiopia’s Capital

Violent protests and ethno-communal violence in Ethiopia have been on the rise since 2015. Whilst the country’s capital has mostly been spared, protests have occurred in areas surrounding the capital, its suburbs and, to a lesser extent, even in its city centre. This article aims to answer how Addis Ababa residents make sense of and (dis)engage from/in violent protests and ethno-communal violence where they occur. The article explores the perceptions and experiences of established middle-class residents in the capital, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between June 2020 and May 2021. The article finds that, due to the city’s multi-ethnic character and the residents’ strong metropolitan identity, ethnic identity has not constituted a powerful tool for political mobilisation of residents within the capital. Claims based on ethnicity made by non-residents towards the capital’s resources have largely been rejected by Addis Ababans. Instead, residents have collectively defended their right to the city. The federal state’s readiness to intervene in protests in the capital has further discouraged and countered public protests and communal conflicts. The article reveals that, whilst ‘exceptional’ at the first glance, the peaceful normality of Addis Ababa has relied on ignoring conflicts within Ethiopia’s ethnic-based political settlement and has hidden ordinary, everyday forms of structural violence and conflict.

The sword or the plowshare: Conflict and third‐party groups' reaction to violent versus nonviolent resistance

AbstractAround the world, movements for justice or social change struggle with the question of whether to use nonviolent or violent protest strategies. While research suggests that nonviolent strategies may be more successful than violent ones, people's preferences and support for different strategies may depend on their specific role in the conflict. We tested this in Study 1 in the context of the Kurdish question in Turkey (N = 320), and we found that Turks and Americans supported nonviolent movements more than violent movements, while Kurds were equally supportive of both. Study 2 (N = 192) replicated Study 1 and investigated whether the preference for nonviolent strategies among the third‐party group was dependent on the perceivers' specific preferred outcomes in the conflict. We found that, in the context of the Kurdish question in Syria, third‐party Americans still supported nonviolent movements more than violent movements regardless of their preferred outcomes, although the more that they preferred that Kurds would win the conflict, the more supportive they were of both nonviolent and violent protest movements. These studies suggest that the preference for nonviolent strategies may depend on people's role in the conflict, with important implications for addressing conflict needs and conflict resolution.

Violent Protests in Nigeria: Causes, Dynamics and Viable Solutions

Violent Protests in Nigeria: Causes, Dynamics and Viable Solutions

English

The last decades witnessed the emergence of transitional justice as a global norm which obliges post-conflict transitioning states to address systematic past human rights violations through purposeful judicial and non-judicial mechanisms. While its typical architecture focused on formal transitions, the dynamics of non-regime transitions and compliance is often neglected in transitional justice literature, and the measures also signify manifold challenges. This article attempted to assess the beleaguered transitional justice measures implemented in Ethiopia’s current troubled non-regime transition which came after the authoritarian and Marxist TPLF/EPRDF regime collapsed in 2018 after violent anti-government protest. Consequently, under the new hybrid elites’ leadership, host of justice measures were implemented but they unfolded in the absence of both typical transition and guiding transition roadmap. Through the lens of compliance and resistance in transitional justice, the article finds that rather than addressing legacies of atrocious past, the flawed and instrumentalist implementation of contested justice processes and the mismanagement of the narrow window of opportunity led to unprecedented societal violence and new political complexities. The Ethiopian case, therefore, reveals that seeking the retributive transitional justice measure in the absence of typical regime change and inter-elites bargain, and in an ethnically polarized political transition exacerbate inter-elite discord, bolster ethnic-supported resistance from predecessor elites, and harbor the risk of resurgence of new violence. Hence, it falls short of achieving the compliance with the transitional justice norm such as ensuring accountability (fighting impunity), adequately addressing past wrongs through judicial and non-judicial means and also ensuring non-recurrence of the same in the future.   Key words: Transitional justice, compliance, challenges, Ethiopia, non-regime transition.

Violent Political Protest: Introducing a New Uppsala Conflict Data Program Data Set on Organized Violence, 1989-2019

This article presents the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) “Violent Political Protest” (VPP) data set: a new –standalone- category of organized violence, which complements, and is compatible with, UCDP’s three categories of organized violence: one-sided violence, non-state, and state-based conflict. It consists of violent political protests, with at least 25 casualties during a year, in which informally organized civilians challenge states over governmental or territorial issues. We describe the data collection process, and demonstrate the data’s use with empirical analyses. Violent political protest is present globally, but most prevalent in the Middle East and Africa, and increasingly common over time. Violent political protest frequently co-occurs with state-based conflicts, but rarely due to conflict escalation. We explore if this is due to shared contexts, and find that gender inequality increases the likelihood of VPP onset, similar to state-based conflicts. Finally, we identify avenues for future research, including using VPP to assist in a more precise and complete analysis of organized violence.

A Planetary Anthropocene? Views From Africa

The Anthropocene is built on complex technological systems that span the globe. Historians of science have done much to document the emergence of this “technosphere.” Yet more interdisciplinary and regionally diverse approaches are needed to understand the complexity and unpredictability of the technosphere in our Anthropocene times. Rather than assuming a single planetary phenomenon, this essay emphasizes the widely varied lived experiences of the Anthropocene. Taking industrialized mining and oil drilling as examples of the technosphere, it examines three African localities of resource extraction—the Congolese Copperbelt, the South African Witwatersrand, and the Niger Delta in Nigeria—to ask why the environmental transformations of large-scale industry have caused violent protest in one locality but apparent acquiescence in others. The concept of the Anthropocene urges historians of science to connect questions about scientific knowledge and technology to issues of environmental change, economic organization, political power, social differentiation, and cultural imagination. This broad approach, the essay suggests, can prove extremely fruitful in explaining historical variations and contemporary responses to the Anthropocene.

Impact of Youth Violence on Security: An Analysis of Political Vigilantism, Kidnapping and Violent Protests in Ghana

Impact of Youth Violence on Security: An Analysis of Political Vigilantism, Kidnapping and Violent Protests in Ghana

Post Endsars Protest: Exploring Subjective Perception of Police Victims in Lagos, Nigeria

This study examined public perception of police in post endsars mass protest. The aim of the study was to verify public relationship with police as spillover from violent mass protest. The study was hinged on value-added theory. Six-hundred respondents were surveyed and criteria for inclusion was victim of police brutality. Exploratory design was adopted using quantitative method. Sampling method consisted of purposive and accidental. Lagos was purposively chosen as epicentre of endsars protest; victims of police brutality were chosen purposively. Accidental method applied to select participants in the study. Data were collected and analysed quantitatively using descriptive and inferential statistics. Analytically, 78.5% male participated in the survey, mean age of respondents was 44.5. Subjective perception of police in pre-endsars was classified and consisted of fine officer (21.3%), disgusted officer (33.0%) and compromising officer (45.7%). Police rating in post endsars protest was classified. Thus, 71.5% rated police as partially law abiding and 18.3% felt police misconduct persisted. In the post protest, Level of police brutality was rated low given the score mark 40%. Using regression model, demographic characteristics predicted victims’ intention to participate in violent protest against police brutality (R.324, R2 .50). The model was significant at p<.000. Victims’ age (mean=1.5), occupation (mean=2.4), income (mean=1.9) and sex (mean=4.1) predicted protest intention against police. Level of police brutality in post Lagos endsars protest was low, consequent upon endsars protest. It is recommended that treatment of offenders by police should be guided by rules and regulations. Police require sound training to uphold ethnic of policing.
 
 Received: 14 March 2022 / Accepted: 30 April 2022 / Published: 5 May 2022

African legislatures in social emergencies: challenges and outcomes

ABSTRACT Social emergencies of different kinds are common in Africa. Violent protests and secessionist agitations, terrorism and insurgencies, coups and conflicts, climate change and droughts, conflict and climate-induced internal displacement, drug/human trafficking, and lately the Covid-19 pandemic have ravaged the continent. This has raised the question of how African legislatures deal with crises; how they perform their statutory functions during crises, and the issues that shape their operation during such times. This editorial introduces the special edition on ‘African Legislatures in Social Emergencies: Challenges and Outcomes’ and provides an overview of its collection of interesting articles.

Towards strategic rioting?

Benjamin Case (2021) argues that the framework of strategic nonviolence is limited by its assumption that violent protest necessarily demobilises movements, and that rioting can be empowering for participants. However, Case’s statistical analysis of US riots and peaceful demonstrations may not be a comparison of rioting and nonviolent action because it is questionable whether, in the US, peaceful demonstrations should be classified as methods of nonviolent action. Rioting can be empowering, but there is also considerable evidence that participation in nonviolent action can be empowering. Much research remains to be done to determine whether rioting can be a leading or major part of strategic action for social change.

Bricks and Bombs versus Bullets and Batons: Protest and Regime Violence as Generational Experience in Communist Poland

This article discusses the relation between state violence and public disorder under authoritarian rule in Poland. Focusing on the major crises and protests of the communist era, it examines regime violence through a double perspective – on the one hand, the way the regime resorted to physical violence to uphold its survival and, on the other hand, as a generational experience of those who suffered from it. Despite the state's use of physical violence until 1989 becoming more rationalised, modernised and efficient, it also turned less effective over time. This evolution contributed to a decreasing risk factor for protesters vis-à-vis the state. Since the bulk of those who participated in protests and riots were young people, the focus lies on the youthful dimension of public disorder and in particular the activity and experience of then students and young workers.

Challenges and solutions for the eradication of sanitation backlogs in the policy context of Free Basic Sanitation

Despite the constitutional obligation for municipalities to provide Free Basic Sanitation (FBSan) services to all, many people living in informal settlements in South Africa are still lacking access to adequate sanitation facilities. This study used qualitative methods to examine challenges and identify solutions for the eradication of sanitation backlogs in informal settlement of South Africa in the policy context of the FBSan. Findings suggest that the disconnection between the policy and its application in practice has created a deep divide between the service providers and consumers as recipients of the services. Consumers’ perceptions and expectations are a major barrier to the acceptance of the sanitation services provided by municipalities, often resulting in violent protests. Service providers face challenges when addressing the disjuncture between what people aspire to and what is possible in providing sanitation services. These findings infer that consumers’ needs, sanitation practices and settlement conditions should be thoroughly examined prior to the selection and deployment of sanitation facilities in informal settlements. Consumers should be engaged and involved in the choice of sanitation technologies and facilities. Such engagement should evolve around various sanitation technologies and facilities applicable to the nature and context of informal settlements, so as to address negative perceptions, attitudes and behavior concerning services provided by municipalities. Addressing challenges related to the eradication of the sanitation backlogs in the policy context of FBSan services needs to be grounded in the clarification of sanitation policy, a deep understanding of consumers’ needs, challenges and practices as well as settlements conditions, coupled with meaningful consumers’ participation at various stages of the decision-making process and coordination amongst institutions involved. Municipalities need to engage all stakeholders (mainly consumers) in order to ensure that the selected infrastructure and service level deployed are consensual. Unless subjective clauses of the FBSan policy are clarified, monitoring, enforcement and accountability mechanisms established and implemented and, consumers are engaged in the decision making processes, the eradication of sanitation backlogs in informal settlements as currently planned may not materialize.

Infrastructure under pressure: Water management and state-making in southern Iraq

Water infrastructure is an active element of state-making in southern Iraq, although major failings in water governance have in recent years triggered violent protests. Informed by scholarship on state clientelism and the political ecology of infrastructure, I examine the conflict-affected trajectories affecting public water management in Basra governorate. The degraded water treatment network manifests a post-2003 political system structured by embedded clientelism and politically sanctioned corruption. However, broad categorisations of clientelism can miss context-laden political effects produced by the spatial and technological configurations of infrastructure. I consider the state effects of water infrastructure practices in Basra governorate–how water supply networks and treatment technologies project state (in)capacity by means of volumetric and qualitative control over water flows. The empirical focus is on compact water treatment units (CWTUs), which are the main technology of public water supply in Basra governorate. I undertake an analysis of the deployment and management of CWTUs, as experienced by local actors responsible for, or politically contesting, the workings of water infrastructure in Basra city. Clientelist practices targeting public procurement and maintenance contracts have disrupted and delayed the upgrading of water infrastructure; yet these practices were enabled by neoliberal state-building that promoted the privatisation of public resources. Shortfalls in state capacity to provide clean drinking water in Basra are compounded by the growing hydro-climatic unpredictability of water flows.

An Eye for an Eye? An Integrated Model of Attitude Change Toward Protest Violence

ABSTRACT How political violence emerges, why people support it, and how authorities can address it without escalating further radicalization remain an ongoing debate. In this study, we develop a quantitative model to predict violence endorsement as a function of repression severity, group identification, and individual emotions. We situate our investigation in the context of the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement in Hong Kong, during which the public acceptance of violence increased substantially, contrasting the city’s long history of peaceful protests. Results show that violence endorsement is associated with repression severity in a U-shaped fashion. While limited repression deters violence endorsement, excessive repression crossing a proportionality threshold escalates it. Group identification is a salient moderator that amplifies the backfire effects of repression. People who are more attached to protesting groups are more vigilant about repression and more supportive of protest violence. Furthermore, we also find that individual emotions exert more significant influences than repression and group identification. Anger, disgust, and fear can result in radicalized opinions. These findings unpack the complex and multifaceted communicative processes that shape the perceptions of protest violence. In contrast to the rational, organizational, and structural models of social movements, we argue that this analytical framework can offer more insights into protest dynamics amid the increasingly personalized political participation.

Situation, context, and causality—On a core debate of violence research

The sociology of violence has undergone a tremendous change over the past 10 years, increasingly arguing that situational factors are key to violence emergence, rather than context factors. Yet, many key questions regarding this novel situational approach remain unanswered: How can situation and context be conceptually specified? Can context be integrated into a situational explanatory model? And what causal understanding underlies situational approaches? To answer these questions, the paper relies on my empirical studies of officer deadly use of force and of collective violence in protests, as well as other scholars’ empirical work. The article first proposes a specified definition of situation and context. Using these concepts, it then proposes a causal specification of the situational approach through necessary, sufficient, and INUS conditions, as well as context factors as risk factors to violence. Third, in an outlook, it argues that this causal relationship between situation, context, and violence can be theoretically framed through an elaborated symbolic interactionism that integrates context into a situational approach. It also discusses the relevance of the debate for violence avoidance and for other research fields.

DIAT-μ RadHAR (Micro-Doppler Signature Dataset) & μ RadNet (A Lightweight DCNN)—For Human Suspicious Activity Recognition

In the view of national security, radar micro-Doppler (m-D) signatures-based recognition of suspicious human activities becomes significant. In connection to this, early detection and warning of terrorist activities at the country borders, protected/secured/guarded places and civilian violent protests is mandatory. Designing an automated human suspicious activities: army crawling, army jogging, jumping with holding a gun, army marching, boxing, and stone-pelting/grenades-throwing, recognition system using a suitable deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) model is rapidly growing due to its inherent in-depth features extraction capability. As a value addition to this research, an X-band continuous wave (CW) 10 GHz radar has been developed at our radar systems laboratory and used to acquire the m-D signatures, to prepare a dataset (DIAT- <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula> RadHAR) corresponding to above mentioned suspicious activities. In order to prepare a realistic dataset, human targets of different heights, weights, and gender are directed to perform the suspicious activities in front of the radar at different ranges between 10 m - 0.5 km and at different target aspect angles (0°, ±15°, ±30° and ±45°). A lightweight DCNN architecture ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula> RadNet) is also designed and trained with the prepared DIAT- <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula> RadHAR dataset comprising 3780 samples. The performance and recognition accuracy of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula> RadNet is statistically computed, and the results are compared to the state-of-the-art (SOTA) CNN models. The <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula> RadNet DCNN model outperforms the SOTA CNN models, giving 99.22% of overall classification accuracy, 0.09M parameters, and 0.40G floating point operations (FLOPs) with minimal false negative/positive rates. The time-complexity of the designed lightweight <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula> RadNet DCNN model is 0.12 s, which evidences the suitability of our DCNN model for the on-device implementation.

Protest movements involving limited violence can sometimes be effective: Evidence from the 2020 BlackLivesMatter protests

SignificanceThe effects of recent protests for racial equality, particularly when they included violence, are currently of public and academic interest. To better understand these effects, we combine a dataset of all 2020 BlackLivesMatter protests with survey data containing measures of prejudice and support for police reform. Protests were not associated with reductions in prejudice, but were associated with increases in support for police reform. Specifically, a mix of nonviolent and violent protests was associated with an increase in police-reform support among conservatives living in liberal areas. This study highlights the importance of considering multiple measures of protest effectiveness and suggests that mass protest (including when it mixes nonviolence and violence) can be effective at advancing the movement's goals.