Recent Protests Research Articles

Village Fascists and Progressive Populists: Two Faces of the Countermovement in Slovakia

The introduction of liberal reforms in Slovakia has generated countermovements that build upon nostalgia for state socialism. This essay shows how countermovement emotions can be successfully employed by both reactionary and liberal leaders, provided that they accurately respond to voters’ concerns by mitigating the economic ideology of the free market and reflecting voters’ preferred ways of life. It argues that recent protest movements, whether reactionary or progressive, derive their impetus from the resilient agrarian features of state-socialist modernity. They must therefore be analysed in terms of a historical cultural economy that predates the current crisis of neoliberal capitalism.

A Durkheimian Analysis of Racialised Crime and Punishment Police Practices and the Demand for Change

The analysis of racialised police attitudes has been frequently addressed in academic articles, but the application of a Neo-Durkheimian approach has been largely overlooked. This article will apply Durkheimian theory to illuminate the need for a shift in crime and punishment policy and practices to avoid the present societal moral stagnation. In order to do so it will address both, the recent Black Lives Matter protests in America and the 2011 Riots in London. The use of the two case studies signifies the continuity of problematic police behaviour and political address. It is evident that such an article is embedded in an extremely sensitive topic, therefore it does not presume to provide a solution to the overwhelming circumstances. Rather, in illuminating the relevance of Durkheimian theory it signifies that current global circumstances demand a moral shift in societal understandings of solidarity and “the cult of the individual”, providing pivotal foundations for police practices. However, this requires participation of criminologists alongside practitioners and activists.

Consolidating Power Through the Ambiguous: Ambiguity in the 2005 Iraqi Constitution and its Exploitation by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki

Recent protests in Iraq have brought focus to many issues currently affecting the Iraqi government’s ability to govern. A source of some of these issues is the 2005 Constitution. The Constitution’s biggest flaw is its ambiguity that has led to a confused political order whereby Iraq’s political elite seek to interpret and take advantage of the Constitution for their personal benefits. Iraq’s first Prime Minister, and the longest reigning since the 2003 Occupation, Nouri al-Maliki, was the first to exploit constitutional ambiguity and perhaps the most effective at it. Two questions arise to the issue of constitutional ambiguity and its exploitation by the Prime Minister. Where did the ambiguity in the Iraqi Constitution come from and how exactly was the constitution ambiguous? And how and through what processes did Nouri al-Maliki exploit ambiguities in the Iraqi Constitution? This paper will argue that constitutional ambiguity was (I) brought about by the rushed drafting of the 2005 Iraqi Constitution that saw American interference in the process result in an ambiguous document posing problems in four key areas, and (II) that the first Prime Minister who dealt with the Constitution, Nouri al-Maliki, exploited the Constitution through three distinct processes: co-opting the Judiciary, bypassing bureaucracy through patronage networks, and legitimising decisions that suited his own benefit using the Constitution as justification. This paper hopes to serve as a case study for the exploitation of constitutional ambiguity in post-occupation countries, where constitutional drafting was in one way or another flawed or mishandled; and a explanation as to how and through what processes constitutional ambiguity can be exploited by a country’s executive leadership.

Quantifying the contribution of an individual to making extreme weather events more likely

Probabilistic event attribution aims to quantify the role of anthropogenic climate change in altering the intensity or probability of extreme climate and weather events. It was originally conceived to calculate the costs associated with any increased likelihood of the meteorological event in question. However, only recently have such studies attempted to divide liability between polluting nations and ascribe a cost. Recent protests indicate a perception that older generations have the greater responsibility for climate change. In this paper, we examine how a portion of the cost of an event can be attributed to any individual person, according to their age and nationality. We demonstrate that this is quantitatively feasible using the example of the 2018 summer heatwave in eastern China and its impact on aquaculture. A relatively simple technique finds sample individuals responsible for between 0.53 and 18.10 yuan, increasing with their age and their country’s emissions over their adult lifetime since the first international consensus on carbon emissions was reached. This provides an illustration of the scale of such responsibilities, and how it is affected by national development and demographics. Such data can support decisions, at national and international levels, on how to fund recovery from climate impacts. It offers a simple quantitative approach for individuals to know their impact on the climate, or for governments to use in making policy decisions about how best to distribute costs of climate change.

Tunisia’s “Al-Ahyaa Al-Sha’Biya”: Socioeconomic Grievances, Mobilisation, and Repression

This paper will look into the dynamics of police repression and violence against contentious actors during the latest wave of protests in Tunisia. It will argue that there is a continuity between the grievances of the recent protests and those expressed during the 2011 revolution, including corruption, access to socio-economic rights and individual and collective freedoms. The paper will also highlight the role of the youth, particularly those from marginalised neighbourhoods, in leading the protests, positioning them as the main targets of police violence and arbitrary arrests. Finally, it will shed light on the recent police repression and violation of individual freedoms, showing that despite being considered as one of the main achievements of the Tunisian’s revolution, civil liberties remain under threat.

Enchanted encounters: moving images, public art and an ethical sense of place

This article examines site-specific moving images, particularly public artworks that engage windows and monuments as cinematic screens. Employing the concept of enchantment and Doreen Massey’s notion of a ‘global sense of place’, this article analyses how the physical experience of moving image media in public places can enrich and complicate our understanding of place. Artworks by Lynn Hershman Leeson, Ofri Cnaani, Krzysztof Wodiczko and Tony Oursler are explored, in addition to recent protest projections and critical and theoretical investigations of place and enchantment.

Aftermath of anti-police protests in Nigeria: Burden and predictors of psychiatric morbidity among protesters and non-protesters.

Anti-police (#EndSARS) protests took place in October 2020 across several Nigerian cities, resulting in deaths, injuries and loss of property, but the psychological sequelae of these protests have not been studied. In a cross-sectional online survey, we collected data on psychiatric morbidity and potential risk factors from 426 Nigerian social media users, who self-identified as participants or non-participants in a recent anti-police protest. We found elevated rates of psychiatric morbidity, with worse outcomes for protesters compared to non-protesters (psychological distress [44.2% vs 29.8%], depression [26.0% vs 14.9%], anxiety [51.0% vs 29.8%], post-traumatic stress disorder [7.4% vs 1.8%], current substance use [11.2% vs 4.5%] and suicidal ideation [7.1% vs 4.4%], respectively). After adjusting for the effects of COVID-19 pandemic and previous mental health diagnosis, the predictors of poor mental health among non-protesters were being unmarried (odds ratio = 7.4, p = 0.01) and low resilience (odds ratio range = 4.1-5.4, p < 0.03) while for the protesters, the predictors were low resilience (odds ratio range = 2.9-4.7, p < 0.01), being from Northern Nigeria (odds ratio = 4.7, p < 0.01) or residing in Northern Nigeria (odds ratio = 2.8, p = 0.03), being under-/unemployed (odds ratio range = 2.1-2.5, p < 0.04), holding the view that the protest was caused by the state of the economy (odds ratio = 2.0, p = 0.01), belief that the protest had a direct negative impact on the protester (odds ratio = 2.3, p = 0.04) and willingness to participate in future protests (odds ratio = 4.13, p = 0.02). We conclude that participating in the #EndSARS protest was associated with significant psychiatric morbidity. There is need to recognise and address the mental health sequelae of collective actions, and invest in programmes that build resilience and address socio-political determinants of mental health, especially with a focus on youth.

Protest as Preaching. The Pneumatic Proclamation of Black Lives Matter

This article explores some of the recent protests in support of Black Lives Matter from a homiletical perspective. Specifically, the author argues that these protests reflect a non-traditional form of pneumatic or Spirit-inspired proclamation that can enrich the church’s preaching in a time of crisis. The article is arranged into three sections. First, a pneumatological framing of proclamation is proffered in order to interpret protest as a mode of Spirit-inspired preaching. Second, drawing on the author’s experience as a participant-observer in select protests in Southern California, three snapshots of proclamation at protests are offered. The article concludes by suggesting that the pneumatic proclamation of recent protests challenges the church in the United States to hold together three key dialectical tensions in its proclamation: lament and celebration, particularity and universality, and word and deed.

Feeling Left Behind by Political Decisionmakers: Anti-Establishment Sentiment in Contemporary Democracies

According to much of the extant literature, feelings and beliefs among many citizens of being left behind and unheard by unresponsive political decisionmakers, who lack moral integrity represent the epicenter of recent protest and populist discontent in democratic society. Based on survey data for 20 contemporary democracies from two ISSP waves, we found that anti-establishment attitudes are not shared among the majority of respondents. Although there are differences between country contexts. Such sentiment is associated with macrostructural dynamics, since unfavorable attitudes toward politicians are more widespread among publics in countries which are exposed to higher levels of public corruption and witnessed increasing levels of income inequality. Besides, such sentiment is also restricted to particular social groups of society, because hostile feelings toward political decisionmakers are stronger among citizens in the lower ranks of society and among younger birth cohorts. Since the beginning of the century and throughout the Great Recession, unfavorable attitudes toward politicians have not increased among the public in advanced democracies. However, our analysis indicates that respondents with such attitudes have increasingly turned toward voting for anti-elite parties to raise their voice and now make use of online options to express their political views more frequently than in the past. Overall, the analysis contributes to recent research on populist and reactionist dynamics in contemporary democracies by addressing dynamics and structures of the feeling of being left behind by political decisionmakers and its implications for political (in)activity.

Why Indigenous Canadians on reserves are reluctant to complain about the police

Recent widespread protests and intensive media coverage of actual and alleged acts of police misconduct against members of vulnerable populations (e.g., Indigenous and racialized persons, mentally ill and/or addicted persons) overrepresented in the criminal justice system have renewed interest internationally in the factors influencing civilian complaints against police. In Canada, a major concern exists regarding how Indigenous persons who feel improperly treated by the police perceive and confront barriers to making formal complaints about such treatment. This study focuses on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the police agency providing services to the majority of rural and northern reserve communities. Our survey and interviews with influential “community informants” (in this instance community court workers) with intimate knowledge of such local communities, shared culture and language, and vicarious appreciation of the experiences of community members support the view that Indigenous persons do encounter significant barriers to launching formal complaints and are consistent with other research literature. We discuss our findings, raise policy considerations for decision makers such as police leaders and police complaints bodies, and outline implications for future research.

Cultural Implications of a Study of Police Communication With Minorities

Recent protests and riots around the globe have renewed the call for police reform. While police reforms could benefit the police and the public, police training in cultural awareness, racial biases, and communications may result in better and faster changes in police attitudes and approaches for working with minorities. This study suggests that non-police public safety personnel perceive a greater need for police training than the police. The study examined the police relationship and their communication with minority populations as perceived by Kosovo police (N=20) and other public safety personnel (N=24). Respondents answered a quantitative survey. Although not statistically significant, it appears that most police respondents didn’t recognize that cultural barriers exist between minorities and police, and they didn’t feel a strong need for cultural training. On the other hand, other public safety personnel showed greater support for cultural training, recognizing that cultural barriers do exist between police and minorities. Both groups agreed that trust is more important than speaking the same language when working with minorities.

Abolition Pedagogy

Abstract As the South African student movement of 2015–16 began to develop a deeper critique of the character of the transition out of apartheid and its minimal effect on the institutions of colonialism and apartheid, the administrators of postapartheid universities worked with the managers of the security infrastructure of the state to orchestrate a national police shutdown of the student and worker movement. This essay is an effort to sustain an objection to that coordinated effort, and to work through a proposal for how the new managers of the postapartheid state and university could have—should have—acted otherwise. This proposal is called abolition pedagogy, a refusal of the long-standing relationship between education and violence, and a reading of the pedagogic labor involved in antiviolence work. In the midst of the recent student protests, a 1969 exchange of letters between Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse—in which Adorno justifies his having “called the police” on the student movement in Germany—was used to justify calling the police on South African students some fifty years later. This article unpacks the citation, and uses Adorno's own commitment to critique as a “force field” to show up the limitations of his position, and to call for a different mode of engagement with the difficulties and possibilities of ongoing struggle. Adorno's “force field” is contrasted with his poor reckoning with jazz and his inability to see the work of critique in jazz and by implication in many other forms. Abolition pedagogy pursues a transformative orientation to histories of violence, asking how to sustain strategies for their unmaking.

Intertwining public security policy and protest control in Brazil: Sports mega-events and international diffusion of repression

The article analyzes the intertwining of public security and protest control policies in Brazil’s most recent protest wave from 2013 to 2016. We propose a dynamic and relational analytical model of the relationship between protest movements, the State, and social control based on the contentious politics approach. The mass demonstrations broke out in the middle of the Confederations Cup (2013), the World Cup (2014), and the Olympics (2016). We argue that these three sports mega-events generated resources and opportunities, as well as international pressures and constraints, for repressive innovations in strategies of public order and protest control. Changes in the legal order were pushed through harshening of criminal control and the internalization of transnational public security measures. Police learning processes have taken place through the global diffusion of new surveillance technologies, equipment, training, and emulation of protest policing tactics. In the long run, the mega-events legacy was introducing a new repressive set of legal norms, institutional practices, and control techniques of public order which is now available for use against common crime and in the police handling of street demonstrations.

The Nicaragua Protest Crisis in 2018–2019: Assessing the Logic of Government Responses to Protests

Despite constant monitoring, we lack a good explanation for the 2018–2019 protest crisis in Nicaragua. The escalation of protests, repression, duration, and the death toll are surprising. Applying a novel political and economic cost framework, we benchmark Nicaragua’s historical and recent political protests and explain the Ortega administration’s responses, thus providing a rich case (with comparative data for context) that makes sense of this extraordinary period of protest. The empirical analysis buttresses our qualitative case study of protest motivations and tactics and extreme state violence that define four phases of the conflict. The combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses creates one of the first robust studies of protest–response dynamics of this protest crisis. We conclude that these protests are unique with respect to previous protests in the country and the region and that government repression was a logical response in some phases but was inconsistently applied.

Does Learning About Protest Abroad Inform Individuals’ Attitudes About Protest at Home? Experimental Evidence from Egypt

AbstractThe Arab Spring revived interest into how contentious mobilization diffuses across time and space. We evaluate individual-level attitudinal implications of this literature through laboratory experiments with 681 Egyptian college students. Across two separate experiments, primes based on recent protests in Tunisia, Syria and the Sudan reveal a limited ability to shift respondents’ retrospective views of the Arab Spring, the efficacy of protest to achieve political change, Egypt's perceived domestic situation vis-à-vis its neighbours and a personal willingness to assume risk in a computer game-based behavioural extension. Our findings imply the need to continue to improve theorizing and empirically testing key implications from the diffusion literature.

Antigovernment Protests and Commitment to Democratic Principles

ABSTRACT While antigovernment protests have been widespread across the world in recent years, it is still not well understood why people protest their governments. This study addresses this question and asks why some individuals participate in antigovernment protests, while others don’t. I argue that commitment to democratic values is essential to understanding participation in antigovernment protest: individuals who are committed to democratic values are more likely to participate in an antigovernment protest. With broader implications for political protests in political regimes other than consolidated democracies, this research explores recent widespread protests in Georgia and finds evidence consistent with its primary argument.

RAGE!, Retaliation, and Retribution: Recurring Themes in August Wilson’s Work

Following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others, recent protest in Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, DC, LA, Portland and a host of other locations, both, stateside and abroad are being framed in the public discourse as everything from radical resistance to public madness and everything in between. From the Black Lives Matter movement activist to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion advocates, one of the key components in, both, radical resistance strategies or public expressions of cultural madness, is a ground swelling of rage! But what is rage? How can we recognize it? Historically, what has been the consequences of Black rage? And in this unique, historical moment, what if anything can be done to leverage it? Mining August Wilson’s work for definitions, instances, and consequences of Black rage, this paper interrogates August Wilson’s narratives on rage as a way to talk about the historiography and commodifying of Black rage as a way of victimizing and disposing of Black bodies in America. In this way, we hope to offer suggestions in this historical moment on how to leverage Black rage, rather than to be snared by it.

The archaeology of a marginal neighborhood in Tehran, Iran: garbage, class, and identity

ABSTRACT Tehran’s Archaeology of Garbage project was conducted in 2017–2018 and with the initial aim of monitoring the impacts of currency devaluation on poor people. In Districts 7 and 17, the team investigated two of the most decayed urban fabrics of Tehran as well as the garbage bags of 1004 poor marginalized families. Among these, we managed to find evidence of a forgotten social group, the ‘impoverished middle class’ which consisted of people from the middle-class background who had to move to a neighborhood occupied by low-income classes. The garbage-making behaviors of these two communities were tracked and led to a better understanding of demographic changes and recent protests. In this article, I will present the evidence of poverty in District 17 and will open a new debate on the poor middle-class emerging community and its influence on the new identity of the people living in District 17.

National reconciliation in Algeria from a bottom-up approach: analysing victims’ narratives

ABSTRACT National Reconciliation in Algeria is a controversial subject that provokes considerable debates among human rights organisations as well as opposition parties. Since the third term of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, many manifestations of civil war victims have been organised across the country. While it is deemed for a long time that the enforced disappearance file is the only stake for the reconciliation process, these recent protests illustrate the extent to which the process fails to address the past legacies. Alternative pasts have resurfaced to challenge the official discourse that has been implanted for twenty years. Using a bottom-up approach, this article inquiries and assesses national reconciliation in Algeria by distinguishing between different victims’ groups. It demonstrates how the process has been presented, interpreted, and evaluated by different victims’ groups based on the in-depth research.

The Rise of Police Militarization and Impact on Civilians

Across the country, police are using aggressive, military-style policing tactics to enforce the law. These aggressive tactics disproportionately affect minorities and residents of lower-income communities. Recent protests by the Black Lives Matter movement have taken place in response to the deaths of individuals such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Aggressive police presence at these demonstrations has been prominent, despite protesters’ peaceful intent. The police are not only present at rallies and protests but also at celebratory events like major cities' sports celebrations. This paper examines militarization as a result of the War on Drugs, the 1033 program, racial politics, and police anxieties, as well as how it relates to present-day policing tactics and police legitimacy. The United States should do all that it can to prevent police from becoming too militarized. This can be achieved through policy adaptations such as repealing the 1033 program to limit access to new military-grade weapons, decriminalizing drugs, and increasing penalties on officers who abuse their power.