Repression Of Protest Research Articles

The Effect of Protesters’ Gender on Public Reactions to Protests and Protest Repression

This study examines how protesters’ gender shapes public reactions to protests and protest repression. Using an original survey experiment, I demonstrate that protests involving extensive participation by women are perceived as less violent and meriting of repression than male-dominated protests. But perceptions of female protesters vary. Patriarchy-defiant female protesters like feminists are deemed more deserving of repression despite being perceived as equally likely to be peaceful as female protesters who emphasize patriarchy-compliant femininities, such as women who highlight their roles as mothers and wives. This, I show, is because patriarchy-defiant women are viewed as more immoral, which renders their protest accounts less trustworthy when they clash with government propaganda seeking to legitimize repression. These findings underscore the value of disaggregating the binary category of man or woman when examining sentiments toward political agents and of considering stereotypes when studying perceptions, and ultimately the risks and effectiveness, of protest movements.

Officer-Involved Killings and the Repression of Protest

This article explores the likelihood that officer-involved killings affect protest. Analyzing respondents to the Collaborative Multiracial Political Survey (CMPS) reveals no increases in protest activity between treatment groups exposed to officer-involved killings in their local area prior to participating in the survey and control groups who were exposed to officer-involved killings after survey participation overall. In fact, local exposure to Black victims appears to repress protest, but only among young Black respondents. This effect depends on the characteristics of the victim and the incident, as killings of low threat Black victims do not seem to repress protest.

Spatial reason of the state: the role of space in protest repression in Turkey

ABSTRACT Between 2007 and 2019 the Turkish regime used protest bans extensively in order to impede collective mobilization. In this paper, drawing on Michel Foucault’s discussion of raison d’état and an original dataset of protest bans, we examine these legal practices as part of the state’s repertoire of protest repression. We point to two limits against the indefinite extension of state regulation that Foucault identifies: an external limit posed by public law and regime of rights, and an internal limit that questions the effectiveness of ‘too much’ government. We argue that authorities use spatial control as a technology to negotiate these two limits. Specifically, authorities deploy the state’s prerogative of regulating public space as a ‘politically neutral’ legal technology to reconcile the banning of protests with the external limit posed by freedom of assembly. Spatial control also works as an effective form of government to negotiate the internal limits of raison d’état. We use illustrative examples to unpack the mechanisms of how spatial technologies neutralize protests to bolster an authoritarian regime. The study contributes to empirical research on protest repression as well as theoretical discussions on the rationalities of government by expanding the geographical scope of existing research to an autocratizing context.

Thin-skinned leaders: regime legitimation, protest issues, and repression in autocracies

AbstractThe literature on autocracies has argued that repression of protest is either a result of the political environment in which protest occurs, or depends on particular characteristics of the protest events themselves. We argue that the interaction of both matters. Authoritarian regimes vary in how they legitimize their rule, and they should be particularly thin-skinned if protesters challenge the basis of their legitimacy. Using event-level data on mass mobilization in autocracies between 2003 and 2015, we use text classification methods to extract protest issues from newspaper reports. Our analysis shows that dictators are more likely to repress protest against incumbents when they claim legitimacy based on the person of the leader. Overall, our study shows that protest issues are not universal in triggering repression; rather, they need to be considered together with the political context in which they are raised.

Police Violence and Protests: Digital Media Maintenance of Racism, Protest Repression, and the Status Quo

ABSTRACT Analyzing news coverage of the killing of Stephon Clark in 2018, this research contributes to the further theorization of the hierarchy of social struggle by (1) confirming the consistent use of demonizing and delegitimizing framing devices to describe Black human rights protest, and (2) illustrating that the quality of the presentation of grievances and demands must also be considered when assessing the degree to which coverage can be legitimizing for a racial justice movement. In addition, findings show selective social media sharing amplified the limited coverage about police character but amplified sensational reports of injury.

Defending Stability under Threat: Sensitive Periods and the Repression of Protest in Urban China

ABSTRACT How does the elevated threat of protests during sensitive periods affect state repression in a high-capacity authoritarian regime? Drawing on a dataset of over 3,100 protests in three Chinese megacities, this study provides three key findings: first, the frequency of protests before and during national-level focal events and subsequent to national-level disruptive events is depressed, suggesting preemptive repression is taking place. Second, the likelihood of responsive repression is marginally reduced before and during local-level focal events and slightly elevated after national-level disruptive events. Third, contention is intensified when local political elites meet. Sensitive periods do not bring contention to a standstill and costly bursts of responsive repression were not observed. Stability maintenance during times of increased regime-vulnerability was thus less rigid than often assumed.

Violación de los derechos humanos en Venezuela: la otra cara de la pandemia

El objetivo de la investigación es analizar la violación de los derechos humanos en Venezuela, los cuales se han agravado por la pandemia del coronavirus (COVID-19), establecer la relevancia de que derecho humano fundamental viola el Estado venezolano. La naturaleza del estudio es de carácter socio–reflexivo, y se aborda desde la investigación cualitativa con la revisión bibliográfica documental, siendo Aguilar (2010), Depouy (1999), Pohl (2018), Sira (2020), La Fuente (1989) y documentos normativos como la Constitución de Venezuela (1999), y la Ley Orgánica de los Estados de Excepción (1999), los principales referentes consultados. La sociedad venezolana venía y viene atravesando por una grave crisis masiva de violaciones de derechos humanos que se evidencian en la pérdida de calidad de vida, la falta de acceso a los derechos a la alimentación adecuada y a la salud, en la inseguridad jurídica y personal, así como en la violencia institucional y la represión a la protesta. Resultados: pero en el tiempo o en el contexto de la pandemia del COVID-19 se ha agravado sistemáticamente la violación a todo estos Derechos Humanos en Venezuela. Se hace necesario establecer la relevancia de que derecho humano fundamental viola el Estado venezolano al decretar por la pandemia el Estado de Excepción bajo la figura del Estado de Alarma, imponiendo una medida de confinamiento como lo es la cuarentena radical en todo el territorio nacional, la cual por su forma errática de aplicación lo que hizo fue agudizar la crisis económica, social, médico sanitaria y política. Conclusión: estos ejemplos o casos narrados nos recuerdan nuevamente que la violación de un derecho humano puede poner en peligro el disfrute de todos los demás.

Contrahegemonías antirrepresivas. Un estudio de caso de la protesta en Barcelona (2011-2015)

El 15-M y los movimientos sociales que se fortalecieron gracias a la fuerza que tuvo este movimiento (los movimientos sociales contra los desahucios, contra la reforma laboral, contra la austeridad y contra los retrocesos de los derechos de las mujeres) han sido una reacción contra la gestión neoliberal de una crisis en cuya génesis también se encontraba el neoliberalismo. Ante estos conflictos, el Estado desarrolló un arsenal policial, judicial y legislativo para reprimir la protesta. La apertura de un nuevo marco de referencia mediante la acción colectiva de los movimientos sociales supuso una reconceptualización del término “democracia” como garantía de derechos sociales y libertades, y supuso, a la vez, la reclamación de autogestión y de participación de la ciudadanía en la vida política. Este nuevo marco se convertiría en oportunidad política de los movimientos sociales para cuestionar la actuación del sistema punitivo estatal. Así, el estudio de la antirrepresión en Cataluña demuestra que la represión frente a la protesta ha servido para hacer evidentes los límites del Estado de Derecho. Si los movimientos sociales han conseguido desenmascarar las relaciones de poder reales, la represión de la protesta, en el caso catalán, ha servido como oportunidad para abrir un debate social —que también ha llegado a las instituciones— sobre el garantismo penal. Se argumenta que estas contrahegemonías antirrepresivas, aunque limitadas ante un Estado penal creciente, han supuesto un reto para el sistema punitivo estatal.

Repression without Exception: A Study of Protest Bans during Turkey’s State of Emergency (2016-2018)

ABSTRACT Following the coup attempt of 15 July 2016, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency that would last for two years. In this paper, we focus on an understudied aspect of this period, protest repression during the state of emergency, using an original dataset of protest bans issued in 2007–2019. Engaging with the theoretical claims of emergency scholarship, our paper demonstrates that emergency powers were used to target areas, groups, and issues that were not related to the ‘urgency’ underpinning emergency rule. Moreover, such derogations of rights were perpetuated after the termination of the state of emergency within so-called ordinary legality. These practices were nevertheless embedded in the already authoritarian political-institutional context of Turkey and its layered history of emergencies.

What comes after repression? The hegemonic contestation in the gold-mining field in Turkey

It is widely known that many local environmental mobilizations against resource extraction projects of transnational capital have been repressed by the use of the state force in the late-industrializing world. What is less known is the aftermath of these repressions. Do they conceal all the traces of these mobilizations and lead to naturalization of the extractive operations of transnational capital at the local spaces? We address this question by examining two subsequent local environmental mobilizations in Turkey against gold-mining MNCs. Drawing on Laclauian insights on political struggles and hegemony, we first conceptualize repression of dissent not only as the repression of dissidents or protesters, but also that of protest discourse. Then, we argue that the forceful repression of the actors of those mobilizations succeeding to articulate an appealing protest discourse can make the hegemony and domination of transnational capital at the local level highly fragile, thus providing the conditions of possibility of subsequent similar mobilizations. The protest discourse constituted through such mobilizations may sediment despite the repression of protesters and become highly influential on the discursive trajectory of subsequent mobilizations. Yet, such an influence, as we also demonstrate in this study, may not only enable subsequent movements, but also limit their hegemonic capabilities.

Policing Economic Growth: Mining, Protest, and State Discourse in Peru and Argentina

Since the 1980s, liberalized and newly stable markets have helped usher in an unprecedented mining boom across the Latin American region. However, despite the fact that this boom contributes to notable economic growth, protests in opposition to the expansion and practices of mining companies have also grown, often with violent results. How protests are policed matters, but more important for democracy is how state actors respond when violence is employed. We examine two instances of police repression of mining protests: one in Cajamarca, Peru, and the other in Catamarca, Argentina. We argue that, despite significant differences in context, there are important similarities in state discourse between countries. In particular, a vocabulary of protester wrongdoing and calls for a remedy of “dialogue” are employed in both cases as a way to facilitate the continuation and expansion of both mining and the repression of protests.

Getting Order Out of Chaos: A Mathematical Model of Political Conflict

Time series data about violent internal conflicts such as protests or riots often display irregular fluctuations. This article argues that these fluctuations are manifestations of a deterministic chaos that can be described by a relatively simple difference equation. It presents a mathematical contagion model of the interaction between three groups: (a) already mobilized rebellious citizens, who are protesting against the government and its policies, (b) initially non-rebellious but frustrated groups, which become mobilized by imitating the rebels, and (c) repressive governmental forces, which attempt to curb the rebellion and reduce the number of mobilized persons. The integration of these three processes results in a logistic growth model, which converges for many parameter configurations to stable shares of mobilized protesters, including in certain situations also zero-protest. However, for other specific parameters this logistic process may result in chaotic fluctuations in protest actions, which are dangerous to the regime as they are unpredictable and often very massive. By computer-simulations, the article explores the consequences of the different parameter configurations for protest dynamics.In order to ensure their political survival, most governments have a vital interest in getting from chaotic conflict dynamics to a stable equilibrium of protest, preferably at the level of zero. They may actively do so (i) by reforms which reduce the share of frustrated citizens who can be mobilized for protest (ii) by the intimidation and/or repression of protesters, (iii) by censoring media reports about protests such that the conflicts become less contagious. A formal analysis of the model shows that the most successful of the three strategies are reforms, which reduce the share of frustrated citizens and thus lead to a new political order.

QCA as competing or complementary method? A qualitative comparative analysis approach to protest event data

Studies of state repression of protest have focused on theories of threat and weakness, in which states repress movements that threaten state authority or elite interest or movements that lack organizational or political strength. Empirical studies have most often used regression analysis of protest-event datasets. This paper proposes qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) as an alternative approach to protest-event data that retains more qualitative complexity and captures the conjunctural and heterogeneous nature of causation during events. The paper applies both methods to protest data from the United States (1963–1973). While both methods provide strong evidence for the threat and weakness hypotheses, QCA more effectively illustrates how combinations of threat and weakness factors increase the risk of repression. The paper argues that QCA is a viable alternative approach to event data, but it should also be seen as a valuable complementary method that can improve regression-based approaches.

How Modern Dictators Survive: Cooptation, Censorship, Propaganda, and Repression

We develop an informational theory of dictatorship. Dictators survive not because of their use of force or ideology but because they convince the public - rightly or wrongly - that they are competent.Citizens do not observe the dictator's type but infer it from signals inherent in their living standards, state propaganda, and messages sent by an informed elite via independent media. If citizens conclude the dictator is incompetent, they overthrow him in a revolution. The dictator can invest in making convincing state propaganda, censoring independent media, coopting the elite, or equipping police to repress attempted uprisings - but he must finance such spending with taxes that depress the public's living standards. We show that incompetent dictators can survive as long as economic shocks are not too large. Moreover, their reputations for competence may grow over time. Censorship and cooptation of the elite are substitutes, but both are complements of propaganda. Repression of protests is a substitute for all the other techniques. In some equilibria the ruler uses propaganda and coopts the elite; in others, propaganda is combined with censorship. The multiplicity of equilibria emerges due to coordination failure among members of the elite. We show that repression is used against ordinary citizens only as a last resort when the opportunities to survive through cooptation, censorship, and propaganda are exhausted. In the equilibrium with censorship, difficult economic times prompt higher relative spending on censorship and propaganda. The results illuminate tradeoffs faced by various recent dictatorships.

Unhindered by the rule of law: ethnic terrorism and the 2007 Kenyan presidential election

The 2007 presidential elections in Kenya were followed by more than 1,000 deaths and the forcible displacement of perhaps 350,000. This was the result, in part, of frustrations from the miscounting that assured President Kibaki's re-election, and the ensuing violent repression of protest and dissent. Most of these deaths and dislocations, however, were caused by ethnic terrorism, undertaken periodically by Kenyan politicians since the 1991 transition to what Paul Collier labels ‘democrazy’. Ethnic terrorism, part of the dynamic of violence that often plagues democratisation in the poorest nations, seeks to advance the fortunes of one ethnic group by fostering a militant, fearful identity, and uses extreme violence to spur ethnic cleansing, to the political advantage of its patrons. This long-term dynamic in Kenya has featured widespread use of tribal militias, sexual violence, and impunity for its perpetrators, and will likely continue, unless Kenya's political class complies with the Waki Report, which calls for the organisers and financiers of the violence to be prosecuted.

Globalization and the policing of protest: the case of APEC 1997.

The policing of protest at international events conflicts with the political and policing culture of the host nation. Previous research shows a trend toward softer, more tolerant styles of policing protest within various Western democracies. We present a case study of an exception: the repression of protest at an international event in which one Western democracy hosted rulers of less democratic regimes in a ritual celebration of economic globalization. We explore reasons why, in the face of protests about undemocratic regimes elsewhere, the Canadian government and police were willing to use blatantly undemocratic tactics popularly believed to be more characteristic of those other regimes. Implications are discussed concerning protest policing, economic globalization, the nation-state and social movements.