Protests and Repression in New Democracies

Abstract

Elected governments sometimes deal with protests by authorizing the police to use less-lethal tools of repression: water cannons, tear gas, rubber bullets, and the like. When these tactics fail to end protests and instead spark larger, backlash movements, some governments reduce the level of violence but others increase it, causing widespread injuries and loss of life. We study three recent cases of governments in new democracies facing backlash movements. Their decision to scale up or scale back police repression reflected the governments’ levels of electoral security. Secure governments with relatively unmovable majorities behind them feel freer to apply harsh measures. Less secure governments, those with volatile electoral support, contemplate that their hold on power might weaken should they inflict very harsh treatment on protesters; they have strong incentives to back down. Our original survey research and interviews with civilian authorities, police officials, and protest organizers in Turkey, Brazil, and Ukraine allow us to evaluate this explanation as well as a number of rival accounts. Our findings imply that elected governments that rest on very stable bases of support may be tempted to deploy tactics more commonly associated with authoritarian politics.

Repression and Activism among the Arab Spring’s First Movers: Evidence from Morocco’s February 20th Movement

“…Rasler (1996) finds that repression’s effects depend on timing. Aytaç et al (2015) find that the effects of repression vary according to individuals’ political affiliations. Opp and Reuhl (1990) argue that the effects of repression depend on whether its use is seen as legitimate.…”

“… 45 Using Facebook advertising, Aytaç et al (2015) report a click-to-completion rate of 2.5 per cent in Istanbul and 5 per cent in Sao Paulo; Samuels and Zucco (2012) report a 14 per cent completion rate in Brazil. For my survey, 53 per cent of those who opened the survey link completed it, indicating that a survey distributed by a friend may produce higher response rates than advertising.…”

Action repertoires in contentious episodes: What determines governments’ and challengers’ action strategies? A cross‐national analysis

“…By contrast, as McAdam and Tarrow also suggest, if we think of repression as a threat, its consequences are more difficult to predict. By now, there is ample evidence that repression of challenger actions may be perceived rather as a threat and induce a radicalisation of insurgents (Aytaç et al 2017;Khawaja 1993;O'Brien, 1996;Olivier 1991;Opp & Rühl 1990;Rasler 1996). This has led Tilly (2005) to abandon his earlier conviction that 'repression works' and to conclude that there are no one-size-fits-all rules.…”

The Effects of Selective and Indiscriminate Repression on the 2013 Gezi Park Nonviolent Resistance Campaign

“…Instead, “tactical freeze” took over the movement as protesters were unable to “adjust their tactics, negotiate demands and push for tangible policy changes.” Other scholars point to the failure of the movement to present a concrete set of political goals around a single political identity that could connect with other political parties, trade unions, and the broader and far larger unorganized working class (Johnson 2015; Özen 2015). Finally, S. Erdem Aytaç, Luis Schiumerini, and Susan Stokes (2017) argue that the Gezi protesters’ inability to attract popular support from the political base of the Erdoğan government decreased the probability of elite defections and in turn encouraged the government to use harsh repression that shut down the movement.…”