The Backlash Effect of State Coercion: Protest Resilience Under Costly and Targeted Repression

Abstract

The impact of police repression on protest has been a central topic in the research on collective action and mobilization. While in some contexts, repression can deter protest, other times it backfires, increasing mobilization and its intensity. But still, we have relatively little knowledge of exactly \textit{which} repressive actions are associated with deterrence or incitement of protest activity, and why. Using novel data on protest repression in Chile, I study the effect of repressive actions over the occurrence of subsequent protest events, and whether specific forms of repression (such as arrests, beatings, or the use of non-lethal weapons, among others) have a differentiated effect over protest dynamics. I find that repression through non-lethal weapons, which includes the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons aimed at crowd control does not deter protest but increases their occurrence in the following days. Conversely, other forms of repression do not have an effect on protest occurrence. These results indicate that repression does not account for protest decline and that visible forms of state coercion, such as the use of non-lethal weapons, can increase contentious activities potentially through the generation of public commotion.