The Generative Power of Protest: Time and Space in Contentious Politics

Abstract

How do social movements sustain themselves under authoritarian rule? This remains a crucial puzzle for scholars of comparative politics. This article gains traction on this puzzle by foregrounding the generative power of protest, namely the power of protest experiences themselves to deepen and broaden movements. Some studies have started to draw attention to those questions without yet systematically examining how the form of protest differentially affects those outcomes. I argue that different forms of protest have varying effects on movements depending on their duration and geographic scope. While short, multiple-site actions, such as marches, can broaden movements by expanding their base, extended, single-site actions, such as sit-ins, are more likely to deepen movements by fostering collective identities and building organizational capacities. This article is based on field research in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, and Morocco and interviews with more than 100 movement participants and civil society activists.

Collective Action Infrastructure: The Downstream Effects of Urban Neighborhood Organizing

“…This interpretation would be consistent with findings by Dosh (2010) and Castells (1983) which suggest that “collective consumption” demands are self-serving and provide little basis for the development of civil society. Additionally, this would align with the observation that maintaining organizing poses distinct challenges from mobilizing in the first place (Bishara, 2021; Finkel, 2015). If this were true, we would see no correlation in organizing events over time, and residents would not perceive any difference in the costs of organizing conditional on having organized in the past.…”

“…Dosh (2010) documents how in Quito and Lima, neighborhood groups created to seek land titles disbanded once they had obtained the titles. Social movement scholars agree that maintaining organizing poses distinct challenges from mobilizing in the first place (Bishara, 2021; Finkel, 2015). Formal organizations formed in response to material problems may lack the collective will or personnel to ensure their permanence; material demands like streetlight repairs do not usually engender ideologically committed activists who can maintain these organizations during periods of abeyance (Taylor, 1989).…”

“…Our approach applies these insights about mobilizing structures and interpersonal networks to the distinct context of neighborhood problem-solving. We also build on the literature on ‘eventful protest’, which highlights the role of mobilization itself in generating organizational capacity and building identities (Bishara, 2021; Della Porta, 2008; Pearlman, 2021). Our argument is a similarly dynamic explanation of community organizing in which communities that may lack social capital or mobilizing structures can, in the face of sufficient problems, develop the tools to sustain future organizing.…”

Politics with objects? On the affective materiality of contentious politics

“…Students of contentious politics are increasingly aware of the temporal and spatial dimensions of contentious politics. In Bishara's (2021) notable study of protests in the Middle East and North Africa, differences between day and night-time protest activities and the strategic use of rooftops and other protected spaces are foregrounded. Tejerina (2017) stresses how the occupation of public spaces can enable novel forms of direct democratic participation, a development that could also be observed in the overcoming of traditional secular/religious, liberal/conservative, and working class/bourgeois cleavages at the 2013 occupation of Istanbul's Taksim Gezi Park (Navaro-Yashin, 2013).…”

“…In contrast, our proposal is to bring together approaches interested in the generative and experiential dimensions of protest by recognizing that agency, collective identities, and intentions are not always precursors to mobilization but are, at least partly, produced within a contentious encounter (cf. Bishara, 2021). Furthermore, we argue that these experiential dimensions of contentious politics are shaped not only by discourses and ideology but also by everyday objects, which themselves raise important questions about the ‘who’ and ‘how’ of political action.…”