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Book part
Publication date: 20 September 2014

Patrick Rafail

Scholarship on the state control of social movements has predominately focused on overt repression, resulting in comparatively less attention to more covert forms of control…

Abstract

Scholarship on the state control of social movements has predominately focused on overt repression, resulting in comparatively less attention to more covert forms of control. Researchers have suggested that government surveillance of social movement organizations (SMOs) has become increasingly widespread and routinized in the post-September 11, 2001 era, but this hypothesis has remained untested. Since contemporary surveillance is grounded in a logic of information gathering that has diffused across law enforcement agencies since the September 11 attacks, government actors now cast a wide net and monitor a large variety of groups. This study shows that a result, traditional factors predicting surveillance, such as contentious behavior, have less explanatory power. Using a database of 409 SMOs active in Philadelphia between January 1996 and October 2009, the research asked who and why particular groups are monitored by the Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security (PA-OHS) between November 2009 and September 2010. Bayesian logistic regression analysis is used to examine the variables predicting surveillance. Findings show that 23% of the SMOs in the sample were targets of surveillance. Organizational ideology was the strongest predictor and there was little evidence that history of contentious protests or previous conflict with the police influenced coming under surveillance. However, groups with less visibility in traditional media sources were more likely to be monitored.

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Intersectionality and Social Change
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-105-3

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Book part
Publication date: 18 April 2017

Defne Över and Başak Taraktaş

This chapter offers a mechanism-based explanation of how single-cause oriented protest events are transformed into a mass movement where previously fragmented causes of contention…

Abstract

This chapter offers a mechanism-based explanation of how single-cause oriented protest events are transformed into a mass movement where previously fragmented causes of contention come to be expressed in conjoint action. Drawing on the case of 2013 Gezi protests in Turkey, we map the protest waves and identify two mechanisms that mediate the influence of repression on mobilization of dissent. The first mechanism is the perceived nature of the cause of contention. Repression leads to scale shift (McAdam et al., 2008) in the first wave when exercised over those who protest for an issue perceived to be innocent. The second mechanism is the experience of repression. Boundary deactivation among protesters and the resulting continuity in protest activity follow scale shift in the second and third waves as experience of repression transforms perceptions of those that were previously framed as others. Our analysis relies on data collected via participant observation, in-depth interviews, and an online survey with 1,352 protesters.

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Non-State Violent Actors and Social Movement Organizations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-190-2

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Book part
Publication date: 22 February 2011

Jennifer Earl

Protests surrounding the 2004 Republican National Convention (RNC) resulted in over 1,800 arrests. Scholarship on repression is divided about the likely impacts of arrests on…

Abstract

Protests surrounding the 2004 Republican National Convention (RNC) resulted in over 1,800 arrests. Scholarship on repression is divided about the likely impacts of arrests on subsequent activism. Interviews with RNC arrestees are used to examine potential effects. Findings offer twists to social movements and socio-legal hypotheses: (1) while many arrestees were less willing to protest after their arrest, for many of these individuals deterrence was selective, not wholesale; (2) many factors that were expected to neutralize repressive impacts either resulted in deterrence or set the stage for radicalization; and (3) individuals who were radicalized shared strong preparation for their arrest experience.

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Special Issue Social Movements/Legal Possibilities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-826-8

Book part
Publication date: 20 September 2014

Jennifer Earl and Jessica L. Beyer

We analyze reactions to the U.S. government-led repression of WikiLeaks in late 2010 by actors such as Anonymous and the Pirate Parties to argue that the potential for backlash…

Abstract

We analyze reactions to the U.S. government-led repression of WikiLeaks in late 2010 by actors such as Anonymous and the Pirate Parties to argue that the potential for backlash, which has been so prominent offline, is also a potential repercussion of repression online. In doing so, we use existing research to identify different ways in which bystanders might be pulled into conflicts, and examine our case for evidence of any of these forms of backlash. We also hypothesize that the net observed effect of repression is really the result of competing and/or amplifying backlash and deterrence effects; when this net effect is in favor of backlash, we call it a “net backlash effect” to indicate that there was more backlash than deterrence. We argue that net backlash occurs when repression recruits more bystanders into a conflict than it is able to deter in terms of already active participants. We also argue that backlash is a very likely outcome when Internet activism is repressed.

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Intersectionality and Social Change
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-105-3

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Book part
Publication date: 12 July 2023

Weijun Yuan

Social movements are made up of organized groups and individuals working together to accomplish shared objectives. Under what circumstances do active groups build and break their…

Abstract

Social movements are made up of organized groups and individuals working together to accomplish shared objectives. Under what circumstances do active groups build and break their coalitions? Five conditions have been identified in the literature as influencing coalition formation: common identity, resources, organizational structure, historical connection, and institutional setting. Whereas coalition dynamics within a movement wave are best understood in terms of institutional opportunities and threats, further research is needed to determine how and to what extent these contextual elements influence coalitions. This chapter examines how threats posed by indiscriminate and selective repression affect the shape and structure of interorganizational coalitions during the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB) protests in Hong Kong. The analysis relies on an original political event dataset and an organization-event network dataset. These datasets were produced utilizing syntactic event coding techniques based on Telegram posts, which Hong Kong protesters used to distribute information, plan future actions, and crowdsource news. Furthermore, Telegram provides detailed information about state activities, event-level coalitions, and violent groups, which is difficult to access from other sources. This study investigates the coalition networks across the movement's four stages, each of which was marked by a particular type and degree of repression. The findings indicate that indiscriminate and selective repression have varied effects on coalition networks. A wide coalition disintegrates as a result of indiscriminate repression. Selective repression, however, leads to the formation of coalitions around activist groups targeted by repression.

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Methodological Advances in Research on Social Movements, Conflict, and Change
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-887-7

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Book part
Publication date: 6 July 2021

Gabriela González Vaillant and Fernanda Page Poma

This paper analyzes the relationship between the Chilean student movement and state force action during the period 2000–2012, placing specific attention on three waves of student…

Abstract

This paper analyzes the relationship between the Chilean student movement and state force action during the period 2000–2012, placing specific attention on three waves of student contention that took place at the turn of the century. During the decade under study, the Chilean students became more contentious, they broadened their demands beyond specific grievances to encompass a critique to the education system as a whole, their alliance system grew (gaining from these denser networks of collaboration more resources to mobilize), and they managed to win public opinion on their side. However, the relationship with state forces has not been static across time, and both students and state forces have experienced changes in how they interact with each other. The results of this paper are based on a mixed method approach that drew on a quantitative database of student contention in Chile (n = 491 student events) and 15 in-depth interviews with leader activists from the most salient recent Chilean student movements of three periods under study, in addition to some key informants. The findings confirm that when student protests target the government, when they use disruptive strategies that affect the status-quo, and when they mobilize alongside other challenging actors, they are more likely to be met with direct repression by authorities. The research shows that there is a “dialect of repression” at play by which state forces' direct repression of protest can be two-fold: on the one hand, it gives students visibility in the public opinion, but on the other, it can be negative for ushering support if the media and authorities are successful in portraying them as violent or a threat to public order. In this sense, the figure of the “encapuchado,” students who disguise their identity and purposefully seek confrontation with authorities during mobilizations is problematized by the movement itself. How to win public opinion and use that visibility in their favor is related to decision-making mechanisms that the movement puts at play but also to the calculations done on the part of the government and security forces about the leverage of the movement.

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Four Dead in Ohio
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80071-807-4

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Book part
Publication date: 1 October 2008

Hana E. Brown

Existing research argues that repression hindered the ability of local civil rights movements to influence the development of local War on Poverty programs; however, the Virginia…

Abstract

Existing research argues that repression hindered the ability of local civil rights movements to influence the development of local War on Poverty programs; however, the Virginia civil rights struggle defies this pattern. This comparative county-level study melds institutionalist accounts of welfare state development with an analysis of movement repression in order to explain this paradox. A distinction is made between situational and institutional repression. While scholars focus on the former and its negative impact on mobilization, this study suggests that institutional repression can have the opposite effect, unifying movements and facilitating their influence on the formation and implementation of poverty policy.

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Politics and Public Policy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-178-7

Book part
Publication date: 6 July 2021

Sophia Wilson

This chapter examines the dynamic of state-society interaction during the events of the winter 2013–2014 Ukrainian Maidan Revolution. Using a new dataset, containing responses…

Abstract

This chapter examines the dynamic of state-society interaction during the events of the winter 2013–2014 Ukrainian Maidan Revolution. Using a new dataset, containing responses from the activists of the dissent movement, the study uncovers the “tipping point” at which revolutionaries were much more likely to support violent tactics. The study adds to the scholarly debate on repression-dissent, showing that social interpretation of state repression is essential in affecting social support for political violence. In addition to the theoretical contribution, this article presents the first systematic scholarly account of the repression-dissent dynamic of the 2013–2014 Ukrainian revolution, implementing original empirical and interview data.

Book part
Publication date: 1 September 2015

Elizabeth Tompkins

Though the coexistence of nonviolent and violent groups within a single movement is a common phenomenon in maximalist campaigns (e.g., regime change, anti-occupation), the effects…

Abstract

Though the coexistence of nonviolent and violent groups within a single movement is a common phenomenon in maximalist campaigns (e.g., regime change, anti-occupation), the effects of this coexistence remain understudied. Focusing on primarily nonviolent movements with a simultaneous “radical flank” pursuing the same goals, this study builds on previous, inconclusive literature which narrowly accounts for limited and often case-specific radical flank effects. After conducting a series of large-N regression analyses using a subset of the NAVCO 2.0 dataset, this study finds that the presence of a radical flank (1) increases both the likelihood and degree of repression by the state and (2) is most significantly linked with decreased mobilization post-repression – yet, (3) is not necessarily detrimental to overall campaign progress.

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Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-359-4

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Book part
Publication date: 24 October 2022

Felipe Sánchez-Barría

How does state repression influence levels of mobilization in authoritarian regimes? This study argues that the relationship between repression and protest is temporally dynamic…

Abstract

How does state repression influence levels of mobilization in authoritarian regimes? This study argues that the relationship between repression and protest is temporally dynamic. Specifically, the short- and long-term effects of autocrats' coercive actions differ conditionally on each phase of the contentious cycle. This argument is tested taking advantage of an original database of protest events in Pinochet's Chile between 1982 and 1989. Using an Interrupted Time Series design, the results show that the State of Siege declarations issued in 1984 and again in 1986 had divergent short- and long-term influence. When the cycle was on an expansive stage, the State of Siege shows no immediate influence on the protests, followed by an increase in long-term mobilization. However, when the mobilization was declining, the State of Siege was associated with an immediate and prominent drop in mobilization, followed by a progressive decrease in the number of protests over the long term. This chapter contributes to the literature on the protest–repression nexus by providing new evidence on the dynamics shaping the relationship between state repression and civil disobedience in authoritarian regimes.

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