Structural Drivers of Differentiated Protest Demands

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics II & State Politics and Policy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Comparative Politics II

Abstract

The 1990s and early 2000s anti-neoliberal protests throughout Latin America and the Arab Spring protests of 2010-2011 share a common feature, both were protests. As such, much of the theoretical and empirical analysis on protest dynamics has lumped these two events into one variable: protest counts. The same is true for several protests across the world, indeed many of the extant data sets on protest focus on the count of such events. Overall, protest counts have been used to theorize the conditions under which protest is more likely to arise. Nonetheless, while the tactic (protest) is a common feature the specific protest demands, and hence the conditions that resulted in those demands, vary. Conflating protest demands into a homogenous category inhibits a more nuanced understanding of protest dynamics. In this article, I propose disaggregating them as this can provide important subtleties for understanding the dynamics of protest generally, and the specific conditions that are conducive to different protest demands. Events like those in the Arab Spring and the umbrella protests in Hong Kong, among others, resulted in renewed scholarly attention of pro-democracy mass mobilization studies. However, the assumption made in these studies is that democracy was the key protest demand from the onset of the protest up until the end. Although claims for democratic enactment or enhancement are part of these protests, it is not always the case that protests begin their life with demands for democracy. Additionally, protests have become pervasive in countries that have passed the threshold of strong democratic governance, and the demands in these contexts are different (Norris 2002). I suggest that considering more seriously the variation in substantive protest demands will have important implications for how we understand the dynamics of protest and the conditions under which some demands emerge over others. For instance, redirecting our attention to the emergence of specific substantive demands gears our theorizing towards the distinct conditions that lead to economic-related demands versus more socially-oriented claims. An important implication of studying the variation of protest demands has to do with its consequences, for instance, political instability is more likely to be a result of protests where the main claim is the re-structuring of political institutions, or regime change, than the result of protests geared towards changing environmental policy. In this article, I take a step back from the issue of mobilization, which takes the demands as given. Instead, I try to unpack the conditions under which a specific demand arises in the first place. While much of the literature on protest has emphasized the institutional conditions that lead to an increase in protest, there is still little insight about the conditions that are conducive to some protest demands over others. I advance an argument that links the economic and political conditions as well as governments’ performance to the emergence of specific protest demands. Specifically, I contend that more democratic, or open, political systems are more likely to increase demands from different issues areas. This is consistent with the Political Opportunity Structure theory that suggests that open political systems see an increase of protest (Kitschelt 1983). However, the strongest democracies should increase protests related to social demands. With regards to economic conditions, on one hand and similar to extant literature, I expect economic downturn to increase protests related to economic conditions and political processes (Pzreworski et al 2000; Brancati 2016). On the other hand, and in line with modernization theory, I expect better economic conditions to increase protests with social claims. Finally, I argue that government performance when adequate should mitigate protest across all issue-areas, but when governments are corrupt and inefficient, protest demands will cut across issue areas and generally increase. To support these claims, I use original data on protest demands for 162 countries from 1990 to 2017. The article offers important theoretical and methodological insights. On the methodological level, it points to the need to disaggregate protest to reflect the variation of the demands being made. It also provides a data set to first analyze this disaggregation. Theoretically, I propose shifting our attention to studying protest demands, as opposed to the more populated study of protest counts. If protests are motivated by different demands, theory building should include those processes. Furthermore, Van Stekelenburg et al (2013), in a reflection of the study of protest and social movements suggest the need to look for new directions of study in the area. Here I propose a closer look into the substantive and differentiated demands made via protest as a viable research agenda.

Author

• V. Ximena Velasco Guachalla, University of Colorado Boulder