Gambling on Backlash: The Role of Repression In Protest Strategy

• In Event: New Research on Resistance and Repression

Abstract

This paper explores the role that state violence and public backlash play in political protest strategy. Not all protest movements are strong enough to achieve their goals by civil demonstrations alone. Some must first provoke a repressive response that “unmasks” the state and induces previously ambivalent citizens to support the dissidents. Protesting a repressive state is a gamble that not all political movements survive. However, the protest/repression/backlash pathway may be the only means for certain movements to achieve their political goals. We present a theory of protest and repression, bringing together intuitions from earlier literature. Our theory predicts that protest will be greatest when state repression is anticipated and there are democratic institutions – a free press, voting rights, and humanitarian norms – that promote a large public backlash against state repression. Our prediction is borne out by probit analyses of the Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior (MAROB) Middle East dataset.

Author

• Joseph Brown, University of Massachusetts Boston