Protest Politics & Redistribution: State Response in Tunisia & Morocco, 2006–16

• In Event: Social Movements in Transregional Perspective

Abstract

Where party systems and welfare institutions are weak or co-opted, protest movements become a primary means by which citizens make redistributive demands on the state. This project examines determinants of elites’ concessions to socioeconomic protest movements in late-developing states, asking in particular how revolutions and regime transitions transform the logic of elite response to mobilization and, therefore, the likelihood that protest movements may result in redistributive concessions. Empirically, I develop comparative case studies of parallel phosphate sector movements in Tunisia and Morocco, tracing each movement’s trajectory of mobilization, negotiation, and policy response through the critical juncture of the 2011 Arab Spring protests. I argue that “failed” revolutions – uprisings that do not succeed in catalyzing regime change, as in Morocco – amplify the threat perceptions of surviving elites vis-à-vis protest, lowering the threshold of mobilization at which elites will grant concessions. Surviving elites in this case used broad-based, social concessions to demobilize mass opposition while avoiding political reforms. In cases of successful democratizing revolution – as in Tunisia – elites no longer uniformly aim to demobilize protest movements in service of regime longevity. Instead, the imperatives of coalition building in a new democracy prompted Tunisian elites to undermine opponents' attempts at social negotiation and to channel exclusive concessions to smaller, well-organized protest groups who could lend political support. Resulting concessions were few and ad hoc.
Through detailed case studies based on interview and documentary evidence, this project lends novel conceptual and empirical perspective on why many contemporary democratic transitions – despite prevailing expectations – fall short of redressing popular claims for economic opportunity and social protection.

Author

• Chantal Berman, Georgetown University