Which Frame Where? Violent and Nonviolent Frames in Civil Resistance Campaigns

• In Event: Protests in difficult conditions

Abstract

What explains the spread of nonviolent and violent protest tactics within a single civil resistance campaign? While scholars and practitioners often emphasize the efficacy of nonviolence, many major protest episodes (for example, the Egyptian Revolution and anti-Maduro protests in Venezuela) feature both peaceful marches and violent clashes with security forces. We hypothesize that these divergent behaviors can best be explained by whether protesters draw on nonviolent or violent frames to construct their symbolic and tactical repertoire. The adoption of different frames is in turn mediated by transnational ties, local political identities, and geographic symbolic space. In order to test this hypothesis, we analyze an original events dataset of Nicaragua’s April 2018 civic rebellion against President Daniel Ortega. In some areas, Nicaraguan protesters followed an internationally-diffused protest frame, the People Power movement, and remained nonviolent even in the face of lethal state repression. In other areas—particularly those with strong political and symbolic ties to the ruling Frente Sandinista—protesters modeled their actions after the 1979 Sandinista Revolution and resisted state violence with barricades, homemade mortars, and in some cases, small arms fire. Our research suggests that local factors help determine the balance of violence and nonviolence in civil resistance campaigns.

Author

• Eric Seth Mosinger, Carleton College