Social Movements in Transregional Perspective

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Contemporary protest in advanced industrialized countries as well as late-developing states often falls short of redressing popular claims for economic opportunity and social protection. These papers aim to examine how mobilizational and institutional factors shape the effectiveness of protest, seeking to identify the conditions under which protestors are most likely to observe favorable outcomes. The social movement literature includes a variety of different conceptualizations for “outcomes”, and this panel focuses specifically on the degree to which protestors are granted the concessions for which they fight.
This specific question is examined from a variety of angles thanks to the exciting and generative variation embedded in the proposed panel. Variation is found across several theoretically relevant axes. Regionally, the four papers offer studies from the Middle East, Bolivia, Russia, as well as a set of cities in democratic countries across five continents. The contexts also vary across income levels, with cases from lower middle-income, upper middle-income, and high-income countries. In addition, the cases span across urban and rural divides and include both authoritarian and democratic contexts – two axes where the comparison is especially promising.
These differences are brought to bear as all papers share the same focus: to examine the strategic logic of concessions - when and why political authorities offer concessions, what are their expected effects in terms of demobilization, and under what conditions these concessions prove profound or durable (or at very least, not be retracted).
With a focus on protest in both its societal dynamics and institutional responses, this panel vigorously embraces the 2020 conference theme of Democracy, Difference, and Destabilization. The four papers span a broad methodological range, and include an original dataset, qualitative comparative analysis, as well as case-based studies.
The panel opens by examining protest that is articulated around different conceptions of plurinationalism, development, and progress as deployed by protestors and the government. In this contribution, Erica Simmons examines this dynamic in Bolivia, where the Morales administration was confronted by protest organized by its own core constituents. The tight ideological commitment of this group makes internal protest less likely, and the case is thus especially instructive in explaining the connection between the legacy of development and government legitimacy.
Chantal Berman continues the conversation by homing in on the role of legacy in protest, by using a structured, focused comparison of Tunisia and Morocco to show how failed revolutions raise the likelihood of concessions to protest movements, while successful revolutions lower the likelihood of concessions.
Eleonora Pasotti furthers the institutional analysis, by presenting the results of a multi-country study that investigates both strategic and institutional determinants of success among 29 cases of neighborhood-based protests aimed at stopping displacement. Her analysis highlights the favorable impact for protestors of partisan de-alignment across different levels of government.
The panel concludes by exploring the mechanisms that undermine the durability of concessions. To this end, Sasha de Vogel presents an analysis that adds to the literature by explaining how the Moscow City government’s deliberate avoidance of consultative institutions affects protest movements, and specifically when those movements are promised and actually receive concessions.
The Discussants for this panel are Professors Clifford Bob and Cihan Tugal, both of whom have made substantial contributions to the study of social movements, protest, and insurgency in a comparative dimension.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Individual Presentations

• Nationalism, Protest, and Extraction in Bolivia - Erica S. Simmons, University of Wisconsin, Madison

• Protest Politics & Redistribution: State Response in Tunisia & Morocco, 2006–16 - Chantal Berman, Georgetown University

• Protest and Urban Development: Resistance in Aspiring Global Cities - Eleonora Pasotti, University of California, Santa Cruz

• Information, Concessions and Reneging in Authoritarian Regimes - Sasha de Vogel, New York University

Chair

• Eleonora Pasotti University of California, Santa Cruz

Discussants

• Clifford Bob Duquesne University

• Cihan Tugal UC Berkeley