2019: Year of Revolutionary Potential

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The last pre-pandemic year witnessed an extraordinary number of uprisings. Large-scale protests and movements erupted in Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, Hong Kong, Chile, Venezuela, Sudan, Albania, and many other places – in many cases, only to be cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. How did this global wave of protests compare to prior revolutionary waves – such as the Arab Spring, or the Color Revolutions? What kinds of demands and organizing formats were prevalent? How successful were these movements in provoking political and social change? And finally, how did the onset of the global pandemic and corresponding restrictions on assembly shape or constrain these movements in their later phases?

This panel brings together methodologically and regionally diverse papers that explore 2019 protests and movements from a micro- and mezzo-perspective. Berman, Clarke, and Majed use original event datasets to analyze mechanisms of revolutionary mobilization during the contemporaneous fall 2019 uprisings in Lebanon and Iraq, asking how the political context of a post-conflict democracy may shape mechanisms of mobilization and state response. Kadivar, Abedini, and Khani study the relationship between oil production and protest in Iran, also using original event analysis of November 2019 protests against gas price increases. Yuen and Cheng study “leaderful activism” during Hong Kong’s Freedom Summer of 2019, identifying transformations in the form and tactics of networked mobilization from earlier Hong Kong protests. Schwedler examines small protests in the context of 2019 Jordan, arguing that protests of a dozen or more participants merit theorization both in their own right and in the context of a broader contentious landscape.

Each paper is well-grounded in a country case study while drawing on comparative theory and scholarship. Together, these papers paint a complex picture of global mobilization in the last pre-pandemic year. Further, and in line with the 2022 APSA theme, these papers offer a perspective through which future scholars may analyze protests and movements emerging during and after the pandemic years, thus highlighting change and continuity for mass mobilization in the midst of a changing world.

Sub Unit

• Division 12: Comparative Politics of Developing Countries

Individual Presentations

• Revolutions in Post-Conflict Democracies: Lebanon and Iraq - Chantal Berman, Georgetown University; Rima Majed, American University of Beirut; Killian Clarke, Georgetown University

• The Dynamics of Oil Subsidy Cuts and Protests in Iran, 2019 - Mohammad Ali Kadivar, Boston College; Vahid Abedini, Florida International University

• Mobilizing Leaderfully: The Organizational Process of Hong Kong’s Freedom Summer - Samson Yuen, Hong Kong Baptist University; Edmund W. Cheng, City University of Hong Kong

• The Surprising Challenge of Small Protests: Jordan’s 2019 Unemployment Marches - Jillian M. Schwedler, Hunter College

Chair

• Tomila Lankina London School of Economics and Political Science

Discussants

• Diana Fu University of Toronto

• Tomila Lankina London School of Economics and Political Science