The Rise and Fall of College Protests: Diffuse Effects of Repression

• In Event: Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5: The Power of Student and Youth Movements

Abstract

As democracies erode and executives expand their political authority, repression increasingly unfolds within decreasingly democratic regimes. Authorities do not ban protests outright. Instead, they tend to impose administrative restrictions, deploy police, and issue legal threats that raise the costs of dissent while seemingly preserving a democratic appearance. How does mobilization respond to such repression?

The 2024 Gaza solidarity encampments on U.S. college campuses provide a test case. Historically, college campuses are rich sites for activism and protests. However, after a nationwide wave of protests, universities brought police onto campuses and revised protest policies. Federal officials targeted certain schools and signaled punitive consequences for activists. I draw on newly compiled protest event data on college and university campuses to ask whether mobilization declined in specific institutional settings or across higher education as a whole. Protest fell sharply and at similar rates across campus environments, though Gaza-related protests saw the sharpest decline on college and university campuses. Under democratic backsliding, repression appears to operate at the field level rather than through localized institutional constraints.

Author

• Marty Kennedy, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill