Upping the Ante Without Taking Up Arms: Why Mass Movements Escalate Demands (Pre-Recorded)

• In Event: Solidarity and Backlash Effects From Protests

Abstract

One of the unresolved puzzles in the civil resistance and contentious politics literatures relates to the fact that some movements that begin as reformist (seeking redress in a certain policy space) escalate to maximalist claims (demanding the ouster of a national leader or the entire regime) – a process I call “demand escalation.” For instance, in the summer of 2019, thousands took to the streets of Hong Kong to protest a proposed extradition bill that would allow criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China to face trial in courts controlled by the Communist Party. However, even after Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam announced the formal withdrawal of the controversial bill, protests continued with some calling for greater democracy and others demanding Lam’s resignation. Existing literature has largely treated demands as fixed and focused on different methods of resistance to pursue predefined ends. In contrast, I show that demands can change as a result of the state-dissent interaction. I argue that movements are more likely to escalate their demands when the state responds to the initial nonviolent action with a disproportionate use of force because it expands the grievances the protesters have against the state and betrays the remaining trust that people might have had in the government. The analysis of a new quantitative dataset that catalogues both reformist and maximalist opposition campaigns globally from 1955-2018 (Major Episodes of Contention, in progress) support this claim. By incorporating non-maximalist campaigns to the analysis and not treating demands as fixed, this paper adds to our understanding of mass campaigns and highlights an overlooked means by which nonviolent campaigns can up their ante without resorting to violence.

Author

• Sooyeon Kang, The Ohio State University