The Power of Protectors: Accounting for Mobilization under Repression

• In Event: State, Religion, and Violence

Abstract

How can activists overcome the collective action problem when the state is systematically torturing and killing the opposition? I argue that protectors—third parties that lend assistance to victims and potential victims—make nonviolent mobilization more likely in high repression environments. In this chapter, I provide a typology of protectors in conflict and offer a theory about their expected level of effectiveness in reducing the cost of mobilization and in increasing the cost of repression. The level of effectiveness of protectors is driven by their social embeddedness, international networks, and most importantly, by their leverage over the regime. Cases of religious and non-religious protectors with varying degrees of effectiveness in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa are provided to illustrate the theory. The most effective protectors successfully contribute to the channeling of grievances against the state through nonviolent means instead of armed action, though they also restrict the nature of the opposition by making it more palatable to the state. This study brings to focus the importance of third parties in conflict to analyze the economic, social and psychological costs of collective action in contexts of high repression, and in so doing contributes to the literature on external support for social movements.

Author

• Consuelo Amat, Johns Hopkins University