Pocketbook Protests Brancati, Dawn
Comparative political studies,
09/2014, Volume:
47, Issue:
11
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Why do pro-democracy protests emerge in some countries at certain periods of time and not others? Pro-democracy protests, I argue, are more likely to arise when the economy is not performing well and ...people blame the autocratic nature of their regime for the economy, than when the economy is performing well, or when people do not blame the nature of their regime for the poor state of the economy. People are more likely to associate the economy with the nature of their regime, I further argue, in election periods, particularly when people are unable to remove the incumbent government from power through elections. My argument is supported by a statistical analysis of pro-democracy protests in 158 countries between 2006 and 2011, showing that not only is the economy an important factor explaining the emergence of pro-democracy protests, but that other factors commonly thought to affect these protests, including technologies like cell phones and the Internet, are not.
This article analyses the June 2013 wave of political protests in Brazil, highlighting student movement participation. We make three arguments. First, this was not a single student movement, but a ...cycle of protest, consisting of many different actors, issues, and forms of demonstration. Second, protesters built what we call hybrid performances, drawing on three repertoires of contention: socialist, autonomist and patriotic. Third, the protests presented a strong rejection of political parties, problematising the relationship between social movements, political parties, and institutional politics.
This article contributes to the literature on non-citizens' protests by analysing asylum seekers' claims to right to life as a case of politics of human rights. By analysing asylum seekers' protests ...as making visible the structural and bureaucratic violence of the state that violates their fundamental human rights, this article offers a reading of non-citizen protests as an engagement in the politics of human rights. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at the Right to Live protest in Finland, I discern the modalities of the injuries experienced by asylum seekers and their critique of the state. Their critique focuses on the bureaucratic violence of rendering asylum seekers illegal and the threat of deportation, as well as the violence of an arbitrary state expressed in legislative changes.
Research indicates that when mainstream news media report about demonstrations, protesters often face delegitimizing coverage. This phenomenon, known as the “(journalistic) protest paradigm,” is ...thought to be a default mindset that leads journalists to emphasize the method of protesters over their message. However, empirical work has so far limited itself to specific protest movements or events and only covers brief periods. This study first identifies and then codes the main frames in all reports about domestic protest in the United Kingdom. Analysing data that covers eight national newspapers during a 26 year period (N = 27,496), I provide a more systematic understanding of how the mainstream news media in liberal democracies report about protests. The analysis shows that a stable majority of articles uses frames linked to the protest paradigm throughout the time period. However, a substantial and growing number of articles employ legitimizing frames—either on their own or co-existing with delegitimizing framing.
In this study of the impact of protests against Walmart (a first entrant) on Target (a second entrant) from 1998 to 2008 in U. S. geographic markets, we develop and test a theory of information ...spillovers from protests against corporations proposing to enter a new market. We argue that the number of protests directed against a first entrant is a noisy signal for the second entrant because such protests are likely to be dominated by protest-prone activists and so do not reflect the sentiments of the community. The second entrant is likely to discount protests against the first entrant that are led by protest-prone activists and rely instead on protests led by local, decentralized activists as indicative of a community's preferences. We argue that the second entrant differentiates between protests against the first-entrant firm and the organizational form, and discounts protests against a specific firm but not those against the form (e.g., big-box stores). Further, the second entrant is likely to rely on the reaction of the first entrant as an indication of the meaning of the protest. Finally, all of these signaling effects will be stronger in markets in which the second entrant has no experience and so lacks local knowledge. The study provides broad support for our arguments.
This paper explores how a global health crisis affects the causes and consequences of social movements. Drawing on media coverage, press releases, emails, and other available primary data sources, we ...examine how the pandemic changed the opportunities and conditions for activists on the right and left and those they challenge. We begin by considering the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the concomitant government response, which alters the structure of political opportunities activists face. We then look at the development of a range of protest campaigns that have emerged in response, assessing changes in opportunities for activists to reach and mobilize target constituencies, the construction of grievances, nature of alliances, as well as innovation in tactics and organization. Finally, we consider the potential outcomes of these protests during the pandemic and extending afterward.
Since the mid-2000s militant local political protests have been a frequent occurrence in informal settlements and townships across South Africa. Allegations of corruption and favouritism figure ...prominently in these demonstrations that often aim to remove local officials who are perceived not to have delivered on their electoral promises. Focusing on the relationship between patronage politics and local protests, this article analyses the 2011 unrest in Zandspruit informal settlement on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The protests were triggered by intra-African National Congress (ANC) rivalry and factionalism in the build-up to the local elections. Through an analysis of the political opportunities, framing processes, and mobilizing structures of the protests, the article depicts the ways in which patronage and collective action work together. By doing so, it reveals the agency "from below" of local elite and subaltern groups in defining the formation and mutual advancement of patron-client relations. The article thus shows how the close relationship between the ANC and the state at the local level gives rise to particular patron-client relations between low-income residents, the ANC, and the state. As a result, the state is not understood as a bureaucratic dispenser of public goods on the basis of rights but as a relational system of reciprocal dependence and obligation.
News coverage is fundamental to a protest’s viability, but research suggests media negatively portray protests and protesters that challenge the status quo (a pattern known as the protest paradigm). ...This study questions the validity of those claims within the context of digital newspaper coverage, interrogating how topic and region shape coverage. Using a content analysis of coverage from sixteen newspapers in various U.S. market types and regions, this research examines framing and sourcing features in articles about protests. Results suggest media coverage of protests centered on racial issues (discrimination of Indigenous people and anti-Black racism) follows more of a delegitimizing pattern than stories about protests related to immigrants’ rights, health, and environment. A model to understand news coverage of protest based on a hierarchy of social struggle is proposed.
The built environment is indispensable for conducting protests. However, we still know little about the role the built environment plays in either supporting or hindering protests. In this study, we ...investigated the relationship between built environment characteristics and the spatial distribution of 348 protests that occurred in Hong Kong from June 2019 to January 2020. We innovatively distinguished between peaceful and violent protests as well as legal and illegal (authorized vs. unauthorized) protests. Our study revealed several significant patterns. First, in general, areas with a higher level of building density, government and commerce point-of-interest (POI) density, metro accessibility, park density, and street greenery experienced more protesting activities. Second, illegal and violent protests, those which are less constrained by authorities and thus more likely to reflect the autonomous choices of the protestors, are more likely to occur in regions with more government and commercial buildings, high metro accessibility, and a high level of street greenery. Based on these findings, we also proposed a new framework to illustrate the relationship between certain built environment features and choice of protest locations, which we hope will provide preliminary guidance for future studies.
This article traces the transformation of the new left in Slovenia from a protest movement into the political force United Left/The Left during the anti-establishment protest wave against the ...conservative government of Janez Janša (2012-2013). Through a triangulation of the protest event dataset and qualitative analysis, this piece shows that the new left combined anti-austerity and pro-democratic messages with growing economic and political grievances early on in the cycle of protest and seised the political opportunities that emerged after the collapse of the traditional left-wing forces, thus paving the way for the successful electoral turn.
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