Mobilization, Repression, and Revolution: Grievances and Opportunities in Contentious Politics
Posted: 2 Jun 2012 Last revised: 3 Jun 2012
Date Written: June 1, 2012
Abstract
We develop a framework to study the interactions between dissidents and the state that reconciles between political process and grievance-based theories of protests, and provides insights into interpreting the conflicting empirical studies that sometimes support one theory and sometimes the other. We show that contrary to the theoretical predictions of the literature, the relationship between the magnitude of grievances (e.g., the level of income inequality or economic hardship) and the likelihood of repression is non-monotone, and under mild assumptions is U-shaped. That is, as the magnitude of grievances increases from low to high, the likelihood repression first decreases and then increases. Indeed, the data suggest a non-monotone, U-shape relationship between the level of repression and income inequality. We also discuss the implications for the empirical studies of repression.
Keywords: Mobilization, Protest, Social Movement, Repression, Revolution, Political Process Theories, Grievance-based Theories, Political Opportunities, Resource Mobilization, Democratization
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