Why Women Take to the Streets of Minsk
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Why Women Take to the Streets of Minsk An Interview Study of Female Protesters’ Motivations Mathilda Gustafsson Bachelor’s thesis, 15 credits December 2020 Political Science C Department of Government Supervisor: Katrin Uba Word count: 13840 Pages: 38 Abstract While there are numerous examples of research investigating who would protest and why, the research fields of social movements and political participation have not done enough to understand the motivations of women in protest. Nor are there enough studies of the mobilisation of women in anti-regime protest in a post-communist context. This thesis investigates what motivates women in non-democratic settings to participate in protest, despite the elevated costs and risks given the context. It examines Belarus, a protest movement where women have taken on a prevalent role in the protest movement of 2020. The research design is a within-case study using the method of in-depth interviews. I conduct interviews with ten Belarusian female protesters who are found primarily via a snowball sampling technique. The transcribed interviews are analysed using a framework of collective and selective incentives. The study finds that discontent with the government and belief in the movement’s success are significant motivations, while there is not belief that their own participation will enhance the likelihood of success. Results also show that respondents were motivated by the violence used against protesters, a newfound sense of community between Belarusians, solidarity with protesters, the peaceful repertoires in the movement and group belongingness with other women. Taken together, these results deepen our understanding of protests as motivations in themselves and of motivation as a resource, but foremost of why women protest. The results might incentivise more research to be made on women’s role in protest and motivations to join social movements. Keywords: authoritarian regime, Belarus, collective incentives, motivations, political participation, protest, selective incentives, social movement, women. i Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible had it not been for the participation of the ten female Belarusian protesters, who took the time to explain their thoughts and views in the interviews conducted. Neither would it have been possible without the kind people helping me find respondents to talk to; which is why I want to thank Alesia Rudnik, Belarusian political analyst at Karlstad University; as well as the anonymous people whom I approached through social media and who, while not wanting to talk themselves, found people around them who would. Finally, I want to thank my supervisor, Katrin Uba, for guiding me in the writing of this thesis. ii Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... ii 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Purpose & Aim ............................................................................................................................................. 2 2 Background & Context ....................................................................................................... 4 3 Theory & Previous Research .............................................................................................. 6 3.1 Social Movement & Political Participation Theories ................................................................................... 6 3.2 Previous Research on Protest in an Authoritarian Setting ............................................................................ 9 3.3 Previous Research on Women in Protest Movements ................................................................................ 10 4 Research Design & Method .............................................................................................. 14 4.1 Research Design.......................................................................................................................................... 14 4.2 Ethical Principles ........................................................................................................................................ 15 4.3 Sample Selection ......................................................................................................................................... 15 4.4 Method & Material ..................................................................................................................................... 17 4.5 Analytical Framework ................................................................................................................................ 17 5 Results & Analysis ........................................................................................................... 20 5.1 Collective Incentives ................................................................................................................................... 20 5.2 Selective incentives ..................................................................................................................................... 24 6 Discussion of the Results .................................................................................................. 30 7 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 34 8 References ........................................................................................................................ 35 9 Appendix .......................................................................................................................... 39 9.1 Interviewees ................................................................................................................................................ 39 9.2 Interview Guide .......................................................................................................................................... 39 iii “A woman not only made it to the election, but she won it, and it empowered all the women in this country. And we became drivers of this protest, and we became the drivers of change in our country.” 29-year-old woman from Minsk, Belarus 1 Introduction In the aftermath of the 2006 Belarus elections came a wave of protests, following the pattern of the Colour Revolutions in neighbouring post-communist countries. Thousands of people took to the streets of the capital Minsk, in the country often referred to as ‘the last dictatorship of Europe’. Five days after the protest was initiated, it was countered by police. Finally, the protesters had to recognise themselves as defeated. In the wake of these events the Belarusian government, led by Alexander Lukashenko, took stronger measures against political opposition while also fighting the influence of independent media (Markus, 2010). Nevertheless, following yet another loss for the opposition in the 2020 presidential election, allegedly because of election fraud, the Belarusian people rose again. White and red flags were once more waved in protest marches. Women were in the forefront, dressed in white, they occupied the Lenin square in Minsk holding flowers while pleading to the riot police to end their brutal violence against protesters. This time, it would seem, the Belarusians were not going to be defeated so easily. Their endurance as well as their strategies have changed. But what lies behind this change: why is this time different from the last and why are women now in the forefront of the regime-opposing movement? While we do have general knowledge on who would protest; the research field has not done enough to understand the mobilisation of women in anti-regime protest in 1 authoritarian states. Furthermore, I would argue that it is crucial to understand not only the group-level of protest participation, but also the individual level. As studies on the individual level have primarily been conducted through investigating voting behaviour, these cannot be generalised to concern motivations of people protesting in non- democratic settings. To fully understand why women in Belarus have found the motivation to stand up against the oppression of the regime, we must research their protest behaviour on the micro-level by asking for their incentives. Social movement and political participation research have often asked questions about why some participate while others do not (see e.g. Verba, Nie & Kim, 1972; Verba, Schlozman & Brady, 1995; Norris, 2002). This research on political participation has focused primarily on why people participate in elections within a democratic setting. Theories that should not be expected to be applicable to an authoritarian context, having been developed in a setting so different. Neither should theories, generated from the understanding of political participation in elections, be expected to explain protest participation in relation to non-democratic elections. Other questions frequently asked regard which groups are expected to protest and why (see e.g. Gurr, 1970; Gamson, 1975; Tarrow, 1989). Without taking into account that separate individuals make up a group, methods used to understand social movements have commonly been qualitative (e.g. Murdie & Peksen, 2014). While these scholars have