State Repression, Nonviolence, and Protest Mobilization Alexei I. Anisin a Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosop

State repression, nonviolence, and protest mobilization Alexei I. Anisin A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Government University of Essex November 2015 Abstract of dissertation This four article journal-based dissertation builds on Gene Sharp's framework of nonviolent direct action, along with Hess and Martin's repression backfire, in order to deepen our understanding of how state repression impacts protest mobilization and historical processes of social change. After initially problematizing Gene Sharp’s notions of power and consent with aid of political discourse theory, and two case studies of the 1905 Russian Bloody Sunday Massacre and the South African 1976 Soweto Massacre, the dissertation moves onto specifically explain the conditions under which protest mobilization is likely to continue after severe state repression. A causal process model underpins the logic of the dissertation. It identifies generalizable antecedent factors and conditions under which repression backfire is most likely to occur. Numerous mechanisms are also introduced that help explain the operation of this process across different historical eras and political systems. After applying this process model and its mechanisms to the 2013 Turkish Gezi protests, a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 44 different historical massacres is presented in which repression backfired and increased protest in some cases, but not others. Repression backfire is a highly asymmetrical and nonlinear causal phenomenon. I conclude that nonviolent protest strategy has been a salient factor in historical cases of repression backfire and is also vital for the ability of protests to withstand state repression. However, the role of nonviolence is partial and to some degree inadequate in explaining repression backfire if it is not linked to other general factors which include protest diversity, protest threat level, and geographic terrain. Table of contents Introductory section p. 2 The Russian Bloody Sunday Massacre of 1905: A Discursive Account of Nonviolent Transformation p. 80 Repression and Identity Under Apartheid: the 1976 Soweto Massacre p. 122 Repression, Spontaneity, and Collective Action: the 2013 Turkish Gezi protests p. 164 The Repression-mobilization Puzzle: a Configurational Analysis of Political Massacres p. 203 Appendix p. 248 Conclusion p. 298 Acknowledgements Writing a doctoral dissertation is a task that once appeared to be office-based, sedentary and laborious. However, after my first year of conducting research in the Department of Government at the University of Essex, I realized that the years ahead would be full of excitement and a wide encompassing intellectual journey. The intellectual journey, I realized, would not be limited to the time spent writing draft papers or crafting bibliographies. Rather, this journey turned out to be one that included teaching, debating with colleagues, getting advice and critique from Professors, taking complex analytical training seminars, and going on long trips across Europe and the Atlantic to present research at international conferences. Throughout this journey, I received a great amount of advice from my supervisors, Professor Ward and Professor Howarth, both of whom I would like to thank for their consistent feedback and bold recommendations. I am grateful for the acceptance of two of the four papers of this dissertation for publication at academic journals. Above all, I am thankful for the personal and professional development that I gained during my time at Essex. 1 Introductory section The central topic of this dissertation intersects between three main themes, those of state repression, nonviolence, and protest mobilization. Protest movements have repeatedly brought about transformative events in an array of social contexts over the last two centuries. Since the rise of the nation state, there have been an immense number of political conflicts that have manifested in the public act of a protest group attempting to obtain non-institutional reform and concessions from a government. While there is great variance in regards to the types of protests that have taken place over the last decades not to mention centuries, scholars would find themselves in a tough position to disagree that nonviolent protests have brought about powerful effects across different political, economic, and historical contexts. There is something extraordinary about nonviolent protest and the dynamics of nonviolence have led many to investigate the phenomenon both normatively and positively. Mahatma Gandhi was a pioneer activist of nonviolent direct action and he once said that, “Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man” (Sharma 2007, 23). Nonviolence is actively used and is present throughout daily life, but what turned my attention to the subject matter of nonviolence was an event that took place in November of 2011 at the University of California Davis Campus. Just a few short days before media attention was cast upon the Occupy Wall Street movement and its protest tactics at Zuccotti Park in New York City, there was a smaller-scale protest that occurred in response to ongoing tuition hikes in the University of California higher education system. Davis, California, a small town just south of the state capital of Sacramento was not the prime arena of interaction as New York City, yet a very compelling event occurred when students and other young members of the Occupy U.C. 2 Davis movement occupied the university campus in the middle of the day. University police were sent in to attempt to dismember the occupation which numbered in the thousands. Hundreds of more bystanders were standing in close proximity with their mobile phones out recording the interaction. The students chanted at the police, voicing their student-loan grievances in a highly enthusiastic manner. After about fifteen minutes of chants from the students, police began to threaten to arrest all who stood in their way. Then, strategically, a row of students lined up on their knees on the grass in order to block the police’s access to another portion of the meadow. A policeman took out his pepper spray canister and began to spray an orange infused toxin into the eyes of the kneeling students. Screams were heard throughout as dozens with hand-held cameras recorded the incident. The students were hospitalized afterwards and the incident went viral through domestic and international media as well as on globally accessed internet media channels. Just days later, the central organization of Occupy Wall Street in New York City drew the greatest attention that it had up until that point in time. A mass nonviolent occupational force was now emergent. I wrote a Master of Arts dissertation on the U.C. Davis incident but the event itself was just the beginning of a research endeavor that led me on an investigative and theoretical journey having to do with the topics of nonviolence and state repression. What turned out to be striking about the U.C. Davis incident was that there have been countless of other cases involving nonviolent protests that also were repressed and transformative social change also ensued afterwards. Generally, there are many theoretical angles one can take when analyzing how nonviolent protests emerge, act, and fail. There is also a wide array of theoretical positions that can be adopted to investigate the effect that state repression has on mobilization of both nonviolent and violent sorts. The specific phenomenon under attention in this dissertation 3 involves state repression getting inflicted upon nonviolent protesters and social movements. To the best of my knowledge, there is no single unified theoretical framework that can adequately explain why state repression has backfired throughout different historical, political, and economic contexts. What enables protesters to keep mobilizing and dissenting after being severely repressed by a governmental authority? Throughout this dissertation I will first develop and then account for the relationship between nonviolent protest mobilization and state repression. The contributions of this dissertation can be summarized by three major themes or points. First, I demonstrate that the most cited and wide encompassing framework on nonviolent direct action (Gene Sharp’s work on nonviolence), is deterministic in its nature. This is accomplished through the first two papers and case studies of this dissertation, 1905 Russia and 1976 South Africa. Specifically, Gene Sharp’s seminal work on nonviolent direct action (1973a; 1973b; 1973c; 1980; Sharp and Paulson 2005), contains what I explain to be a major problem of homogeneity. Sharp homogenizes what are referred to as citizen consent, the loci of power (political power), and ideology. With aid of political discourse theory, also known as Ideology and Discourse Analysis (IDA), this dissertation demonstrates that consent is qualitative, and the phenomenon of political jiu-jitsu is more contingent than previously assumed. In other words, when nonviolent protesters suffer from repression, Sharp’s framework of political jiu-jitsu fails to explain why some of the most historically salient cases of repression led to transformative historical change and political revolution, and on the other hand, why other cases failed to result in backfire and jiu-jitsu. Second, after addressing the problems inherent to Sharp’s framework,

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