SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET Explaining the Repression of Non- Violent Protests in South American Democracies Beatriz Sannuti de Carvalho S1255827 Master Thesis 2014 i Leiden University Faculty of Social And Behavioural Sciences Institute of Political Science Master of Science in International Relations and Diplomacy Beatriz Sannuti de Carvalho Master Thesis Skeletons in the closet ~ Explaining the Repression of Non-violent Social Protests in South American Democracies First reader: Prof. Dr. Rebekah Tromble (Leiden University) Second reader: Prof. Dr. Oda van Cranenburgh (Leiden University) Leiden, 27 August 2014 ii Acknowledgements I am very grateful to Prof. Dr. Rebekah Tromble who kindly accepted being my supervisor and whose advice, corrections, kindness towards me when I was facing difficulties and valuable inputs and support were essential for this thesis. I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Oda van Cranenburgh for being kind to serve as the second reader for this thesis and Prof. Frank de Zwart for his support. I must also thank my friends, classmates and the professors of the Master of Sciences in International Relations & Diplomacy for enriching my time in Leiden University and for their support and friendship, which I hold dearly to my heart. I specially would like to thank four of these incredible people: Bas, Bob, Sus and Jana, knowing I could count on you has been the most precious gift I could have ever received from Leiden and I hope I can repay your kindness and friendship one day. Those who have friends indeed have everything. My gratitude must also go to my brothers Vicente and Vinicius and to my boyfriend Rafael for making themselves present even with an Ocean between us, for their patience, understanding in challenging times and for being my rock. I love you and could not have done it without you. Finally, my utmost gratitude goes to my parents Rosa Maria and Paulo Cesar, for making it all possible and for always being the hands that push me forward. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abreviations………………………….…………………………………………….….v List of Tables & Figures…………………………………………………………………..….vi I. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................01 FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS II. EXPLAINING THE REPRESSION OF NON- VIOLENT PROTESTS...………….…...06 III. RESEARCH DESIGN ......................................................................................................14 i. Case selection…….. .................................................................................................14 ii. Methodology……. ..................................................................................................14 a. Concept Definition….…………………………………………………..15 iii. Operationalization………... ...................................................................................18 a. Dependent Variable......................................................................................18 b. Independent Variables..................................................................................21 c. Limitations of the Data.................................................................................28 ANALYSIS IV. CASE STUDIES ...............................................................................................................31 i. Contextual Factor………….....................................................................................31 a. Brazil………………………….. ..................................................................31 b. Chile………………………………………………………………………..44 c. Uruguay…...…………………………………………………………..……55 V. ANALYSIS OF HYPOTHESES.........................................................................................66 i. H1: ‘Level of Threat’ and ‘Level of Repression’......................................................67 ii H2: ‘Elite Continuity’ and ‘Level of Repression’…………………………………71 iii H3: ‘Existence of a militarized police/ Lack of accountability’ and ‘ Level of Repression’…………………………………………………………………………...74 VI. FINAL REMARKS ...........................................................................................................79 VII. REFERENCES.................................................................................................................84 APPENDIX A: SPSS OUTPUT…............................................................................................II APPENDIX B: DATA COMPILATION……………………………….……….…...……....V iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AI- Atos Institucionais (Institutional Acts in the translation to English) ICCPR- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights NGO- Non Governmental Organization MCP- Military-coercion perspective MPL- Movimento Passe Livre PM- Policia Militar (Militarized police in the translation to English) PTS- Political Terror Scale UDHR- Universal Declaration on Human Rights UN- United Nations UP- Unidad Popular (Popular Unity in the translation to English) v LIST OF TABLES & FIGURES Table i: Operationalization of ‘Level of Repression’ used against non-violent protests…… 18 Table ii: Operationalization of the scale for overall ‘Level of Repression’ for each country. 20 Table iii: Operationalization of ‘Level of Threat’…………………………………………... 23 Table iv: Protests by type of claim- Brazil………………………………………………….. 40 Table v: ‘Level of Represion’ of protests- Brazil…………………………………………… 41 Table vi: SPSS Crosstabulation for Brazil (Brazil_LevelofThreat * Brazil_LevelofRepression Crosstabulation)…………………………………………………………………………….. 43 Table vii: Protests by type of claim- Chile…………………………………………………...52 Table viii: ‘Level of Repression’ of protests- Chile………………………………………….53 Table ix: SPSS Crosstabulation for Chile (Chile_LevelofThreat * Chile_LevelofRepression Crosstabulation)……………………………………………………………………………...54 Table x: Protests by type of claim- Uruguay…………………………………………………62 Table xi: ‘Level of Repression’ of protests- Uruguay………………………………………..63 Table xii: SPSS Crosstabulation for Uruguay (Uruguay_LevelofThreat * Uruguay_LevelofRepression Crosstabulation)………………………………………………64 Table xiii: ‘Level of Repression’ per year and country………………………………………67 Table xiv: ‘No Repression’ of protests and ‘Level of Threat’……………….………………67 Table xv: ‘Mild Repression’ of protests and ‘Level of Threat’………….…………………..68 Table xvi: ‘Significant Repression’ of protests and ‘Level of Threat’..……………………...68 vi Table xvii: SPSS Crosstabulation for all three countries (LevelofThreat_all3countries * LevelofRepression_all3countries Crosstabulation)…………………………………………..69 Table xviii: SPSS correlation between ‘Level of Threat’ and ‘Level of Repression’………..69 Table xix: Summary of ‘Elite Continuity score and overall ‘Level of Represision’………...71 Table xx: Summary of ‘Existence of a Militarized Police/ Lack of Accountability score and overall ‘Level of Represision’………………………………………….…………………….74 Figure i: Freedom Score- Brazil (2001-2013)………………………………………………..39 Figure ii: Freedom Score- Chile (2001-2013)………………………………………………..51 Figure iii: Freedom Score- Uruguay (2001-2013)…………………………………………...61 vii I. INTRODUCTION State response to non- violent demonstration has not been uniform across geography and time. This thesis explores the existing puzzle around the different state responses to protests in Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. The field of social sciences that investigates the relationship between the type of regime in a state and repression against its citizens is vast. Although the repression of non- violent protests by democracies has received substantial scholarly attention, there are still many areas that demand further development in the academic literature. The debate around why democracies and authoritarian regimes are expected to respond to non-violent protests in a certain way is one of the richest political sciences topics around. There is a general argument that suggests that a democracy will refrain from repressing its own own citizens, since by repressing freedoms and rights the elected politicians hinder their chances of reelection and necessary public support. Furthermore, democracies are expected to have a political apparatus that allow them to peacefully handle non-violent protests. On the other hand, autocracies are broadly expected to be less preoccupied with maintaining public support by protecting the aforementioned rights and freedoms, as politicians do not experience the same incentives as in a democracy. These kind of regimes seek citizen compliance bt spreading fear and are more likely to, as this standard argument suggests, promptly repress any social movement that would represent a threat to their power. In addition to examining why regime types differ in their approaches to dealing with non- violent protest, another field of literature seeks to explain why different democracies might react differently to social protests based on the calculations of costs. Such current scholarship would lead us to believe that countries with similar political systems, histories, structures and challenges would react in a similar way to non-violent protests. Nevertheless, 1 that is not what is observed with the cases of Chile, Brazil and Uruguay. Although having similar political histories and possessing other similarities—such as being former dictatorships in Latin American that now have presidential systems—these three countries present different responses to non-violent social protests. For an example, from January 2011 to December 2013, Brazil responded with significant repression to almost 20% of non-violent demonstrations, while Chile significantly