From armed-building occupations to fisticuffs between protesters and police at otherwise peaceful demonstrations, protest violence is an essential part of the politics of protest. In this article, I argue that state capacity is central to understanding why some protests are violent. In particular, this article explores two facets of state capacity—coercive capacity and state authority—arguing that where the state is treated as a relevant authority, the likelihood that protesters will employ violent tactics decreases. Using original data on Mexican protest events, I demonstrate that higher levels of state authority reduce violent protest but that increased coercive capacity, especially where state authority is weak, is associated with a greater likelihood of protest violence. This article contributes to our understanding of the influence of state capacity on protest violence and suggests that attentiveness to subnational variations in state capacity can help us better understand the violence.

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While protests occurring in nationally democratic contexts rarely represent fundamental threats to the central state, they still need management when and where they occur. Thus, this paper suggests that, especially in federal countries, to explain the repression of protest, we must examine subnational politics. Subnational political elites, often tasked with protest management, can engage protesters and call for police restraint, but their capacity and authority affect their ability to carry out these tasks. The paper tests the theory using original event-level data on Mexican protests and responses and leverages within-country variations in democracy and state capacity. The paper shows that where subnational governments have bureaucratic capacity and where citizen linkages to the state cause them to see state agents as relevant, problem-solving authorities, protest events are less likely to be managed using a repressive response. In addition, the paper highlights a key difference between explanations of overall human rights violations and repressive responses to protest, namely, that electoral competition is not a significant factor reducing the likelihood of repressive responses to protest.

This article introduces a “methods lab” approach to teaching undergraduates about different types of research in political science. In this approach, students are given explicit instruction on what a specific research method entails and the opportunity to practice it before conducting their own research. Methods labs can help students craft more creative research designs as well as understand the strengths and potential pitfalls associated with each method, making the subsequent process of writing a research paper or thesis easier. We provide two sample methods labs focused on conducting archival research and developing survey and interview questions. We discuss our experiences in implementing the labs in a thesis course, describe how the modular lab approach could fit into multiple types of courses, and offer suggestions for those interested in developing labs for other types of research methods.

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