Repression, Micromobilization, and Political Protest

Opp, Karl‐Dieter; Roehl, Wolfgang

doi:10.2307/2579672

Cited by 195 publications

(137 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…While research on the effects of repression shows disparate results, regarding, for example, its radicalizing or mobilizing effect (Opp & Roehl, 1990), this case illustrates its definite demobilizing effect when a cycle of contention is analysed from start to finish. However, throughout the cycle one sees that the introduction of one form of legal repression (targeted criminalization via SOCPA) decreased overall protest activity against HLS, while research (Donovan & Coupe, 2013;Mills, 2012) has shown a parallel increase in the severity of clandestine, unlawful actions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Judicial opportunities and the death of SHAC: legal repression along a cycle of contention

Ellefsen

2016

Social Movement Studies

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Judicial opportunities and the death of SHAC: legal repression along a cycle of contentionRune Ellefsen department of criminology and Sociology of law, university of oslo, oslo, norway ABSTRACT Focusing on the British animal rights campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences, this article investigates how changing judicial opportunities effectively cause the demobilization of a social movement campaign, explaining the central role of law and criminal justice in movement repression. The study identifies four forms of legal repression arising in response to the UK organization Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty: eliteinitiated protest control, targeted criminalization, leadership decapitation and extended incapacitation. The analysis demonstrates the need to widen repression research beyond the policing of protest events, to cover how social movement activists are controlled after arrest. It concludes by arguing for the inclusion of a stage-dimension in repression research to better grasp the crucial role of private elites in the initiation of repression. The study builds on qualitative data from Britain, obtained by participant observation, trial observation and interviews, covering both protestors and their adversaries.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Judicial opportunities and the death of SHAC: legal repression along a cycle of contention

Ellefsen

2016

Social Movement Studies

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“…The former branch often examines how repression affects mobilization levels as well as subsequent social movement strategies and tactics (e.g. Opp & Roehl, 1990;Moore, 1998). The latter line of research shifts focus away from the effects of repression, instead considering forms of suppression and/or how states respond to dissent (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Limiting Dissent: The Mechanisms of State Repression in the USA

Boykoff

2007

Social Movement Studies

110

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Despite longstanding traditions of tolerance, inclusion, and democracy in the USA, dissident citizens and social movements have experienced significant and sustained -although often subtle and difficult-to-observe -repression. Using mechanism-based social movement theory, I explore a range of twentieth-century episodes of contention, involving such groups as mid-century communists, the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the modern-day Global Justice Movement. Cracking open the black box of state repression, I demonstrate how four interactive social mechanisms -Resource Depletion, Stigmatization, Divisive Disruption, and Intimidation -animate state repression. A fifth mechanism -Emulation -diffuses the effects of these four Mechanisms of Repression. First I delineate a typology of state actions that suppress dissent. Then I shift analytically from these ten actions to the Mechanisms of Repression, explaining how these mechanisms work. Drawing on scholarship from an array of fields, and pulling data from a variety of sources, I explain how the state has engaged in activity that -operating through social mechanisms -inhibits collective action, either through raising the costs or minimizing the benefits of mobilization.

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“…Francisco 1996;White 1989) dissidence. Opp and Roehl (1990) and Rasler (1996) have argued that such inconsistent results can be explained by recognizing that repression imposes direct short-term costs, while also providing a basisthrough "micromobilization processes" that unfold over time-for longer-term indirect support for opposition efforts. Other analysts (e.g.…”

Section: The Repression-mobilization Nexusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ambivalence and Control: State Action Against the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan

Cunningham

2009

Qual Sociol

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Models that purport to explain the interplay between dissidents and the state generally assert, either explicitly or implicitly, that the path from state interests to action to outcomes is a linear one. Using the case of the United Klans of America (UKA) in North Carolina, I argue that state efforts to exert social control upon a perceived threat are shaped by a range of internal and external contingencies. In particular, I undertake a comparative analysis of two state agencies to demonstrate how a particular mechanism-ambivalence, here conceptualized as the relational consequence of a mismatch between organizational culture and organizational goals-leads to distinct, and sometimes heterogeneous, actions and outcomes not directly traceable to organizational mandates. Findings lend insight into how endogenous organizational processes shape contentious political outcomes in potentially divergent ways.

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Repression, Micromobilization, and Political Protest

Cited by 195 publications

References 10 publications

Judicial opportunities and the death of SHAC: legal repression along a cycle of contention

Judicial opportunities and the death of SHAC: legal repression along a cycle of contention

Limiting Dissent: The Mechanisms of State Repression in the USA

Ambivalence and Control: State Action Against the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan

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