Street-level Repression: Protest, Policing, and Dissent in Uganda

Abstract

<jats:p> In many countries, police are both guardians of public safety and the primary instruments of state repression. Used to quell dissent, excessive police action can drive further collective action, leading to a repression-dissent nexus. Yet does repression spur dissent for all, or only for those already dissenting? We theorize repression by police causes political backlash, decreasing support for police and increasing political dissent. We argue these effects are conditioned by individuals’ proximity to the repressive act and support for the ruling party. Using a nationally representative survey experiment of 1,920 Ugandans, we find robust evidence for political backlash effects of repression across all demographics, regardless of proximity to the event. By examining the politics of policing, we show excessive police violence triggers political backlash, decreasing general support for the security apparatus and increasing willingness to publicly dissent for some populations. </jats:p>

Police Repression and Protest Behavior: Evidence from Student Protests in Chile

“…Our main contribution is to provide evidence of the impact of police repression on protest decisions using individual-level administrative data. Previous research has studied the impact of police and state repression on dissident behavior using laboratory evidence, online surveys, and aggregate data (García-Ponce and Pasquale, 2015;Lawrence, 2017;Aytac et al, 2018;Young, 2019b;Rozenas and Zhukov, 2019;Curtice and Behlendorf, 2020;Bautista et al, 2020a). 3 There are two novelties in our analysis.…”

Can Community Policing Improve Police-Community Relations in a Low-Income Country Setting?

“…While the NRM undoubtedly enjoys pockets of popular support, to retain power it resorts to manipulation of state resources, intimidation by security forces, and politicized prosecutions of opposition leaders. The UPF thus serves a dual purpose (Curtice and Berhlendorf 2020): on the one hand, like any police force, it is responsible for protecting the life and property of Ugandan citizens, and for maintaining security and enforcing the laws (The Police Act 1994, Article 4). On the other hand, it has also been tasked with quelling dissent and intimidating the political opposition-especially during election periods-in the service of Museveni and the NRM (Kagoro 2015).…”

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Protest policing and public perceptions of police: Evidence from a natural experiment in Germany

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