Abstract
Chapter 4 explores in more detail the organization of protest and the various forms of mobilization during regime change. The results in this chapter suggest a key role for spontaneous protest. In Korea and Indonesia, the emergence of spontaneous protest, which is being spurned and supported by more organized protest and vice versa, occurs early in the democratization process and constitutes the bulk of total protest when it escalates shortly before regime change. It is this type of spontaneous protest that is closely associated with radicalization in protest forms: we found spontaneously organized protesters to be more likely to use confrontational and violent actions than more organized protesters. These radical forms of protest were widespread in democratizing Korea and Indonesia, and rather rare during the Thai transition. However, the most used strategy in all three democratizing countries was a more moderate form of protest, i.e., demonstrations. This form allows for broad participation of the masses.
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Notes
- 1.
See Hewison and Rodan (1996, p. 41), who suggest that some formal or informal acceptance on the part of the power holders is necessary for autonomous organization to exist under authoritarian rule.
- 2.
On the different types of resources, see also Edwards and McCarthy (2004).
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
See, e.g., Koopmans (1998, p. 267).
- 6.
The distinction is made in major research projects in the field of protest event analysis, such as “New Social Movements in Western Europe (NSM)” by Kriesi et al. (1998), “The Transformation of Political Mobilization and Communication in European Public Spheres (Europub.com)” by Koopmans (2007), and “National Political Change in a Globalizing World (NPW)” by Kriesi et al. (2008, 2012).
- 7.
A common feature of all authoritarian regimes is that they “cannot and do not tolerate independent organizations” (Przeworski 1992, p. 107). Independent organizations, where they exist, are either incorporated under the centralized control or repressed (ibid.). Thus, under authoritarian rule, capacity for organization, which is needed for large-scale protest, is severely restricted.
- 8.
See Sect. 4.2.1. on how organized and “non-organized” actors are defined and operationalized.
- 9.
Various forms of extremism, terrorism, and violence were considered in the coding scheme. Ethno-nationalist and separatist groups were the most important among extremist actors in Thailand and Indonesia. A general category of extremists captured all actors that could not clearly be classified into the sub-categories. In Indonesia, where the number of extremists engaging in contention was highest, another important type of actor was religious extremists. This type of actor did not exist or were not active in Korea and Thailand. The same is true with conservative, vigilant groups, such as paramilitary groups. They were most active in Indonesia. In Korea, however, militant nationalist or racist actors mobilized at some moments. Less than a handful of acts were committed by militant socialist or communist actors in Korea and Thailand, respectively.
- 10.
Among influential individuals we find experts, i.e., intellectuals and academics, as analyzed in Chapter 6 of this study. Well-known artists or government critics also fall into this category of actors. Other influential individuals can be found in political circles. Individual politicians with no clear affiliation and no formal office are also counted as influential individuals. The distinctive trait of this category of actors is that they are known to a broad public (even before they engage in protest). The motivation for and the effect of their political actions need to be understood in light of the position these actors hold within society.
- 11.
In the latter case, protests would be counted as two different events that are not part of a campaign.
- 12.
See Koopmans (1993, p. 640).
- 13.
The coding schemes of the following research projects served as a reference in the construction of the dataset: “New Social Movements in Western Europe (NSM)” by Kriesi et al. (1998), “The Transformation of Political Mobilization and Communication in European Public Spheres (Europub.com)” by Koopmans (2007), and “National Political Change in a Globalizing World (NPW)” by Kriesi et al. (2008, 2012).
- 14.
The correlation coefficient Cramer’s V ranging from 0 to 1, with 1 indicating perfect association, suggests that the correlation between some organization and cooperation measures shown in the rows of Table 4.2 and the country variable (shown in the columns) is very low, i.e., below 0.10. The correlation between the coalition variable and the country variable is not even significant (with a p-value of over 0.1). The correlation coefficient for the other three variables is significant at the 0.001 level, which is indicated by the three asterisks in the table notes.
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Maduz, L. (2020). Where Does the Power of the People Lie? Organization and Forms of Protest During Regime Change. In: Contention and Regime Change in Asia. Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49220-5_4
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