**When do People Protest? – Using a Game Theoretic Framework to Shed Light on the Relationship Between Repression and Protest in Hybrid and Autocratic Regimes**

Daniel Stockemer

*School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, On, Canada* 

#### **1. Introduction**

What is the relationship between different levels of coercion and popular protest activity in hybrid and autocratic regimes?1 This is the question I want to address in this paper. An abundance of theoretical and empirical studies exists on whether state repression increases or decreases the incidence of domestic protest. However, findings have been mixed providing support for almost every possible relationship between protest and repression (e.g. Rasler 1996, Moore 1998, Carey 2006). The three dominant approaches are (1) the inverted Uhypothesis, (2) the backlash hypothesis, and (3) the non-linear hypothesis. The first perspective, the inverted U curve, argues that a shift toward lower levels of repression opens new opportunities for challengers to act collectively to demand their rights and to make claims against the state (Tarrow 1994). The second view, the so-called backlash hypothesis, is based on the opposite assumption contending that repression facilitates protest by nourishing a collective sense of defiance and intensifying organizational solidarity among diverse loosely connected movements (Meyer and Staggenborg 1996). A third array of studies claims that the relationship between coercion and protest might be more complex and more multi-dynamic than both the 'inverted-U' hypothesis and backlash assumption presume and advocate some sort of non-linear relationship (Kowalski and Hover 1992).

The three hypotheses have been tested in multiple settings and there is an abundance of empirical studies (e.g. Mason and Krane 1989, Opp and Ruehl 1990, Choi 1999) that support any of the three hypotheses. In this paper, I will show through a game-theoretic framework that these contradictory findings can and should be harmonized. Through a game of complete information I will reveal that both the hypothesis of an inverted U-shape and the backlash hypothesis result in equilibria with empirical referents.

<sup>1</sup> In this paper, I will discuss how protest can emerge under harsh and medium repression in a nondemocratic framework. All scholars that are cited in this paper, exclusively focus on hybrid regimes and non democracies. Under democracy, repression should be small to non-existent, which renders protest less conditional of the degree of repression in a country.

When do People Protest? – Using a Game Theoretic Framework to Shed Light

(this coercion consisted of killing protesters).

(Chong 1991: 116-125).

declines to normal levels (Tarrow 1983: 38-39).

on the Relationship Between Repression and Protest in Hybrid and Autocratic Regimes 207

Empirical examples of the backlash hypothesis are South Korea, Argentinia and the West Bank. In South Korea, during the famous Kwangju People's Uprising in 1980, paratroopers employed atrocious violence to break up the student demonstrations. This violence led to solidarity of fellow community members. In the end the entire citizenry united to resist the onslaught of the paratroopers against demonstrators and was able to rise up and fight off an elite force of three SWC brigades, which amounted to three-thousand Republic of Korea paratroopers (Choi, 1999). In Argentina tens of thousands of people were tortured, abducted, and murdered by their own government in the 1970s and 1980s. This cruelty spurred major protests; first by those that were directly affected by the junta's cruelty and human rights violations. Second these protests diffused in society, and let to a dramatic process of transformation from a "culture of fear" to a "culture of solidarity" which promoted the democratization of society (Brysk 1994). Finally, Khawaja (1993) and Francesco (1995) find evidence that protest spiked under extremely harsh repression during the 1980s and the 1990s in the West Bank. In particular, Francesco`s study of the first Intifada highlights that Palestinians continued to protest under extremely harsh conditions

Attempting to shed some lights on these opposite findings, scholars have tried to specify some circumstances under which either of the two hypotheses applies. Gurr and Lichbach (1986) purport that only consistent policies of state repression might decrease protest activity. In contrast, a mixture of increased repression and renewed concessions might have the opposite effect. Other scholars (e.g. Marwell and Olivier 1993 and Oberschall 1994) adhere to so called bandwagon models, critical threshold models, or models of critical mass to explain the interaction between dissidents' responses and government repression. These models describe a chain reaction in which small numbers of people trigger the participation of larger numbers of people over time, suggesting that once a certain, usually unspecified, threshold of number of participants is crossed, the costs of mobilizing a larger crowd decline. In such a scenario, more people are likely to join because they feel encouraged by the protesters' commitment and willingness to dissent. Because this mobilization puts enormous pressures on leaders to reduce dissent quickly, they are likely to adopt conciliatory policies. The result is more dissent because successful collective action sustains the involvement of old participants while convincing sideliners of the usefulness of protest

Other scholars (e.g. Tarrow 1989a, 1989b) attribute special importance toward the timing of repression within a protest cycle.2 The essential argument is this: when the concept of the protest cycle is wedded to state violence, harsh repression will only provoke further popular mobilization during the ascendant phase. In contrast, indiscriminate state oppression will deter popular collective action under normal conditions that is prior to the onset of a protest cycle. The same logic applies for the descendant phase of a protest cycle; harsh state violence

2 Protest cycles begin when the structure of opportunity turns more favorable, encouraging groups to act on long-standing grievances and or newly created ones. The activity of these early mobilizers then encourages other groups or movements to activate as well. As a result, conflict diffuses throughout society at higher than normal levels of frequency and intensity. This activity builds peaks and then

The chapter will adopt the following structure. Section two will review the literature on protest and coercion by presenting the competing hypothesis; (1) the inverted Urelationship, (2) the backlash relationship, and (3) the non-linear hypotheses. Section three will present and explain the game of complete information. This part of the paper will also present and discuss the different equilibria and assign them to either the backlash theory or the hypothesis of an inverted U-curve. Finally section four will summarize the main findings of this paper and will provide some avenues for future research.
