 Why Do People Join Backlash Protests? Lessons from TurkeyS. Erdem Aytaç, Luis Schiumerini and Susan Stokes Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2018, vol. 62, issue 6, 1205-1228 Abstract: When people learn that demonstrators are being subjected to harsh treatment by the police, sometimes their reaction is to join demonstrations. What explains the potentially mobilizing power of repression? Information-oriented theories posit that repression changes people’s beliefs about the likely success of the protests or the type of the government, thus encouraging them to join. Social–psychological theories posit that repression provokes a moral and emotional reaction from bystanders, and these emotional reactions are mobilizing. Our research offers a rare opportunity to test these theories, empirically, against one another. We offer experimental evidence from Turkey after the 2013 Gezi uprising. In this setting, emotional reactions appear to be the link between repression and backlash mobilization. Information-oriented theories of backlash mobilization may be less germane in democracies, in which people already have access to information about their governments, and in highly polarized polities, in which few people’s political affinities are up for grabs. Keywords: repression; backlash mobilization; emotions; social movements (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:62:y:2018:i:6:p:1205-1228 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International) |
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