Kitabı oku: «Urban Protest», sayfa 4
Containment and Kettling
Some of the literature on the policing of protest is particularly concerned with the strategic aspects that space provides, both for protesters and police (e.g. Whelan and Molnar 2018, 123–153; Noakes and Gillham 2006; McCarthy and McPhail 2006). Gillham, Edwards, and Noakes (2013), for example, have analysed the mass contentious actions during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests (OWS) in New York City, and argue that OWS created a transition to a new form of police ROC, marked by a decrease in persuasive and increase in coercive strategies. During the contestations over public space in New York (notably over Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan), the authors argue, the police started using ‘strategic incapacitation’. This is a multi-method approach to the policing of protest, which includes informative strategies to survey and infiltrate the movement beforehand and the creation of zones in which different groups are contained and kept apart from each other (e.g. different protest and no-protest zones; zones for the media; and a separate zone for the financial elite).
A more confrontational form of containing people that should be mentioned specifically is ittling. The British sociologist Hilary Pilkington defines ittling as
[…] a police strategy of surrounding demonstrators at a protest in order to contain them in a particular place. The police argue it is necessary as a preventative measure to avoid violence or disorder during demonstrations, […] protest groups have argued that it is deployed to deliberately frustrate demonstrators or as a means of ascertaining personal details and photographs of protestors. (Pilkington, 2012)
Kettling should thus be defined as a coercive strategy that could be used to suppress demonstrations with physical force, escalate the conflict (by bringing the “kettle” to a boil), and/or arrest a maximum number of demonstrators.
The police’s ability to carry out such containment and/or ‘kettling’ is to a large extent affected by the urban space. See, for example, the difficulties Ukrainian police had in containing Maidan in 2014 (Hansen 2015, 36), or how easy it was for the Russian police to kettle the March of Millions gathered on Swamp Square in 2012 (chapter 9).
3.1.2 Nonviolent Contention
Thus far, the topic of this chapter has been two general approaches to understanding a broad spectrum of activities defined as social movements and protests, as well as their counteractivities. The next two subsections examine research literature aiming to identify more specific conditions and factors that determine whether or not protests occur and what makes them successful. The topic of this subsection is literature on nonviolent contentious actions, whilst the topic of the next is works about what are usually called colour revolutions (3.1.3), including the Western, Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian perspectives on the phenomenon. Despite their nonviolent methods, the colour revolutions are kept as a separate category from nonviolent contention. This is because colour revolutions are perceived by some scholars and governments as covert warfare, and as a deliberate pretext to violence (see 3.1.3, below).
In research literature on nonviolent resistance and social movements, one of the earliest attempts to provide a systematic overview and analysis of nonviolent was the US political scientist Gene Sharp’s frequently cited 1973 book The Politics of Nonviolent Action. The three-volume book provides the reader with a theory of political power (vol. 1); descriptions of 198 methods of nonviolent protest and persuasion (such as ‘fraternising’ and ‘student strike’) (vol. 2); and a practical guide for developing, employing, and defending nonviolent campaigns (vol. 3). (Sharp 1973). Sharp’s three volumes have formed the basis of many theories of contentious action. For instance, Ackerman and Kruegler (1994) condensed Sharp’s 198 methods into 12 principles of strategic nonviolent action. More recently, the key player behind the Resistance! (Scb.: ‘Otpor!’) student movement in Serbia (1998–2000), Srdja Popovic, together with Andrej Milivojevic and Slobodan Djinovic—two other prominent members of the opposition to Slobodan Milošević—published the book Nonviolent Struggle: 50 Crucial Points (2006), based on Sharp’s 1973 work.
Popovic, Milivojevic and Djinovic (2006) is a practical step-by-step guide for protesters, divided into three parts: “Before You Start”, “Starting Out”, and “Running the Nonviolent Campaign.” Presented as an easy-to-read and richly illustrated textbook, it provides potential protest organisers with practical exercises, suggestions, and case study examples to analyse (mainly from the Yugoslavian Bulldozer Revolution of 2000). In 2015, Popovic wrote Blueprint for Revolution, another book on the same topic (Popovic and Miller 2015). Both books emphasise strength in numbers and diversity among protesters as decisive for the outcome of protests.
One of the most systematic analyses of nonviolent actions to date is provided by the US political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan (2011). The authors build on statistical analysis of 323 major violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns between 1900 and 2006 and four qualitative case studies, in addition to the works of other scholars, such as Sharp (1973) and Ackerman and Kruegler (1994), who are discussed above. The authors argue that nonviolent campaigns are nearly twice as likely to be successful than violent campaigns, and they emphasise the ability of campaign organisers to mobilise large and diverse segments of the population as a key condition for success (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011). In a TEDx talk, Chenoweth states that the critical mass of any resistance campaign, violent or nonviolent, is as little as 3.5 % of the total population (whichever the country), stressing that nonviolent actions are much more likely to mobilise a sufficient proportion of the population (Chenoweth 2013).
A key element in virtually all existing studies on nonviolent collective actions is emphasis on the number of participants. What is surprising is that, although the majority of the research also underline the importance of planning and of developing strategies, tactics, and methods, there are almost no references to physical space, which is often of major importance to these practical aspects of collective action.
3.1.3 Colour Revolutions
We now turn to publications concerned with the colour revolutions. As described in the previous chapter, a wave of colour revolutions ousted autocratic leaders and changed the political landscape of Eastern Europe and Central Asia in the 2000s (2.1.3).7 The often unforeseen protest movements and their influence on protests in other parts of the world gave rise to a host of explanations of why colour revolutions intermittently occur, and under which conditions they achieve regime change. This literature is particularly relevant to this book, since a majority of the colour revolutions were carried out as static occupations of central urban spaces, and it should therefore be possible to assess whether space is considered a factor by leading scholars within the field. Moreover, because the factors identified in the literature are based on collective actions in the post-Soviet region, they should be particularly suitable as a tool for describing the political environment of the case studies in this book.
Among the more influential publications on the subject is the US political scientist Michael McFaul’s article “Transitions from Postcommunism” (2005). Basing his argument on similarities between colour revolutions in Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003), and Ukraine (2004), McFaul presents seven basic factors he deems necessary for a colour revolution to occur:
1) a semi-autocratic rather than fully autocratic regime; 2) an unpopular incumbent; 3) a united and organized opposition; 4) an ability quickly to drive home the point that voting results were falsified, 5) enough independent media to inform citizens about the falsified vote, 6) a political opposition capable of mobilizing tens of thousands or more demonstrators to protest electoral fraud, and 7) divisions among the regime’s coercive forces. (McFaul 2005, 7)
McFaul thus rganized internal macro and meso factors more than micro factors such as the motivation and psychology of the protesters. Space is also left out of the equation, although one could imagine that the protesters’ choice of space affects the sixth factor. Furthermore, McFaul discusses and eventually downplays other macro factors, such as economic trauma, ethnic tension, and Western support for rganizedonal and/or the protesters.
Several political scientists have followed McFaul’s approach in order to explain the absence or presence of colour revolutions (e.g. Marples 2006, on Belarus), which shows that there is room for such an approach. Others have strived to nuance or change McFaul’s factors, among them the British political scientist Taras Kuzio (2008), who has increased the overall number of factors to nine and included micro and macro factors:
[1] [A] competitive- (i.e. semi-) authoritarian state facilitating space for the democratic opposition; [2] “return to Europe” civic nationalism that assists in mobilizing civil society; [3] a preceding political crisis that weakened the regime’s legitimacy; [4] a pro-democratic capital city; [5] unpopular ruling elites; [6] a charismatic candidate; [7] a united opposition; [8] mobilized youths; and [9] regionalism and foreign intervention (Russia or the EU). (Kuzio 2008, 98)
Contrary to McFaul (2005) and Kuzio (2008), the US political scientist Scott Radnitz identifies the level of economic disparity as the vital condition. Drawing on successful (Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan) and unsuccessful colour revolutions (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan), he argues that colour revolutions only occur in countries where cooperation exists between activists and capitalists (i.e. financial supporters of the protests) (Radnitz 2010).
The problem of McFaul (2005), Kuzio (2008), Radnitz (2010), and others who create lists of such “minimum requirements” for colour revolutions to occur is that collective actions of a large magnitude—which colour revolutions surely are—are immensely complex events. They comprise a large number of aspects, and any attempt to rganized such events to a set number of factors will inevitably exclude important aspects. See for example Tucker (2007), where the author rganized the existing literature on colour revolutions (among them McFaul) for being overly elite-based and downplaying the role of the masses who participated in the colour revolutions. Tucker uses CAT to explain how major electoral fraud provides people with a focal point and a window of opportunity for mass collective action, arguing that, from the moment the falsified results are announced to the moment they are implemented, people have an extra incentive to protest.8
Tucker’s (2007) emphasis on the masses of people is corroborated by the book The Colour Revolutions in the Former Soviet Republics: Successes and Failures, edited by the Irish political scientists Donnacha Ó Beacháin and Abel Polese (2010). In this book, 12 post-Soviet countries (Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan) are compared in order to identify reasons for the occurrence of colour revolutions. In each of the 12 case studies, five factors are examined: 1) regime type; 2) the degree of unity in the opposition; 3) external influences; 4) the strength of civil society; and 5) the people (i.e. how they rganize and act, and how they relate to the other actors in society). The latter two factors are highlighted as particularly important (2010, 9).
Beacháin and Polese (2010) contradict the view of Canadian political scientist Lucan Way (2008), who mainly highlights macro factors such as the protesters’ geopolitical connections with the West and the structural makeup of the state, rather than internal micro factors such as the motivation and innovations of the protest movements. Way argues that scholars tend to put too much weight on the number of protesters in collective actions, illustrating this point by referring to the relatively small numbers of protesters in the Georgian (2003) and Kyrgyz (2005) revolutions. He asserts that the protesters’ external connections often are of greater importance. Just as McFaul and Kuzio, Way uses macro-level explanations for the fall of autocratic regimes:
Authoritarian stability is most affected by: 1) the strength of a country’s ties to the West; and 2) the strength of the incumbent regime’s autocratic party or state. (Way, 2008, 60)
Thus far, looking at the body of academic literature on colour revolutions in the West, no concrete references to space are evident. Regarding the factors deemed necessary for a colour revolution to occur, we can conclude that there are several and contradicting views on the phenomenon. Three major categories of factors can be identified: 1) micro factors, such as the protesters’ motivation and strategic innovation; 2) meso factors, such as the rganizedonal structure of the ruling elite and the opposition; and 3) macro factors, such as the economy and political system.
Additionally, we can add a fourth category, which consists of publications that see colour revolutions as a result of external (i.e. foreign) influences. Beacháin and Polese (2010) have identified two types of this kind of international support: 1) Western, in the form of guidance and training for NGOs and observers; and 2) the mutual “economic, political, military and diplomatic support to besieged autocrats […]” shown by other autocratic leaders in the region. The Kremlin in particular is highlighted as a key supporter of autocratic leaders. Even if external support receives considerable attention in academic literature and in media discourse, the editors go on to underline that domestic factors, such as a well-developed civil society and motivated people, are important factors for colour revolutions to occur (Beacháin and Polese 2010).
Popular Revolutions or (Geo-)Political Technologies? 9
The leading politicians of Russia and Belarus, Vladimir Putin and Aliaksandr Lukashenka, both perceive colour revolutions as affected by the latter category (external influence). In the aftermath of the Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine (2013–2014), which led to the ousting of Russia-leaning president Viktor Ianukovych, Putin called colour revolutions a form of extremism and “a geopolitical instrument for changing spheres of influence (BBC Russian Service 2014). Lukashenka has also blamed Western powers for attempting to topple the Belarusian state (Nersesov 2017), although in an earlier interview with Russian media outlets in 2016 he did state that, if the standard of living is high in Belarus and Russia, no destructive colour revolutions will occur (Afitsyinyi sait Respubliki Belarus’ 2016). Thus, Lukashenka also recognises the third (macro-) category.
Russian academic publications on the subject often voice views similar to those of the political leadership. The Russian political scientist Andrei Manoilo, for instance, sees only external factors. He defines colour revolutions as
[…] [political] technologies for the implementation of coups d’état and external control of the political situation in a country in conditions of artificially created political instability, during which the pressure on the government is exerted in the form of political intimidation, [by] using a youth protest movement as an instrument of such an intimidation. (Manoilo 2015)
Manoilo (2015) presents colour revolutions as a tool created by Anglo-Saxons in the US (among them Gene Sharp 1973), who have used it as a hybrid weapon in unfriendly countries: in Eastern Europe during the 2000s; in the Middle East from 2011; and in Ukraine in 2014 (the latter is presented as a “dress rehearsal” for destroying Russia with the same ‘soft power’ weaponry). Manoilo also identifies five distinct phases that colour revolutions go through: 1) A network of rganized protest movements in the target country is created; 2) Upon a signal, often after an orchestrated event, the network of people simultaneously goes out on the streets in major cities in the country; 3) Activists in the network of cells turn into catalysts of ‘singing protests’10 in order to engage large sections of the population; 4) The protesters gather in large public spaces in order to create a crowd mentality, through which new values and imperatives are given. Here, the people are reprogrammed, in much of the same way as “Protestant totalitarian sects” brainwash their followers; 5) On behalf of the crowd, ultimatums are sent to those in power under the threat of mass riots and, occasionally, physical extermination. The power holders are either swept away or a rebellion or civil war begins, followed by a military intervention. (Manoilo 2015)
Certainly, some approaches to colour revolutions in Russia are less radical than Manoilo’s (see for example Barsamov 2006), and some see geopolitical factors as less important (notably the political scientist Valerii Solovei 201611), yet variations of Manoilo’s perspective appear to be numerically the most prominent, and can be found in several publications by other Russian political scientists and sociologists (e.g. Iel’chaninov 2007; Naumov 2016). In Russian media outlets, the understanding of colour revolutions as a geopolitical tool and a threat to the sovereignty of the Russian Federation is often all too obvious (see for example TASS 2019; Krasovskaia 2019; NTV 2019).
This Cold War frame of mind stems from Russia being perceived (and perceiving itself) as the natural successor to the Soviet Union—the main adversary of the West during the Cold War. The rivalry between these two power blocks was not only fought out in proxy wars; the two also supported protest movements and insurgents in order to damage each other’s spheres of influence across the world, and especially in the former European colonies of Asia, South America, and Africa (Kanet 2006, 337; Powelson 2003). The dissent in the Eastern Bloc that eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Union could be seen as part of this warfare. Hence, given that a new wave of colour revolutions occurred at the same time and place as the EU and NATO were expanding—into areas seen by Russia as their sphere of influence—Russia’s hostility to mass protests becomes more understandable.
One outcome of the wave of colour revolutions is that autocratic countries have started to perceive nonviolent protest as a serious threat. Since the stakes are so high, the autocrats are readier to suppress political dissent with harassment, increased surveillance, and violence (Beacháin and Polese 2010, 238). Moreover, in Russia and Belarus, pro-governmental youth organisations have formed to counterweight foreign influence on the youth (Matchanka 2014; Hemment 2012; Atwal and Bacon 2012). This effort to combat mass demonstrations has been reinforced since the recent Ukrainian revolution, and colour revolutions are accordingly defined by the military as a threat to national sovereignty, and increasingly defined as ‘acts of war’.12
The problem with a single focus on foreign influence is that it disregards the other micro-to-macro factors and presumes that external influences alone are enough to create a popular uprising or nonviolent revolution. Ukrainian views on colour revolutions are, perhaps unsurprisingly, often more nuanced than the views held by their Russian counterparts. For example, in the Ukrainian political scientist Oleksandr Romaniuk’s (2005) assessment of the phenomenon in Yugoslavia (2000), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), and Kyrgyzstan (2005), internal factors—such as the decay of the political elite, a worsening of democratic standards, the poor standard of living, and a growing desire for political change among the general population—are seen as the foundation for discontent, which, triggered by election fraud, turned into colour revolutions. Romaniuk adds, however, that all the opposition forces have received moral and sometimes material support from Western democracies (2005, 24).
