INTERNATIONAL
VANDERBILT POLITICAL REVIEW
Ants Under a Magnifying Glass
I
Why governments use violence to silence public dissent
n December 2010, a humble Tunisian
street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi,
walked into busy traffic in front of the
local governor’s office, doused his body
in gasoline, and burned himself alive as
a display of civilian resistance against
government brutality. Although Bouazizi
died of his wounds, his sacrifice sparked
nationwide protests in Tunisia that ultimately led to regime change. Many
believe that this marked the start of the
Arab Spring, as shortly after these mass
demonstrations, similar protests began
across the Middle East. Though the path
to revolution was unique in each country,
many of the movements inevitably turned
violent as governments aggressively attempted to quell dissent. By March 2011,
governments had responded to popular
uprisings in one of two ways. In countries
like Saudi Arabia and Morocco, governments took note of public sentiment and
made internal reforms to appease protesters. While the effectiveness of these
6
by HARRY GARRETT ‘16
peaceful concessions is debatable, such a
process was far healthier for the stability
of each state than the highly militant approach of the Egyptian and Libyan governments. Why, then, do Syria, Turkey,
and other authoritarian states ignore these
examples and continue to use violence
to silence reform efforts? The decision
to engage in violent repression is highly complex and inherent to the political
landscape of each country, but there are
a number of objective reasons for a government to choose violence over peaceful
negotiation in addressing public dissent.
Despite arguments that a regional
democratic shift sparked by the Arab
Spring could ultimately influence other parts of the world, 2011 actually saw
global levels of freedom decrease as authoritarian governments realized potential public opposition. China and Russia
continued to enact policies that were
repressive to their home populations,
and issued propaganda that shunned the
VOA
Arab protests. The Syrian government,
which was experiencing mass protests
of its own, killed around five thousand
activists and tortured and imprisoned
thousands of others within just the first
few months of demonstrations beginning.
Ultimately, government repression can
manifest itself in a multitude of ways:
the censor of communication channels,
national threats, property seizure, economic impediments, limitations on free
speech and public demonstration, illegal
arrests, and physical violence against
protesters. According to Jonathan Sutton
of the University of Otago, these tactics are often ranked from “less severe,”
where governments limit free speech and
spread propaganda, to “severe,” where
bodily harm is dealt to the citizenry.
In many scenarios, government leaders
miscalculate the extent of public opposition and the strength of an aggressive counterbalance by non-government forces. The
best outcome for the state is to eliminate
public dissent while not succumbing to
reforms. To leaders, the most rational and
common choice in acquiring these interests is to remove activists from their population and instill fear in the rest of society to prevent the opposition’s sentiments
from spreading. This response seems even
more appropriate during the beginning of a
rebellion, where rebel groups are extremely weak and an asymmetric conflict would
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