FALL 2013
INTERNATIONAL
USAID
to the costs they would incur from engaging in a full counter-insurgency operation.
Political leaders’ perception of opposition groups’ strength is one of the
most important factors in deciding state
response to a movement. Because highly
repressive strategies can have costly implications – such as economic hindrance
and public derision of government elites
– states must believe that protesters lack
power to resist aggressive retaliation.
The weakness of these groups is usually defined by each group’s marginalization: the more disconnected a movement
is from the consensus of society, the less
likely it is that they gain widespread support. According to Jennifer Earl, writing in Sociology, these groups tend to
be part of marginalized racial and ethnic minorities, religious minorities, and
the impoverished. Targeted groups also
tend to lack key resources that would
ordinarily expand support for their causes. For example, a group might lack
neutral media coverage, and are instead
ostracized for their beliefs on state-run
television while harsh government responses remain hidden from public view.
The political structure of a government
is also a significant factor in determining
whether a state will attempt to violently
repress uprisings. In their book Rethinking Violence States and Non-State Actors
in Conflict, Erica Chenoweth and Adria
Lawrence note that violent repression
often occurs under authoritarian governments, who believe excessive force
to be a justifiable means of controlling
populations. Violence is likely to escalate
under these systems for several reasons.
Typically, leaders in authoritarian governments discount the importance of the
public in sustaining an efficient and stable
government. From this perspective, their
populations are weaker than those of democracies, in which citizens have more
political power. Ultimately, this results
in authoritarian leaders taking aggressive
action – including killing protestors – to
sustain their power. Moreover, political
leaders in authoritarian states can lose
control over their bureaucracy, which can
heighten the amount of violence perpetuated by the government. According to
David Cunningham and Emily Beaulieu
in “Dissent, Repression, and Inconsistency,” the security forces that are sent
to diffuse situations often lack adequate
intelligence and training, which breeds
disconnect between political leaders and
ground actors. In some cases, a decision
made by a single police officer or soldier,
such as the decision to open fire on a group
of non-violent protesters, can dramatically change the direction of a movement.
When evaluating the international
landscape, many leaders have miscalculated the extent of public resistance and
believe they acted in their best interest
to solidify power and stabilize their society through the use of excessive force.
In many cases, they did not want to concede power to the people and potentially
rearrange the political landscape of their
country. Instead, they set a match to a
bundle of protests that spread throughout the nation, inducing the very changes
that they so aggressively tried to prevent.
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