Popular protest in authoritarian regimes: evidence from communist and post-communist states

Abstract

The paper shows that sustained popular protest is a recurrent feature in many authoritarian regimes and that a regime type strongly shapes its characteristics. Popular protest often leads to important changes in the personal composition and policies of elites, which considerably affect the structure and operation of authoritarian regimes, and at times produce regime change. Evidence is provided from authoritarianism in Poland and Yugoslavia, in which sustained protests contributed to the fall of communism, and from competitive authoritarian regimes in post-communist Serbia and Ukraine, which were repeatedly undermined by protest waves and brought to an end by pressure ‘from below’.

Keywords:

• popular protest
• authoritarianism
• regime change
• Yugoslavia
• Poland
• Serbia
• Ukraine

Funding

This work was supported by Open Society Foundations' Academic Fellowship Program and by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia [grant no. 47026].

Notes

1. For some of the most influential arguments in democratization studies see Linz and Stepan (1996), O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986) and Przeworski et al. (2000). The classic exposition of social movement research agenda is found in Tarrow (2011). For the literature on revolutions see, for example, Goodwin (2001) and Goldstone (2003).

2. Boško Budimirović, Miroslav Šolević and Bogdan Kecman, protest leaders of Kosovo Serbs, in interviews with the author.

3. Danas, 24 November 1987: 17; 15 December 1987: 22–3; 31 May 1988: 22–3; 28 June 1988: 18–9; Borba, 20 May 1988: 3; 18–19 June 1988: 1, 7; 2–3 July 1988: 5; 11 July 1988: 3; 25 July 1988: 1, 3; 20–21 August 1988: 5; NIN, 5 June 1988: 18–9; 26 June 1988: 14–7; 17 July 1988: 19–21; see also Simić (1987).

4. Borba, 5 October 1988: 1, 3; 6 October 1988: 1–5; 7 October 1988: 1, 5; 8–9 October 1988: 7; 10 October 1988: 1–3; 11 October 1988: 1, 3; 18 November 1988: 1, 4; 19–20 November 1988: 1, 6; 21 November 1988: 1, 3; 22 November 1988: 1–2; 11 January 1989: 1, 3; 12 January 1989: 1, 3–4; 1 March 1989: 1–3; Danas, 11 October 1988: 22–3; 11 October 1988: 7–9; 22 November 1988: 14–5; 29 November 1988: 14–5; see also Španović (1989).

5. Vladisavljević (2008), 202–10. For parallels with consequences of nationalist mobilization in the Soviet Union, see Beissinger (2002).

6. Vreme, 11 March 1991: 10–4; 18 March 1991: 4–9, 26–9.

7. Vreme, 1 June 1992: 10–2; 22 June 1992: 8–10; 6 July 1992: 12–5.

8. Vreme, 23 November 1996: 6–11; 30 November 1996: 8–15; 7 December 1996: 6–8; 11 January 1997: 6–10; 18 January 1997: 6–10; 8 February 1997: 6–10.

9. Vreme, 10 July 1999: 2–5; 17 July 1999: 6; 28 August 1999: 2–5.

10. Vreme, 5 October 2000: 3–15; 12 October 2000: 4–17; 19 October 2000: 7–11. See also Antonić (2002) and Bujosevic and Radovanovic (2003).

11. Serbia’s population is several times smaller than that of Ukraine. Popular protests in Serbia were also larger than those in Ukraine in terms of absolute participant numbers, with the exception of the Orange Revolution. See rough estimates of protest size in the section on popular protest in the two countries.