Exclusionary Politics and Organized Resistance

ABSTRACT

In seeking to overthrow, reform, or separate from an existing political system, both violent and nonviolent resistance organizations emerge. A common finding shows that democracies face violent resistance more so than autocracies. Studied less remains the pattern of organizations using nonviolence in efforts to topple autocratic regimes. What explains these trends in conjunction with one another? I put forth a theory contending that exclusionary politics frames the organizational use of violence and nonviolence in resistance campaigns. To test hypotheses, I analyze an original dataset of over 500 resistance organizations (1940–2014). I complement the large-n tests by reviewing resistance organizations that formed amid Lebanon’s Civil War (1975–1990) and Cedar Revolution (2005) using field methods, qualitative contextualization, and process tracing. The results reveal that the relationship between the target political system and the degree of inclusion of a resistance organization’s constituent identity group helps explain the adoption of violent strategies.

KEYWORDS:

• Resistance organizations
• exclusionary politics
• Lebanon
• political violence
• nonviolent revolution
• democratization

Acknowledgments

I thank Ronit Ben-Shoham, Yasmine Chawaf, Amanda Rizkallah, Kristen Ramos, Ronit Berger, Wendy Wagner, Amanda Robinson, Dan Silverman, Alex Thompson, Jeremy Wallace, Sara Watson, Jan Pierskalla, Rick Herrmann, John Mueller, Chris Sullivan, Matt Hitt, Leonard Ray, Joe Clare, and Dan Tirone for helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

1. Theodor Hanf, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon, translated by John Richardson (London, UK: Centre for Lebanese Studies & I.B. Tauris, 1993).

2. Matthew C. Wilson and James Piazza, “Autocracies and Terrorism,” American Journal of Political Science 57, no. 4 (2013): 941–55.

3. Joe Eyerman, “Terrorism and Democratic States,” International Interactions 24, no. 2 (1998): 151–70; Quan Li, “Does Democracy Promote or Reduce Transnational Terrorist Incidents,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 2 (2005): 278–97; Benjamin Acosta, “From Bombs to Ballots: When Militant Organizations Transition to Political Parties,” Journal of Politics 76, no. 3 (2014): 666–83; Khusrav Gaibulloev, James Piazza, and Todd Sandler, “Regime Types and Terrorism,” International Organization 71, no. 3 (2017): 491–522.

4. Deniz Aksoy and David Carter, “Electoral Institutions and the Emergence of Terrorist Groups,” British Journal of Political Science 44, no. 1 (2014): 181–204.

5. Deniz Aksoy, David Carter, and Joseph Wright, “Terrorism in Dictatorships,” Journal of Politics 74, no. 3 (2012): 810–26; Wilson and Piazza, “Autocracies and Terrorism”; Courtenay R. Conrad, Justin Conrad, and Joseph K. Young, “Tyrants and Terrorism,” International Studies Quarterly 58, no. 3 (2014): 539–49.

6. As their analyses tend to “privilege agency over structure,” scholars of civil resistance typically reject the notion that structural conditions precipitate nonviolent resistance campaigns. See Erica Chenoweth and Jay Ulfelder, “Can Structural Conditions Explain the Onset of Nonviolent Uprisings?” Journal of Conflict Resolution 61, no. 2 (2017): 300. Notable exceptions evaluate the relationship between ethnic homogeneity and the onset of nonviolent resistance, external emulation and onset, and the use of nonviolent tactics in the diversification of resistance strategies. See Alex Braithwaite, Jessica Maves Braithwaite, and Jeffrey Kucik, “The Conditioning Effect of Protest History on the Emulation of Nonviolent Conflict,” Journal of Peace Research 52, no. 6 (2015): 697–711; Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, Marianne Dahl, and Anne Frugé, “Strategies of Resistance: Diversification and Diffusion,” American Journal of Political Science 61, no. 3 (2017): 591–605; Kristian Skrede Gleditsch and Mauricio Rivera, “The Diffusion of Nonviolent Campaigns,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 61, no. 5 (2017): 1120–45.

7. Jeremy M. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Abdulkader H. Sinno, Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008); T. K. Wilson, Frontiers of Violence: Conflict and Identity in Ulster and Upper Silesia, 1918-1922 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010).

8. See Zachary Jones and Yonatan Lupu, “Is There More Violence in the Middle?” American Journal of Political Science 62, no. 3 (2018): 652–67. For a noteworthy exception, see Max Abrahms, “Why Democracies Make Superior Counterterrorists,” Security Studies 16, no. 2 (2007): 223–53.

9. Erica Chenoweth, “Terrorism and Democracy,” Annual Review of Political Science 16 (2013): 355–78; Gaibulloev, Piazza, and Sandler, “Regime Types and Terrorism”; see also Conrad, Conrad, and Young, “Tyrants and Terrorism.” The finding follows a lengthy theoretical lineage that finds that oppositional violence most likely arises in semi-repressive contexts, rather than in autocratic or fully democratic contexts. See Peter Eisinger, “The Conditions of Protest Behavior in American Cities,” American Political Science Review 67, no. 1 (1973): 11–28; Terry Boswell and William Dixon, “Dependency and Rebellion,” American Sociological Review 55, no. 4 (1990): 540–59; Håvard Hegre, Tanja Ellingsen, Scott Gates, and Nils Petter Gleditsch, “Toward a Democratic Civil Peace?” American Political Science Review 95, no. 1 (2001): 33–48.

10. Chenoweth employs the regime type classifications of Goldstone et al., where a “[factionalized democracy] includes extremely polarized and uncompromising competition between blocs … ” See Chenoweth, “Terrorism and Democracy,” 358; Jack Goldstone, Robert Bates, David Epstein, Ted Robert Gurr, Michael Lustik, Monty Marshall, Jay Ulfelder, and Mark Woodward, “A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability,” American Journal of Political Science 54, no. 1 (2010): 190–208.

11. Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy (New York, NY: Cambridge, 2005).

12. Albert Hirschman and Michael Rothschild, “The Changing Tolerance for Income Inequality in the Course of Economic Development,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 125, no. 2 (1973): 515–48.

13. John Schwarzmantel, Democracy and Political Violence (Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2011).

14. See Jonathan Turner and Jan Stets, The Sociology of Emotions (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

15. James Ron, “Ideology in Context: Explaining Sendero Luminoso’s Tactical Escalation,” Journal of Peace Research 38, no. 5 (2001): 569–92.

16. Andreas Wimmer, Lars-Erik Cederman, and Brian Min, “Ethnic Politics and Armed Conflict,” American Sociological Review 74, no. 2 (2009): 316–37.

17. Marta Reynal-Querol, “Ethnicity, Political Systems, and Civil Wars,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 46, no. 1 (2002): 29–54; Lars-Erik Cederman, Andreas Wimmer, and Brian Min, “Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel?” World Politics 62, no. 1 (2010): 87–119.

18. Julian Wucherpfennig, Nils W. Metternich, Lars-Erik Cederman, and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, “Ethnicity, the State, and the Duration of Civil War,” World Politics 64, no. 1 (2012): 111.

19. Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, [1970] 2011); Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985); Roger Peterson, Understanding Ethnic Violence (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

20. Wendy Pearlman, “Precluding Nonviolence, Propelling Violence,” Studies in Comparative International Development 47, no. 1 (2012): 24.

21. I follow previous studies in defining the “success” of resistance organizations in terms of outcome-goal achievement. Outcome goals refer to the chief political ends organizations pursue. See Max Abrahms, “The Political Effectiveness of Terrorism Revisited,” Comparative Political Studies 45, no. 3 (2012): 366–93; Benjamin Acosta, “Dying for Survival: Why Militant Organizations Continue to Conduct Suicide Attacks,” Journal of Peace Research 53, no. 2 (2016): 180–96.

22. Acosta, “From Bombs to Ballots,” 667.

23. Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2011).

24. Kurt Weyland, “The Arab Spring,” Perspectives on Politics 10, no. 4 (2012): 921; see also Timur Kuran, “Sparks and Prairie Fires,” Public Choice 61, no. 1 (1989): 41–74; Gordon McCormick and Guillermo Owen, “Revolutionary Origins and Conditional Mobilization,” European Journal of Political Economy 12, no. 3 (1996): 377–402; James Hollyer, B. Peter Rosendorff, and James Raymond Vreeland, “Transparency, Protest, and Autocratic Instability,” American Political Science Review 109, no. 4 (2015): 764–84.

25. Kuran. Additionally, Magaloni shows that autocrats regularly coopt those in a society who “possess incentives to conspire or rebel.” Beatriz Magaloni, “Credible Power-Sharing and the Longevity of Authoritarian Rule,” Comparative Political Studies 41, no. 4/5 (2008): 716.

26. McCormick and Owen; Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, “Regime Change and Revolutionary Entrepreneurs,” American Political Science Review 104, no. 3 (2010): 446–66.

27. DeNardo puts forth an alternative hypothesis that makes a similar point about “power in numbers” yet without respect to regime type. James DeNardo, Power in Numbers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985).

28. Evan Lieberman, “Nested Analysis as a Mixed-Methods Strategy for Comparative Research,” American Political Science Review 99, no. 3 (2005): 435–52.

29. Benjamin Acosta, “Reconceptualizing Resistance Organizations and Outcomes: Introducing the Revolutionary and Militant Organizations Dataset (REVMOD),” Journal of Peace Research 56, no. 5 (2019): 724–34.

30. See the REVMOD dataset and codebook at www.revolutionarymilitant.org.

31. For a breakdown of the types of organizations and constituent identity groups included in the dataset, see Table A in the Online Appendix.

32. Acosta, “Reconceptualizing Resistance Organizations and Outcomes,” 725.

33. This illegal/extralegal or “noninstitutionalized” criterion is essential, otherwise political opposition parties would fall within the definition.

34. The operationalization of violence follows Kalyvas. See Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars. The variable incorporates the Global Terrorism Database’s reassembled 1993 political violence data. See Benjamin Acosta and Kristen Ramos, “Introducing the 1993 Terrorism and Political Violence Dataset,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 40, no. 3 (2017): 232–47.

35. Daniel N. Posner, “The Political Salience of Cultural Difference,” American Political Science Review 98, no. 4 (2004): 529–45; Rawi Abdelal, Yoshiko Herrera, Alastair Lain Johnston, and Rose McDermott, “Identity as a Variable,” Perspectives on Politics 4 (2006): 695–711; Kanchan Chandra, “What is Ethnic Identity and Does It Matter?” Annual Review of Political Science 9 (2006): 397–424; Matt Barreto, “Sí Se Puede! Latino Candidates and the Mobilization of Latino Voters,” American Political Science Review 101, no. 3 (2007): 425–41; Benjamin Acosta, “The Dynamics of Israel’s Democratic Tribalism,” Middle East Journal 68, no. 2 (2014): 268–86.

36. See Wimmer, Cederman, and Min, “Ethnic Politics and Armed Conflict”; Cederman, Wimmer, and Min, “Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel?” and Wucherpfennig et al., “Ethnicity, the State, and the Duration of Civil War.”

37. Wucherpfennig et al., “Ethnicity, the State, and the Duration of Civil War,” 111.

38. See Chandra, “What is Ethnic Identity and Does It Matter?”.

39. Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We? (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 22.

40. Gurr, Why Men Rebel, xi.

41. This follows similar strategies to operationalize collective identity. See Abdelal et al., “Identity as a Variable.”

42. For example, an anti-regime ideology, unrelated to primordial attributes, can help a new massive identity group form—uniting smaller identity groups (perhaps even various ethnic groups) around a core outcome goal, such as regime change or reformation.

43. This follows previous work on internal conflict. See Cederman, Wimmer and Min; and Lars-Erik Cederman and Luc Girardin, “Beyond Fractionalization,” American Political Science Review 101, no. 1 (2007): 173–85.

44. See Cederman, Wimmer, and Min, “Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel?”

45. Patrick Regan, Richard Frank, and David Clark, “New Datasets on Political Institutions and Elections, 1972-2005,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 26, no. 3 (2009): 286–304.

46. Wilson and Piazza, “Autocracies and Terrorism.” Others similarly note the explanatory superiority of regime type. See Barbara Geddes, “What Do We Know about Democratization after Twenty Years?” Annual Review of Political Science 2 (1999): 115–44; Conrad, Conrad, and Young, “Tyrants and Terrorism.” Additionally, Ortiz shows that the dynamics of contention regularly depend on regime type. David Ortiz, “Rocks, Bottles, and Weak Autocracies,” Mobilization 18, no. 3 (2013): 289–312.

47. I converted Polity IV’s −10 to 10 scale to a fully positive scale.

48. Statistical analyses exchanging the polity score for a binary measure of democracy yield similar results.

49. Tests show a lack of multicollinearity between the key explanatory variables.

50. See Chenoweth and Stephan.

51. Muhammad Faour, “Religion, Demography, and Politics in Lebanon,” Middle Eastern Studies 43, no. 6 (2007): 909–21; Yakov Faitelson, “The Politics of Palestinian Demography,” Middle East Quarterly 16, no. 2 (2009): 51–59.

52. Zachariah C. Mampilly, Rebel Rulers (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011).

53. The debate over terrorism’s effectiveness wages on; see Diego Muro, ed., When Does Terrorism Work? (New York, NY: Routledge, 2019); Richard English, Does Terrorism Work? A History (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016); and Abrahms, “The Political Effectiveness of Terrorism Revisited.”

54. See Aksoy and Carter, “Electoral Institutions and the Emergence of Terrorist Groups.”

55. Pearlman, “Precluding Nonviolence, Propelling Violence,” 23. This does not mean that cohesive resistance movements only adopt strictly nonviolent strategies, as Cunningham clearly refutes. Kathleen Cunningham, “Divide and Conquer and Divide and Concede,” American Political Science Review 105, no. 2 (2011): 75–297.

56. Pearlman, “Precluding Nonviolence, Propelling Violence,” 41.

57. See Martha Crenshaw, “The Causes of Terrorism,” Comparative Politics 13, no. 4 (1981): 379–99; Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2005).

58. Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, “Democratization and War,” Foreign Affairs 74 (1995): 79–97.

59. This contrasts the results of Wimmer, Cederman and Min, as well as Cederman, Wimmer and Min—neither of which interacts exclusion with a measure of regime type. Considering the constraints on interpreting the signs of constituent terms for interaction variables, Model 1 is especially important for moving beyond the explanation that focuses solely on exclusion without respect to regime type. See Bear Braumoeller, “Hypothesis Testing and Multiplicative Interaction Terms,” International Organization 58, no. 4 (2004): 807–20.

60. Lieberman, “Nested Analysis as a Mixed-Methods Strategy,” 444.

61. As’ad Abu-Khalil, “Druze, Sunni and Shiite Political Leadership in Present-Day Lebanon,” Arab Studies Quarterly 7, no. 4 (1985): 43.

62. Augustus Richard Norton, Hezbollah (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 18.

63. Augustus Richard Norton, Amal and the Shi’a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1987).

64. See Abu-Khalil, “Druze, Sunni and Shiite Political Leadership.”

65. Kai Bird, The Good Spy (New York, NY: Crown, 2014).

66. Norton, Hezbollah, 21–22.

67. See note 63 above.

68. Amal also aimed to undo the system of exploitation of Shi’a by other minority groups—namely, the Druze-led Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and Palestinian Fatah, both which used Shi’a as low-level foot soldiers. Unsurprisingly, the PSP and Fatah marked two early targets of Amal’s violent operations.

69. See note 63 above.

70. In June 1982, popular-Amal commander Hussein al-Musawi broke off from Amal and formed Al-Amal al-Islami (Islamic Amal), which Hezbollah absorbed within a few years.

71. Author’s field research notes (July 2014).

72. The majority of Palestinians adheres to Sunni Islam and a small percentage practices Christianity.

73. Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

74. Rosemary Sayigh, Too Many Enemies: The Palestinian Experience in Lebanon (London, UK: Zed, 1994); see also The Daily Star Lebanon, “Palestinians Demand End to Lebanon Job Restrictions,” The Daily Star Lebanon, April 30, 2015.

75. Norton, Hezbollah, 14; see also Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997); Simon Haddad, “Sectarian Attitudes as a Function of the Palestinian Presence in Lebanon,” Arab Studies Quarterly 22, no. 3 (2000): 81–100. At this point in time, the loose PLO alliance consisted of Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), Arab Liberation Front (ALF), and a number of other smaller organizations. Yasser Arafat’s Fatah boasted the largest of the PLO forces. Importantly, Palestinian organizations in Lebanon did not form a “unified front,” as numerous organizations, such as-Sa’iqa operated against Fatah.

76. The first civil war occurred between 1858 and 1861. The second civil war took place in 1958.

77. Paul-Marc Henry, Les jardiniers de l’enfer (Paris, France: Editions Orban, 1984); Mordechai Nisan, The Conscience of Lebanon: A Political Biography of Etienne Sakr (Abu-Arz) (Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2003).

78. Walid Phares, Lebanese Christian Nationalism (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995), 158.

79. Michael Gilsenan, Lords of Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in an Arab Society (London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 1996), xiii.

80. Numerous Lebanese from various ethno-sectarian and ideological identity groups frame the conflict in such terms. Author’s field research notes (June–July 2006; June–July 2014).

81. While Amal and Hezbollah did not incessantly challenge the Lebanese government (mainly because it ceased to exist from time to time) and beginning in 1984 Amal’s leader Berri participated in the government, they sought to undo the existing Lebanese political system. Both organizations openly appropriated state functions—a classic maneuver of resistance aimed at undermining the state’s legitimacy.

82. See Phares, Lebanese Christian Nationalism.

83. William Harris, The New Face of Lebanon (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2006), 262.

84. Hanf, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon; Harris, The New Face of Lebanon.

85. Harris, The New Face of Lebanon.

86. This section draws from my field research in Lebanon (2006, 2013, 2014), which investigated the political preferences and organizational allegiances of different Lebanese identity groups. In 2006, I carried out ethnographic research in the largely Sunni areas of west Beirut and Shi’a area of south Beirut, and in 2013 I conducted complementary research in the largely Maronite area of east Beirut. In 2014, I updated my research on Shi’a political preferences in south Beirut and Sunni political preferences in west Beirut. This involved conducting formal and informal interviews (structured and unstructured), as well as a series of participant observations. I conducted interviews and held conversations in Levantine Arabic and English. For a similar field research approach, see Gilsenan.

87. Many Shi’a who demonstrated in support of Syria’s occupation claim to have participated not due to any genuine affinity for Syria but rather with the aim of protecting Amal and Hezbollah’s postwar political clout. Author’s field research notes (May–July 2006).

88. Author’s field research notes (May–July 2006).

89. William Harris, “Investigating Lebanon’s Political Murders,” Middle East Journal 67, no. 1 (2013): 9–27.

90. Author’s field research notes (June 2006). Much of this optimism held even after the Hezbollah-Israel War broke out in the summer when Hezbollah operatives attacked an Israel Defense Forces patrol inside Israel and provoked a military invasion of Lebanon’s south. Author’s field research notes (July 2006).

91. Author’s field research notes (April–May 2013; June–July 2014).

92. Harris, The New Face of Lebanon, 317.

93. See Hanf, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon.

94. Edgar O’Ballance, Civil War in Lebanon, 1975-1992 (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1998); Haddad, “Sectarian Attitudes as a Function of the Palestinian Presence in Lebanon.”

95. Acosta, “The Dynamics of Israel’s Democratic Tribalism.”

96. See Pearlman, “Precluding Nonviolence, Propelling Violence.”

97. Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).

98. See DeNardo, Power in Numbers.

99. Indeed, even some Israeli leaders involved in operations in Lebanon, such as former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, buy in to the notion that Israel “caused” Hezbollah. See “Hezbollah,” The Week, July 13, 2013; accessible at theweek.com/articles/462252/hezbollah-middle-easts-wild-card.

100. See Acosta, “From Bombs to Ballots.”

101. A. Nizar Hamzeh, “Lebanon’s Hizbullah,” Third World Quarterly 14, no. 2 (1993): 334; Robert Rabil, “Hezbollah, the Islamic Association and Lebanon’s Confessional System,” The Levantine Review 1, no. 1 (2012): 49–67.

102. Acosta, “Reconceptualizing Resistance Organizations and Outcomes,” 732.

103. James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985); Stathis Kalyvas, “The Landscape of Political Violence,” in The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism, edited by Erica Chenoweth, Richard English, Andreas Gofas, and Stathis Kalyvas (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019).

104. Acosta, “From Bombs to Ballots”; Cunningham et al., “Strategies of Resistance.”

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Benjamin Acosta

Benjamin Acosta worked for years in academia as a professor and empirical researcher prior to entering the world of high tech. He often combines large-n data analyses with network analyses, process tracing, or ethnographic research. His sole-authored peer-reviewed articles appear in the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Peace Research, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, and the Middle East Journal. Additionally, Acosta has constructed a number of datasets, including the Revolutionary and Militant Organizations Dataset (REVMOD), which documents the attributes, allies, and adversaries of over 500 contemporary resistance organizations at yearly intervals.