Anti-opposition crackdowns and protest: the case of Belarus, 2000–2019

ABSTRACT

Anti-opposition crackdowns are a complex form of repression, the effects of which reverberate beyond the political opposition. To understand how these episodes are tied to variation in protest, I develop a theory based on the case of the 2010-2011 crackdown in Belarus. Using a novel protest event dataset covering 2000 to 2019, I show that this crackdown was followed by a sharp decline in protest that particularly affected socio-economic protest. I identify six features of anti-opposition crackdowns and two channels through which they reduce protest. The direct deterrent effect diminishes the political opposition’s capacity to protest. Second, the visibility of the crackdown, coupled with new repressive laws, drives those engaged in less threatening collective action to pre-emptively demobilize; this is the indirect deterrent effect. This article contributes to our understanding of the mechanism that links repression and dissent, while enhancing our knowledge of protest and repression in Belarus.

KEYWORDS:

• Protest
• collective action
• Belarus
• repression
• authoritarianism

Acknowledgement

The author is grateful to Pauline Jones, Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, and Graeme Robertson for their very helpful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I collected estimated turnout data for 57% of the 91 protest events observed from 2011 to 2019. Total turnout from these estimates is 39,200. The 68,450 estimate assumes events where turnout was not available attracted similar participation to those where it was.

2. This definition is based on Ritter (2014). For other approaches, see Goldstein (1978), Earl (2003, 2011), and Davenport (2007a).

3. The repression on 19 December and in the following days is too extensive to fully review here; this account draws on a Human Rights Watch report by Anna Sevortian and Yulia Gorbunova (2011) available at https://www.hrw.org/report/2011/03/14/shattering-hopes/post-election-crackdown-belarus.

4. Law of Republic of Belarus No. 114-FZ of 30 December 1997; amended as of 8 November 2011. The cited legislation is available at the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Legislationline (https://www.legislationline.org/legislation/section/legislation/topic/15/country/42)

5. The Newsline was not issued from May to June 2008.

6. Data were collected about petitions and acts of self-mutilation, but are excluded here for event-day analysis. Pro-government events and events whose purpose was eliciting electoral support were excluded. Coders also searched for riots; none were observed. When no turnout information was available, coders judged from the description of the event if it was likely to have been attended by 25 people. For approximately 37% of observations, estimates were not possible; I do not analyze turnout here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Harriman Institute, Columbia University.