Political Protest in Fragile States

Since the mid-seventies, an extensive body of literature has analyzed political activism in Western democracies, utilizing the methods of survey research, historical comparisons, and events analysis to understand the ways that people participate in the public sphere, the processes that lead them to do so, and the consequences of these acts. By contrast, far less has been established about the causes and consequences of protest politics occurring in fragile states, understood here as a range of poorer developing nations facing serious risks of political instability, conflict, and, in extreme cases, even state collapse. To explore these issues, Part I reviews the previous literature on protest politics and outlines the theoretical framework. Part II summarizes the research design. The analysis presented in Part III compares the individual-level causes of protest activism in four different types of states, with survey data derived from the 1999-2000 World Values Study. Part IV considers the broader consequences of political protest, particularly for political stability and government effectiveness. The conclusion summarizes the main results and reflects upon the role of protest politics in contributing towards processes of regime change. Paper for the plenary panel PS01 Political Action and Beyond at the International Political Science Association World Congress in Fukuoka, Japan, Thursday 13 July 2006. IPSA 2006 – POLITICAL ACTION IN FRAGILE STATES – NORRIS 7/8/2006 11:07:45 PM 2 Research on political activism compares the ways that people participate in the public sphere, the processes that lead them to do so, and the consequences of these acts. Although recent work has broadened the comparative perspective, the long tradition of survey research seeking to understand this phenomenon, discussed by others at this session, has focused primarily upon Western democracies. Much of the initial impetus for this research was a concern about the potential consequences of participation, both positive and negative, for the stability of regimes. As Bermeo emphasizes, the question of what ordinary people do and how they act in the breakdown of autocracies or democracies has long been at the center of the political science agenda. This issue is nowhere more relevant today than in fragile states. Recent years have witnessed growing concern by the international community about the potential dangers arising from fragile states, including reports and programs initiated by the World Bank, the UN, the OECD/DAC, as well as the US and UK governments, and the State Failure Taskforce. There is no standard definition or agreed measurement of what constitutes a ‘fragile’ state, but these are generally understood to be characterized by weak governance institutions. Exemplified by the cases of Haiti, Somalia and Rwanda, fragile states characteristically lack either the political will or the capacity to deliver basic public services, especially to maintain security and alleviate deep-seated poverty. These regimes are of particular concern to the international community. At best, they pose major challenges for the distribution of development aid and they are a risky environment for private investors. At worst, they can experience state collapse, internal conflict can destabilize their neighbors by spilling over national borders, and lack of internal security may provide a haven for international terrorism. This paper considers the survey evidence surrounding three issues which shed light upon the role of political activism in fragile states. First, who engages in protest politics in these countries, and in particular what are their social characteristics? Second, what is the political orientation of protestors towards the regime, and are fragile states characterized by high polarization between forces advocating and opposing regime change? And, lastly, is there systematic evidence that protest in fragile states undermines government stability and effectiveness, as often assumed? IPSA 2006 – POLITICAL ACTION IN FRAGILE STATES – NORRIS 7/8/2006 11:07:45 PM 3 In exploring these issues, multiple methodological approaches and sources of evidence can help to reconstruct patterns of protest politics. The study of ‘contentious politics’ and social movements draw upon event-analysis derived from news reports, records of union membership and industrial strikes, patterns of votes cast for extremist parties, and trends in membership of social movements and groups. Historical narratives provide important insights into past cases of the process of regime change, including both democratic failures and transitions from autocracy, by reconstructing how people acted politically in plazas, streets, taverns, factories, and farms. 5 The underlying attitudes and routine behaviors of ordinary people engaged in protest acts, however, can perhaps best be understood using the conventional tools of individual-level survey analysis, where available. We have now accumulated half a century of survey research on participation in Western democracies. Despite the inclusion of a few developing countries in some of the original studies, such as Mexico, India and South Africa, in general prior to the early1990s coverage for a wide range of developing countries and types of states remained patchy and incomplete. In recent years, however, the situation has been transformed by the availability of a series of surveys conducted in a wide range of developing countries, exemplified by the World Values Study, the Euro-barometers, the International Social Survey Program, the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, and the Global-barometer surveys, plus crossnational surveys by Pew, Harris and Gallup. The expansion of data is to be greatly welcomed by facilitating replication both across time and among nations. Obvious questions can be raised about the quality of sampling and standards of fieldwork in countries which have not yet built up experienced market research companies and social science institutes, but the replication allows cross-checks to be developed across different studies. Familiar questions can also be raised about the quality of questionnaire translations and the employment of equivalent instruments across different nations debates which have been with us ever since The Civic Culture. There are also serious challenges about interpreting public opinion in countries such as China with serious restrictions on freedom of speech and discussion. Yet in counterbalance there are certain advantages associated with conducting surveys in developing nations, namely lower refusal and non-response rates (currently approaching record levels for opinion polls IPSA 2006 – POLITICAL ACTION IN FRAGILE STATES – NORRIS 7/8/2006 11:07:45 PM 4 conducted in the US). Over time, as greater experience has been gained, and as an institutional survey infrastructure has developed in the social sciences, these initiatives have matured and data has accumulated. Moreover some studies in third-wave democracies suggest that patterns of political activism commonly observed in Western Europe and North America may differ from those found elsewhere, such as in Portugal, Spain and post-Communist Europe. Therefore to explore the causes and consequences of protest politics in fragile states – and thus revisit some of the core concerns motivating the original study of political activism fifty years ago – Part I briefly reviews the literature to summarize what we know about protest activism in Western democracies and outlines the theoretical framework. Part II describes the research design and the comparative framework. States are classified according to their degree of political stability and their type of regime. Part III analyses the structural resources and motivational attitudes leading towards protest activism at individual-level, in different types of states, utilizing survey data from the World Values Study. Part IV focuses upon documenting the broader consequences of political protest at systemic levels, particularly for regime stability and government effectiveness. The conclusion summarizes the main results and reflects upon the role of protest politics in contributing towards processes of regime change. I: Theoretical framework The normative literature concerning the value of citizen participation for either strengthening or undermining fragile democracies has traditionally been sharply divided. During the 1960s and 1970s, reflecting the ‘reverse wave’ of democratization in Latin America and post-colonial Africa, and divisive hot button politics in the United States and Western Europe, some theorists warned that forms of direct actions such as street demonstrations, mass strikes and boycotts could prove actively harmful for democracy. In 1968, Samuel Huntington’s work perhaps best exemplifies this tradition of thought, when he identified ‘praetorian societies’ where the organization of new groups generated pressures which governments had difficulties in containing and satisfying. Other scholars during this era also commonly emphasized that the growth and mobilization of civil society in Latin America and Africa could lead towards government overload, hence ineffective policy-making, public disaffection, and political instability. 9 In Western democracies too, IPSA 2006 – POLITICAL ACTION IN FRAGILE STATES – NORRIS 7/8/2006 11:07:45 PM 5 during the mid-1970s there were fears of violent conflict and destabilization on the streets in Paris, Tokyo, and Washington DC. The Trilateral Commission reported that Western nations were experiencing a crisis of democracy, arising from the radical actions taken by an alliance of workers and new social movements, including anti-Vietnam and anti-nuclear peace activists, the Black Power and civil rights movements, counter-culture environmentalists, and feminists. By contrast to these views, perhaps reflecting the rise of ‘third wave’ democracies, contemporary scholars have more often celebrated political activism by ordinary citizens. Today a vibrant civil society is usually regarded as essential for good governance and effective democratic consolidation. Political participation through the ballot box, through collective organizations such as unions and local community groups, and through street demonstrations and protest activities, are seen as providing a barrier to tyranny, a channel of public voice and accountability, and a way of challenging and checking the unbridled power of authoritarian regimes. This view has been articulated by numerous contemporary writers, particularly in pluralist theory, and this focus has revived more recently in accounts emphasizing the role of social capital. Yet even in these arguments it is unclear if all forms of direct action are thought equally valuable as channels of public expression. An important distinction is commonly drawn between civic engagement when mobilizing around issues by community organizations, interest groups and voluntary associations, which are regarded as a normal part of political bargaining and compromise, and mass protests designed to challenge the basic legitimacy and authority of the state. To explore the empirical evidence surrounding these larger debates about the value of democratic participation, and to explain individual-level patterns of political activism, the standard theoretical paradigm was established in earlier decades by the seminal works in the social psychological tradition: Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba’s The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (1963), Sidney Verba and Norman Nie’s Participation in America (1972), Sidney Verba, Norman H. Nie, and Jae-on Kim’s Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison (1978), and Samuel Barnes and Max Kaase’s Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (1979). The major cross-national survey research projects which followed, including the World Values Study, those on Beliefs in Government, Citizen IPSA 2006 – POLITICAL ACTION IN FRAGILE STATES – NORRIS 7/8/2006 11:07:45 PM 6 Involvement and Democracy, the Global-barometers, and the European Social Survey, amongst others, all continue to show considerable continuity with the core concepts, measures and theoretical frameworks used to study activism in The Civic Culture. The substantial literature emerging from this stream of research, reflecting political developments, quieted fears about the ability of protests to rock the foundations of Western democracies. 17 This body of work established two general observations about which there is now widespread consensus: protest politics has risen in most established democracies, and, at least in these societies, the population engaged in these activities has gradually normalized over the years. In recent decades protest politics has grown in most established democracies, often substantially in Western Europe, as shown by levels of engagement through demonstrations reported in Table 1. The spread of protest politics means that it is now mainstream; in nations such as France, Sweden ad Belgium, a third or more of all citizens have demonstrated at some stage in their life. Similar growth can be observed in the few middle-income developing countries where we have comparable time-series data, such as in South Korea, South Africa and Mexico. Reflecting upon these patterns, Inglehart and Catterberg conclude: “Petitions, boycotts, and other forms of direct action are no longer unconventional but have become more or less normal actions for a large part of the citizenry of post-industrial societies.” Analysis suggests that protest politics has generally served to supplement traditional channels of political participation, exemplified by voting, party membership, and civic activism, rather than replacing them. [Table 1 about here] In a related development, the background and characteristics of those engaged in protest politics in established democracies, once thought the province of the young, the disaffected, workers, and students, have now spread throughout all parts of society. For example, a recent event analysis comparing over 1000 protests occurring in metropolitan Chicago concluded that: “Since 1980 there has been a marked transformation of the movement form to the point where public protest is now largely peaceful, routine, suburban, local in nature, and initiated by the advantaged.” Surveys of European demonstrators also suggest that the profile of activists has normalized, with protestors IPSA 2006 – POLITICAL ACTION IN FRAGILE STATES – NORRIS 7/8/2006 11:07:45 PM 7 drawn from all major sectors of society, including professionals as well as unionized factory workers, pensioners as well as students, right as well as left, and so on. In short, as a result of these observations, many studies of the United States and Western Europe have confirmed that peaceful demonstrations, petitions, and consumer boycotts, regarded as radical challenges to the state during the late-1960s, have subsequently become mainstream channels of political expression. [Table 1 about here] The growth and normalization of protest activism found in long-established Western democracies may also be occurring elsewhere, for example in newer democracies. Yet there are many reasons why trends may differ in many developing countries, particularly in fragile states. The notion of ‘fragile’ states is one which has spread rapidly within the international development community, but as yet no consensus has been reached about the best way to conceptualize, define and measure these polities. Indeed different aid agencies have often adopted this terminology to describe their relationship with certain partners, notably USAID initiatives in Iraq and Afghanistan, without sufficient attention to whether this categorization is appropriate given differing types of regime falling within this group of countries. Nevertheless the core notion is attractive as it highlights the difficulties of delivering aid in many of the poorer parts in the world which are at the greatest risk of regime change. As mentioned earlier, fragile states typically lack either the political will or the capacity to deliver effective public services, especially to maintain human security and peace. Some, such as Haiti, have staggered from one crisis to another, without achieving effective government. Other states, such as Russia, Colombia, and Sri Lanka, have struggled for years to manage and contain armed regional conflict. The most dramatic cases have experienced bloody civil wars, such as those following the dissolution of the former republic of Yugoslavia. Other regimes, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, have been overthrown by foreign interventions, and newlyelected governments in these countries have proved incapable of establishing effective control of internal security. The precise sources of government instability are therefore complex and varied in different states, whether due to deep-rooted internal ethnic conflict, major economic shocks triggered by a currency or trade crisis, pervasive social poverty and lack of state capacity in the public sector, neighboring wars which spill over national IPSA 2006 – POLITICAL ACTION IN FRAGILE STATES – NORRIS 7/8/2006 11:07:45 PM 8 borders, foreign invasions, the existence of international crime, drugs, and lootable natural resources, or other related causes. What fragile states share in common, however, is that they are the most vulnerable to the risk of political instability toppling the existing regime, whether democratically elected or autocratically led. Despite endemic poverty, widespread social need, and the vulnerability of the populations, this situation poses major challenges for generating the confidence necessary to attract inward investment and generate growth, and for delivering development aid through regular public sector channels. In particular, the motivation and characteristics of protestors – and the systemic consequences of protest actions for social conflict, for government effectiveness, and for regime stability – could well be expected to differ between established democracies and less stable states experiencing deep-rooted ethnic conflict, such as in Nigeria, Indonesia, and Colombia. In fragile states, dramatic outbreaks of mass uprisings, unarmed insurrections, mass strikes, and street protests have sometimes preceded dramatic cases of regime change. Observers suggest such events are exemplified by Joseph Estrada’s fall from power following people power demonstrations in the Philippines, the Orange revolution in Ukraine and the Rose revolution in Georgia, and violent street clashes which destabilized the Fujimori presidency in Peru. The literature on contentious politics, drawing upon historical narrative case-studies of social movement organizations, has emphasized that unarmed popular uprisings may challenge, and occasionally help to topple, existing regimes, both democratic and autocratic. 24 For example, Bermeo’s study emphasizes that democracies rarely fail because of polarization among the mass electorate, with ordinary voters switching directly to extremist parties. At the same time, she concludes that polarization among smaller groups of activists engaged in street protest, political strikes, and violent conflict, as well as polarization among elite leaders, has contributed towards the downfall of democracy in several well-known cases in interwar Western Europe and during the postwar era in Latin America. The political orientations of activists engaged in protest in fragile states, moreover, may be more polarized between the forces of change and retrenchment than in established Western democracies, while the systemic consequences of protest may be expected to prove more destabilizing. IPSA 2006 – POLITICAL ACTION IN FRAGILE STATES – NORRIS 7/8/2006 11:07:45 PM 9 The key questions for this study which arise from the notion of fragile states is the role of mass political activism – expressed primarily through participation in street demonstrations, boycotts, and political strikes – and whether this contributes towards government ineffectiveness and political instability, as some assume. In particular we can focus upon sifting the evidence for three specific issues in this paper. First, we can examine whether protestors who engage in mass demonstrations, boycotts and strikes in fragile states are similar or different in their social profile from protest activists in stable states. We can also compare the typical social profile in democracies and autocracies. Secondly, compared with stable states, we can also explore direct evidence to see whether protestors in fragile states are more sharply polarized between radicals intent on destabilizing the regime and conservatives seeking to preserve the status quo against the winds of changes. Lastly, turning to the broader systemic consequences of protest politics, we need to move beyond the individual-level of analysis to see whether societies with considerable protest politics differ in their levels of political stability and government effectiveness. II: The research design and comparative framework To start to explore these issues, we need to identify and classify fragile and stable states. To do this, the study draws upon the Political Stability index created by Daniel Kaufman and his colleagues at the World Bank. The index is part of the battery of items measuring six different dimension of ‘good governance’ based on perceptions drawn from 37 separate aggregate data sources. This includes assessments by individuals and domestic firms, as well as public opinion surveys, risk assessment ratings, and evaluations by non-governmental organizations and multilateral aid agencies. The dimension of ‘political stability’ was selected as this seeks to measure the likelihood of violent threat to, and changes in, government. The measure therefore corresponds closely to the notion of ‘fragile states’ that we are seeking to identify. The 2000 index was used to identify contemporary patterns, to match the date of the fieldwork conducted for the 4 wave of the World Values Study, the source of the data analysis. [Figure 1 about here] IPSA 2006 – POLITICAL ACTION IN FRAGILE STATES – NORRIS 7/8/2006 11:07:45 PM 10 The countries included in the World Values Survey are classified by the 2000 Political Stability index, as illustrated in Figure 1, and then further categorized. Contemporary ‘fragile’ states are defined as those nations which scored less than -0.00 on the index. ‘Stable’ stables are those which scored above +0.00. Although any dichotomy is inevitably somewhat arbitrary at the precise cut off level, nevertheless the graph shows that the ranking of the Political Stability index corresponds quite well with common notions of fragile states expressed by the international community. Hence the graph shows 27 countries in the WVS which are classified as fragile states, headed by Indonesia, Algeria, and Columbia, all dealing with violent threats for secession from break-away nationalist minorities. Although different types of regimes, the African states of Nigeria, Uganda and Zimbabwe also feature as at serious risk from political instability. The list also includes countries that were part of the former republic of Yugoslavia, as well as some of East European states, and certain poorer Muslim states in South East Asia. Lastly 49 nations are categorized as stable, with lower risk of experiencing violent overthrow or a coup d’etat.