Non-Western Social Movements and Participatory Democracy Protest in The Age of Transnationalism PDF

Societies and Political Orders in Transition
Ekim Arbatli
Dina Rosenberg Editors
Non-Western
Social Movements
and Participatory
Democracy
Protest in the Age
of Transnationalism
Series editors
Alexander Chepurenko
National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
Stein Ugelvik Larsen
University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
William Reisinger
Department of Political Science, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA
Managing editors
Ekim Arbatli
Dina Rosenberg
Aigul Mavletova
This book series presents scientific and scholarly studies focusing on societies and
political orders in transition, for example in Central and Eastern Europe but also
elsewhere in the world. By comparing established societies, characterized by well-
established market economies and well-functioning democracies, with post-
socialist societies, often characterized by emerging markets and fragile political
systems, the series identifies and analyzes factors influencing change and continuity
in societies and political orders. These factors include state capacity to establish
formal and informal rules, democratic institutions, forms of social structuration,
political regimes, levels of corruption, specificity of political cultures, as well as
types and orientation of political and economic elites.
This series welcomes monographs and edited volumes from a variety of disci-
plines and approaches, such as political and social sciences and economics, which
are accessible to both academics and interested general readers.
Topics may include, but are not limited to, democratization, regime change,
changing social norms, migration, etc.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15626
International Advisory Board:

Bluhm, Katharina; Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Buckley, Cynthia; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Sociological
Research, USA
Cox, Terry; Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow, UK
Fish, Steve; Berkeley University, USA
Ilyin, Michail; National Research Universiy Higher School of Economics, Russia
Melville, Andrei; National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia
Radaev, Vadim; National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia
Ekim Arbatli • Dina Rosenberg
Editors
Non-Western Social
Movements and Participatory
Democracy
Protest in the Age of Transnationalism
Editors
Ekim Arbatli Dina Rosenberg
National Research University National Research University
Higher School of Economics Higher School of Economics
Moscow, Russia Moscow, Russia
ISSN 2511-2201 ISSN 2511-221X (electronic)

ISBN 978-3-319-51453-6 ISBN 978-3-319-51454-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934491
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Printed on acid-free paper
This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To M€umtaz, Emine, and Deniz K€uç€
ukbumin,
and to all the anonymous heroes of the Gezi
Resistance
Ekim
To my loving husband, Stanislav Rosenberg

Dina
Non-Western Social Movements and
Participatory Democracy: A Foreword
In 2013, as the cycle of protest that became most visible in 2011 seemed to subside,
contentious politics began to re-emerge worldwide in the most disparate parts of the
globe, including Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela, South Africa, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and
Ukraine. Indeed, the protest spread, inspired at least in part by the anti-austerity
movements of the previous years but also presenting some peculiarity. Participants
in the new movement often acknowledge the learning process from movements in
other countries and the linkages between the protests in 2011 and those in 2013
have been explicitly addressed by scholars such as Goran Therborn (2014). He
noted that “paradoxically, it is not so much in the recession-struck Northern
heartlands but in the neo-capitalist Second World, and in the—supposedly boom-
ing—brics and emerging economies, that popular anger has made itself felt” (p. 6).
In fact, while the 2011 protests had been most visible during the Arab Spring as well
as in the so-called PIIGS countries—Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain—
which were suffering the most from the financial crisis and in very contentious
environments, some of the 2013 protests developed in countries that were consi-
dered as “winners” in economic terms or as very tame in terms of contentious
politics. Despite differences, “an emphasis on urban space through the occupation
of public squares has been a common characteristic of all of these protests. Real
estate bubbles, soaring housing prices, and the overall privatization-alienation of
common urban goods constitute the common ground of protests in as diverse places
as the United States, Egypt, Spain, Turkey, Brazil, Israel, and Greece” (Tugal 2013,
p. 158).
In addressing these protests, this volume has some important contributions that
can open new perspectives in social movement studies. First of all, it points to the
need to see protest in its global dynamics rather than narrowing focusing on
so-called advanced democracies. The global dynamics of contentious process can
be addressed by lowing at what I conceptualize as protest cascade, referring to the
spreading of protest beyond physically proximate and functionally isomorphic
places (della Porta 2017). A cascade is defined as “a chemical or physiological
process that occurs in successive stages, each of which is dependent on the
vii
viii Non-Western Social Movements and Participatory Democracy: A Foreword
preceding one, and often producing a cumulative effect.”1 In parallel, in a protest

cascade, protest events occurring in one place trigger a multistage process that, in
successive stages, spread in other places, producing cumulative effects. The con-
cept of protest cascade points at the process of diffusion of protests towards distant
spaces where hypotheses of isomorphism or proximity do not automatically hold.
A second relevant contribution of the analysis of non-Western movements is
also in bringing (back?) some perspectives that had disappeared in “mainstream”
social movement studies, while instead remaining well alive in research on social
movements in the South. Especially relevant, a debate triggered by the protest cas-
cade of 2011 and following years is about the social bases of the protest. In addres-
sing the social composition of the protests, various contributions to this volume
address the important issue of the effect of the neoliberal economy beyond the core
democratic countries—as well as the various class configurations of the protest as
the protest waves broadened beyond the first-comer countries.
The focus on classes and capitalism should not, however, bring about structural-
ist visions that do not recognize the agency of the citizens, even under authoritarian
regimes. Another important contribution of this volume is indeed in the analysis of
the political conditions for the development of the protests. Defying the expectation
that movements will develop when democratic opportunities open up, the contri-
butors to this volume show that contentious politics is also possible in what have
been defined as authoritarian, or at least illiberal, democracies, as neoliberal eco-
nomic global policies reduce institutional channels for participation, increasing
instead repression as well as a perceived decline of civic and political rights. In
their challenges, protestors are however going beyond claims for liberal democracy.
The movements analyzed here contributed to the spreading of an alternative lan-
guage, bridging social and cultural concerns. In action, during the protest cam-
paigns, a new “spirit” emerged, giving rise to a sense of empowerment that often
lasted beyond the campaigns. Contentious politics contributed, therefore, to the
reshuffling of political cleavages and the emergence of new norms and narratives—
although with different degrees of success.
September 2016 Donatella della Porta
References
Della Porta, D. (2017). Global diffusion of protest: Riding the protest wave in the neoliberal crisis.
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Therborn, G. (2014). New masses? Social bases of resistance. New Left Review, 85, 6–16.
Tugal, C. (2013). “Resistance everywhere”: The Gezi revolt in global perspective. New Perspec-
tives on Turkey, 49, 157–172.
1
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cascade.
Acknowledgments
This book is the final product of nearly three years of work and we have incurred a lot
of debt to many individuals in the process. We would like to take this opportunity to
thank all of them for their help, support, and patience throughout this project.
First of all, we are very much indebted to Alexander Chepurenko and Andrei
Y. Melville for encouraging the publication of this volume from the onset. We
thank them for their support as both senior colleagues and patient mentors. We are
also extremely grateful to Donatella della Porta for her invaluable contribution.
This project was born out of very lengthy discussions about social movements
with our colleagues, Lygia Costa and Piro Rexhepi, who inspired some of the core
ideas of the resulting volume. Although they did not become further involved in the
project, we are very thankful for their intellectual participation and collegiality. We
also benefited from valuable comments and insights of Okşan Bayülgen on earlier
versions of the manuscript. We profoundly appreciate her input. We would like to
thank our editor Johannes Glaeser for his time and effort, Silembarasan Gayathri for
meticulous copyediting, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments. We are
also grateful to Edward Galiev and Kirill Chmel for excellent research assistance.
Our greatest debt is to our colleagues in this project, who exhibited great
patience and dedication throughout this long process. None of this would have
been possible without their collaborative effort. It has been a great pleasure to make
their acquaintance. We thank them once more for their contribution.
Finally, we are especially grateful to our families and friends for their ongoing
support in our life and work. Ekim Arbatlı would like to thank Eren Arbatlı,
Mümtaz Küçükbumin, Emine Küçükbumin, Deniz Küçükbumin, Metin
Küçükbumin, Mediha Ermurat, Mübeccel S€okmen, Rıza Ermurat, Kadriye
Güvercin, Ülkü S€onmez, Tahir S€onmez, Ahmet Arbatlı, Ayten Arbatlı, G€onül
Egilmez, Ugur Güvercin, and last but not the least, precious little Derin.
Dina Rosenberg would like to thank Irina Karpova, Yan Balalaev, Stanislav
Rosenberg, and Andrei Zhirnov.
Needless to say, all remaining errors are ours.
ix
Contents
Introduction: Non-Western Social Movements and Participatory

Democracy in the Age of Transnationalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Ekim Arbatli
The “Colorless” Protests in Russia: Mixed Messages and an Uncertain
Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Dina Rosenberg
Palestinian Youth Movements and “the Arab Spring” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Ibrahim Natil
Brazilian Protests: Actors and Demands for Political Changes . . . . . . . 43
Dmitry Zaytsev
The Multitudes of the Invisibles and the Revitalization
of the Indian Democratic Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Sanjay K. Rajhans
Queering Gezi and Maidan: Instrumentalization and Negotiation
of Sexuality Within the Protest Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Maryna Shevtsova
From the Social Forums Period to the June Resistance: Tension
Between Mass Mobilization and Political Strategy in Turkey . . . . . . . . 101
Mutlucan Şahan
Citizen Plenums in Bosnia Protests: Creating a Post-Ethnic
Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Nina Belyaeva
The Rise and Demise of the Iranian Green Revolution: Collective
Action Framing in Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
David Drissel
xi
xii Contents
Egyptian Women in the Arab Spring: Emotions, Political Participation,

and the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Alisa R. Shishkina
Cyberspace Attacks and Social Media Momentum: Building Blocks
from Syria to Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Ina Wanca
Conclusion: The Changing Face of Social Movements and Emerging
Patterns Across the Non-Western World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Dina Rosenberg and Ekim Arbatli
Contributors
Ekim Arbatli is an assistant professor of political science in the National Research

University Higher School of Economics, Moscow. She received her MA and PhD
degrees in political science from University of Connecticut, USA. Her current
research investigates the political dynamics of hybrid regimes, with a specific
focus on Russia and Turkey. She published her work in Communist and Post-
communist Studies and Conflict Management and Peace Science. She also has
numerous chapters in edited volumes.
Nina Belyaeva is a professor of public policy in the National Research University

Higher School of Economics, Moscow. She received her PhD in law and public
policy from the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Science. Her
current research focuses on civil society and protests publics as global phenomena.
She teaches civil society influence on policy making in comparative prospective at
Bologna University, University of Turin, Science Po Grenoble, and at the European
Regional Master’s Program in Human Rights and Democratic Governance
(ERMA), at the University of Sarajevo. Her recent publications were on global
citizenship and global identity, and Bolotnaya protests in Moscow.
David Drissel is a professor of social sciences at Iowa Central Community

College. He holds an MA in political science from Auburn University and he
is currently completing a doctorate degree in International Development at the
University of Southern Mississippi. He has widely published in academic journals
such as the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, the International Journal of
Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, the Global Studies Journal, the International
Journal of the Humanities, and the International Journal of Technology. He also
has numerous chapters in edited volumes.
Ibrahim Natil is a research fellow at the Institute for International Conflict Resol-
ution and Reconstruction, Dublin City University. He is an international develop-
ment consultant and the founder of the Society Voice Foundation in Palestine.
xiii
xiv Contributors
He has numerous articles and book chapters on conflict resolution, peacebuilding,

human security, NGOs, revolutionary movements, and political violence. Dr. Natil
is the author of the book Hamas Transformation: Opportunities and Challenges
(2015, Cambridge Scholars Publishing).
Sanjay K. Rajhans is an assistant professor of public policy in the National

Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow. He received an MA
in English Literature and an MA in Political Science. His current research focuses
on global governance, global citizenship, and education, as well as soft power and
social movements in India.
Dina Rosenberg is an assistant professor of political science in the National

Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow. She earned her MA
and PhD in political science from Binghamton University, USA. Her current
research focuses on political institutions and comparative political economy, with
a specific focus on innovations. She published her most recent work in Review of
Policy Research.
Mutlucan Şahan is a doctoral candidate and research assistant in Galatasaray

University, Istanbul. He is currently completing his joint PhD degree at Galatasaray
University and Université de Grenoble, France. His research focuses on
neo-managerialism.
Maryna Shevtsova is a doctoral candidate at Berlin Graduate School of

Social Sciences at Humboldt University, Berlin, and Senior Non-resident Adjunct
Fellow at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation. She holds a PhD in
international economics from Dnepropetrovsk National University, Ukraine, and
an MA in gender studies from Central European University, Budapest. Her recent
publications include “Euromaidan and the Echoes of the Orange Revolution:
Comparing Resource Mobilization and Resistance Practices of Protest Camps in
Kyiv in 2004 and 2013” (Protest Camps: Past Tents, Present Tents) and “Being
LGBT in Turkey: Life-Long Search for a Drive for Democratization and Social
Struggle” (Worldwide Perspectives on Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals: Culture,
History and Law).
Alisa R. Shishkina is a junior research fellow at the Laboratory for Monitoring of

Socio-Political Destabilization Risks in the National Research University Higher
School of Economics, Moscow. Her current research focuses on the influence of
information technologies on social movements.
Ina Wanca is an adjunct professor in the Department of Security, Fire

and Emergency Management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and a
contributing analyst for Wikistrat’s cybersecurity and international crime desk.
She holds an MS degree in global affairs from New York University, USA, and a
law degree from VFU Chenorizetz Hrabar, Bulgaria. Ina worked with various
international and diplomatic organizations, including the United Nations and the
Contributors xv
US Mission to the European Union, examining the role of the governments and
private enterprises in securing cyberspace.
Dmitry Zaytsev is an associate professor of public policy in the National Research

University Higher School of Economics, Moscow. He received his PhD in political
science from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of
Russian Academy of Science. His current research focuses on think tanks and
analytical communities, as well as protest publics as drivers of policy change. He
has numerous chapters in edited volumes.
Introduction: Non-Western Social
Movements and Participatory Democracy
in the Age of Transnationalism
Ekim Arbatli
1 Introduction
The last decade has witnessed a surge of large-scale protests and social mobilization
around the globe. From Iceland’s Saucepan Revolution to the first sparks of the
Arab Spring in Tunisia, from the Greek anti-austerity protests to Occupy Wall
Street, from Brazil’s June Journeys to Turkey’s Gezi Park protests, the post-2008
period was marked by a series of important events. Many times, these events
happened in contexts where they were the least expected. Some mass protests
toppled entrenched personalist regimes, such as Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and
ousted autocratic-leaning presidents, like Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych. In other
cases, like the Iranian ‘Green Revolution’, protesters eventually succumbed to the
strong regime response. Yet other movements waned over time, such as the Russian
protests of 2011–2012.
This global proliferation of protests also increased scholarly interest in conten-
tious politics and social movements. Recently, there are some excellent volumes
discussing various aspects of movement diffusion and protest patterns with a rich
array of examples (della Porta and Mattoni 2014; Flesher Fominaya 2014;
Moghadam 2013; Castells 2012; Smith and Wiest 2012). Additionally, a plethora
of empirical work focuses on particular countries, regions or series of events (Byrne
2013; Faris 2013; Petras 2013; Schuurman and Van Naerssen 2013; Yang 2013;
Dabashi 2012; Beinin and Vairel 2011; Broadbent and Brockman 2011). In this
volume, we seek to complement these studies by focusing on non-Western social
movements in a comparative light. We investigate the emerging characteristics of
movements taking place between 2008 and 2016.
E. Arbatli (*)
e-mail: ekimarbatli@hse.ru
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 1

E. Arbatli, D. Rosenberg (eds.), Non-Western Social Movements and Participatory
Democracy, Societies and Political Orders in Transition,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_1
2 E. Arbatli
The contributors analyze many diverse and important cases from a comparative
perspective and provide a local reseeding of social movements of the last decade.
The countries under study are Bosnia Herzegovina, Brazil, Egypt, India, Iran,
Palestine, Russia, Syria, Turkey and Ukraine. We have two central arguments:
First, we seek to challenge the conventional wisdom that the main goal of contem-
porary protests is establishing or reinforcing democracy (Tilly and Wood 2013;
Kaldor et al. 2012; Amenta and Caren 2004). We argue that this line of thinking
suffers from a democratizing bias, and show that non-Western movements are not
exclusively motivated by a struggle for liberal democracy. In fact, the problem of
real participation (as opposed to traditional demands for political rights) is a more
prominent feature of contemporary protests in the global South. Hence, partici-
patory democracy stands out as an overarching claim, framed around three concepts
that appear ubiquitous across different settings: real participation, social justice, and
dignity.
Secondly, we argue that the outcome-based approaches to the study of social
movements can lead to a ‘context-blind’ analysis of events. In many countries of the
global South, the socioeconomic problems and political setting make it highly
unlikely for protests or social movements to have immediate and tangible policy
results. However, this lack of a tangible political outcome does not automatically
mean that the protests failed to achieve any substantial change. In order to capture
these social and political changes, a more nuanced approach is critical. Rather than
a focus on outcomes, we propose to focus on the transformative potential of social
movements and their gains in promoting broad-based political participation as a
viable alternative.
2 The Non-Western Critique(s) of Liberal Democracy:

Participatory Democracy as a Demand
Analyzing the events of 2011 in the Middle East, Kaldor et al. (2012, p. 3) were
rather optimistically stating that “an active civil society has begun a movement for
democracy across the region”. In retrospect, this observation seems rather simpli-
stic, not only in the light of outcomes, but also in terms of the diverse (and at times
divergent) motivations of protest participants. Time and again, context-blind ana-
lyses of non-Western movements and the quick adaptation of concepts (such as
‘civil society’) to unique situations fail to capture the reality on the ground. With
this assertion, our volume challenges the mainstream approach towards contem-
porary social movements which claims that people are finally finding their voices
through the current wave of protests (Tilly and Wood 2013; Kaldor et al. 2012;
Amenta and Caren 2004).
The case studies in this volume show that recent social movements, unlike those
at the end of the Cold War, are not exclusively motivated by demands for demo-
cratization and civil rights. What is unique about many non-Western movements
Introduction: Non-Western Social Movements and Participatory Democracy in. . . 3
today is that their articulation of demands is not only based on a critique of authori-
tarianism, but of liberal democracy as well. Rather than being a part of the main-
stream liberal discourse on rights, these new movements seek to redefine social
demands by challenging fixed identities. Even when the discourse of rights is used,
it is not immediately obvious that they have the same meaning across different
contexts.
In their excellent discussion on the contemporary meaning(s) of participatory
democracy, Santos and Avritzer (2005) argue that liberal democracy confined
democracy to the political realm, which is understood as the state’s arena of inter-
vention. Hence, they claim that “the struggle for democracy is today above all a
struggle for democratization of democracy” (p. lxii). Here, the promotion of
“participatory democracy”, as opposed to liberal democracy, is an implicit claim.
As Glasius and Pleyers (2013, p. 557) aptly observe, “this simultaneous demand for
and practice of a deeper, participatory democracy goes well beyond traditional
demands for the civil and political rights associated with liberal democracy”.
In this light, it is important to understand how protesters frame their demands in
terms of participatory democracy. Framing allows people “to locate, perceive,
identify, and label” different events from their lives (Buechler 2011, p. 146). I
will argue that three common frames stand out in current non-Western movements:
real participation, social justice, and dignity.
2.1 Real participation
First and foremost, the problem of real political participation stands out as the
uniting theme of movements. In a study of 843 protests occurring between January
2006 and July 2013 in 84 countries covering over 90% of world population, Ortiz
et al. (2013, p. 21) find that “more than 44% of all protests considered between 2006
and 2013 (a total of 376 protest events overall) involve a failure of political
representation and political systems”. Moreover, they point out that this problem
is not unique to authoritarian governments, but also includes formal representative
democracies.
The deliberately leaderless formulation of recent social movements in the
non-Western context highlights this concern for real participation opposing power
hierarchies (Glasius and Pleyers 2013). Rosenberg (in Chap. 2) argues that one of
the defining characteristics of the Russian protests was the lack of a strong leader-
ship that was further accentuated as the protests became more digital. In Brazil,
Zaytsev (in Chap. 4) notes that the leadership was so fluid that the state authorities
had a hard time finding legitimate representatives for negotiation.
There is a clear backlash against power hierarchies of any sort that represent the
‘political realm’ in the minds of protesters. Many times, the protesters refuse any
identification with a political party, with the fear that the movement will be hijacked
by a power vertical. As Şahan notes (in Chap. 7), the social forums period created
the idea of participatory democracy and leaderless movements, which translated
4 E. Arbatli
into the formation of ODP in Turkey as an experiment of “the platform of move-

ments”. This concern was also apparent during the Gezi protests where many
participants were wary of any identification with a party or political platform,
instead referring to themselves as direnisci (resister) and carrying only the national
flag (as opposed to any party or organization emblems) as a protest symbol.
Besides the rejection of leaders and political parties, the new movements also
seek to achieve broader democratic participation through the empowerment of
different groups. The underprivileged groups such as women, indigenous people,
LGBT groups, or minorities can find a more inclusive and egalitarian venue for
voicing demands in a previously hostile political setting. This point is well illus-
trated by the large scale participation of women in the Egyptian protests analyzed
by Shishkina (Chap. 10). It is also quite apparent in the acceptance of LGBT groups
and the “queering” of protests in the traditionally patriarchal settings of Ukraine
and Turkey, as shown by Shevtsova (Chap. 6).
2.2 Social justice
A second and related theme is the articulation of social justice across non-Western
movements. Here, it is crucial to highlight the temporal aspect of protests, namely
the post-2008 atmosphere of global economic crisis, for understanding the setting in
which these movements took place. On this front, the protests bear some strong
similarities to their Western counterparts. For many protesters, ranging from
Greece to Iceland, from Spain to the United States, the common understanding
was that the roots of the financial crisis are imminently political (Flesher Fominaya
2014; Helleiner 2011). Hence, the critiques were aimed not only against the
economic performance of governments, but also against their political shortcom-
ings. Most critically, their failure to address the grievances of the large masses that
have had to pay the human costs of neoliberalism raised widespread disillusionment
with the system as a whole. This idea of the neglected majority at the expense of a
very small, but highly influential and privileged minority was perhaps best captured
by the American Occupy movement’s famous slogan: “We are the 99%!”
A similar concern with social and global justice also looms large in the protests
across the non-Western world with various slogans and manifestations in different
contexts. The popular banner during the Bosnian protests, “We are hungry in three
languages!” (Hopkins 2014) attests to a similar articulation of socioeconomic
problems above and beyond political differences. Likewise, the Brazilian protest
wave of 2013–2016 that began over an increase in bus fares highlights the impor-
tance of social justice as an overarching theme. Drissel (in Chap. 9) also notes that
social justice was one of the local frames used by the Iranian Green Movement to
garner global sympathy and support.
2.3 Dignity
The third common demand is related to the emotional component of protest behav-
ior in the non-Western context. Many recent studies focus on the role of emotions
such as anger, shame, fear, joy, and pride in encouraging or hindering political
participation (Pearlman 2013; Jasper 2014). As Jasper (2014, p. 210) observes, “just
as group honor motivates political action, so does a desire for individual honor in
the form of dignity. Even in situations where success seems unlikely, people often
join movements simply to assert their dignity as human beings who are suffering
and can make noise”.
Indeed, many of the current non-Western movements attest to the importance of
dignity as a recurring theme. Analyzing the Arab Spring events, Dabashi (2012,
p. 10) claimed that the slogan “Huriyyah, Adalah Ijtima’iyah, Karamah” (Freedom,
Social Justice, Dignity) captures the essence of the mood in the Arab world. In
Russia, Smyth et al. (2015, p. 66) point to the role of emotional impulses for
political participation among the protesters of 2011–2012 rallies. A number of
Russian protesters in the authors’ interviews mentioned their “desire to protect
their dignity and self-esteem in the face of the Kremlin’s actions”.
During the first week of protests, Turkish scholar and columnist Ahmet Insel
called the events a “Dignity Uprising”, pointing out that this was not a protest for
regime change, but rather against the increasingly single-handed, divisive and
uncompromising style of Prime Minister Erdogan that offended the dignity of
citizens (Insel 2013). One of the most popular slogans of the movement, “Boyun
Egme!” (Don’t Bend Your Neck!), attests to these feelings of anger and defiance.
Similarly, the Euromaidan movement was also called “the Revolution of Dignity”
by many participants (Khromeychuk 2015). A civil activist in the movement,
Kateryna Kruk, claimed that the Ukrainian people were protesting to preserve
their dignity (Kruk 2013):
[W]e no longer want to be treated like cattle; we want an end to corruption. We want
respect, justice and freedom. (. . .)We are not here for politics or money: we are protecting
our dignity.
The claim of dignity has a strong echo across many contexts, since it determines
the positioning of the individual against the power. As such, the articulation of
dignity has strong parallels with both participatory democracy and social justice.
While the two latter issues mark the tangible gains that the protesters are vying to
achieve, the former sets the emotional micro-foundation around which individuals
gather.
6 E. Arbatli
3 Studying Non-Western Social Movements: The Role

of Context(s) and Outcome(s)
When and how do social movements matter? How can we measure the impact and
importance of a social movement? Many scholars focus on outcomes, usually in the
form of specific policy or regime consequences, in order to assess the success or
failure of social movements. According to Giugni (2008, p. 1583), political conse-
quences can be defined as “those effects of movement activities that alter in some
way the movements’ political environment”. Scholars proposed different typo-
logies to identify and measure these policy outcomes (Kitschelt 1986; Gamson
1990; Giugni 1998). In general, the movement is considered to be successful if it
can advocate for, and initiate, policy changes in an issue area. Under this approach,
social movements and protests can serve both agenda-setting and decision-
enforcing functions, or even initiate ‘regime change cascades’ (Hale 2013).
I argue that this way of thinking about protests and social movements is not
particularly fruitful for analyzing contemporary non-Western protests, since it
ignores the critical role of context(s). Outcome-based approaches create two impor-
tant theoretical problems. First, the success or failure of a movement is largely
subjective and experience-based. As Flesher Fominaya (2014, p. 13) aptly points
out, “since the definition of success also very much depends on goals and expec-
tations, the evaluation of success is likely to vary from activist to activist and
between movement participants and outside observers, including scholars”. This
critique is especially valid for contemporary social movements that feature a highly
unlikely medley of participants forming coalitions around broad-based common
demands.
Indeed, these coalitions of ‘unusual suspects’ constitute a uniting theme across
the cases in this volume: Rosenberg (in Chap. 2) argues that a striking aspect of the
Russian protests in 2011–2012 is the partnership between liberals and nationalists.
Similarly, Shevtsova (in Chap. 6) points out that the protests in Turkey and Ukraine
were remarkable due to the visible involvement and endorsement of LGBT groups
in both settings. As the other essays also demonstrate, from Bosnia to India, from
Egypt to Brazil, the socioeconomic backgrounds and political ideologies of protest
participants are highly varied. Hence, what qualifies as success for one particular
group can totally frustrate the expectations of another group within the movement.
The second important issue pointed out repeatedly by scholars is the difficulty of
determining which movements have had political consequences (Amenta et al.
2010; Earl 2000; Amenta and Young 1999; Tilly 1999). This can be especially
problematic in authoritarian or semi-authoritarian settings where the elites are typi-
cally non-responsive to public demands—especially to demands raised through
large-scale protests which are likely to risk their political survival. Big social events
in authoritarian countries can have a strict win-lose outcome, where the scenarios
oscillate between leader overthrow and complete autocratic closing. Hence, we
propose to highlight the transformative functions that protests and social move-
ments can play in the non-Western world, rather than focusing strictly on outcomes.
Many of the authors in this volume explicitly point to the substantive social gains
from active participation, although the movement itself may have failed. For
instance, Belyaeva (in Chap. 8) paints an optimistic picture of the Bosnian protests,
albeit their failure to bring immediate political gains. She argues that the organi-
zation of plenums represent a fundamental shift in political discourse and civic
consciousness. Similarly, Natil (in Chap. 3) remarks that although the Palestinian
youth movements failed to achieve political results, they played an important trans-
formative role for community development and awareness building. These findings
show that even when the protests and ensuing social movements do not achieve
immediate political outcomes, they can still have a lasting impact on the social
landscape and affect future repertoires of action.
4 Organization of the Volume
After this introductory section, the rest of the book comprises of ten case study
chapters investigating protests across the non-Western world, and a conclusion
chapter. In the first four chapters, the authors are primarily interested in the
participant and demand structure of protests and their consequences. In
Chap. 2, Rosenberg analyzes the Russian protest wave of 2011–2013 with a specific
focus on the varied demands of the participants and the likelihood of the protests to
evolve into an institutionalized movement with civic goals. In Chap. 3, Natil
investigates the Palestinian youth movement as a potential driver of political
change. Zaytsev in Chap. 4 takes an even more optimistic view in his analysis of
Brazilian protests and argues that participatory practices brought substantial insti-
tutional and policy change in the country. In Chap. 5, Rajhans studies the Indian
protests and shows the transformative power of dignity and accountability as
common claims that can overcome cross-cutting cleavages.
In the next three chapters, the authors focus on strategies of participation. In
Chap. 6, Shevtsova examines Turkish and Ukrainian protests in terms of LGBT
participation and argues for a context-appropriate political discourse. In
Chap. 7, Şahan critically examines prior experiences with direct participation in
Turkey in the social forums period and shows the disadvantages of forums as a mass
mobilization strategy. In Chap. 8, Belyaeva takes a different viewpoint and argues
that the social forums (plenums) experience in Bosnia contributed to the unification
of an ethnically divided society.
The last three chapters problematize the role of Internet and social media in
demand framing and direct participation, focusing on the potentially adverse effects
of information technologies for protest movements. Drissel in Chap. 9 argues that
although the Iranian Green Movement initially benefited from global framing
through the Internet, this strategy ultimately proved to be insufficient and even
counterproductive at times and the government was able to formulate its own
counter-frames effectively. In Chap. 10, Shishkina analyzes Egypt and makes a
similar point: Although social media facilitated direct participation of women in the
8 E. Arbatli
movement, it also had a pacifying effect by substituting online protest with political
action on the street. In Chap. 11, Wanca takes a more optimistic approach about the
potential of the cyberspace and argues that it creates a new arena of direct partici-
pation in non-conventional forms such as cyberattacks by different independent
groups.
Finally, Chap. 12 by Rosenberg and Arbatli provides a summary of the common
arguments and issues discussed in this volume by comparing the case studies. It
highlights the main findings of the authors regarding the similar characteristics of
new social movements and the emerging patterns across the non-Western world.
This chapter also questions the potentially transformative role of participatory
democracy both as a political demand, and as a mass mobilization strategy. It
concludes with some observations on the future of democracy and contentious
politics.
References
Amenta, E., & Caren, N. (2004). The legislative, organizational, and beneficiary consequences of
state-oriented challengers. In D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule, & H. Kriesi (Eds.), The Blackwell com-
panion to social movements (pp. 461–488). London: Blackwell.
Amenta, E., Caren, N., Chiarello, E., & Su, Y. (2010). The political consequences of social move-
ments. Annual Review of Sociology, 36, 287–307.
Amenta, E., & Young, M. P. (1999). Democratic states and social movements: Theoretical argu-
ments and hypotheses. Social Problems, 46(2), 153–168.
Beinin, J., & Vairel, F. (2011). Social movements, mobilization, and contestation in the
Middle East and North Africa. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Broadbent, J., & Brockman, V. (2011). East Asian social movements: Power, protest, and
change in a dynamic region. New York: Springer.
Buechler, S. M. (2011). Understanding social movements. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
Byrne, P. (2013). Social movements in Britain. London and New York: Routledge.
Castells, M. (2012). Networks of outrage and hope. Social movements in the Internet age.
Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Dabashi, H. (2012). The Arab spring: The end of postcolonialism. London: Zed.
Della Porta, D., & Mattoni, A. (2014). Spreading protest: Social movements in times of crisis.
Colchester: ECPR Press.
Earl, J. (2000). Methods, movements, and outcomes. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and
Change, 22, 3–25.
Faris, D. M. (2013). Dissent and revolution in a digital age: Social media, blogging and activism
in Egypt. London: IB Tauris.
Flesher Fominaya, C. (2014). Social movements and globalization. How Protests, occupations and
uprisings are changing the world. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gamson, W. A. (1990). The strategy of social protest. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Giugni, M. G. (1998). Was it worth the effort? The outcomes and consequences of social move-
ments. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 371–393.
Giugni, M. G. (2008). Political, biographical, and cultural consequences of social movements.
Sociology Compass, 2(5), 1582–1600.
Glasius, M., & Pleyers, G. (2013). The global moment of 2011: Democracy, social justice and dignity.
Development and Change, 44(3), 547–567.
Hale, H. E. (2013). Regime change cascades: What we have learned from the 1848 revolutions to
the 2011 Arab uprisings. Annual Review of Political Science, 16, 331–353.
Helleiner, E. (2011). Understanding the 2007-2008 global financial crisis: Lessons for scholars of
international political economy. Annual Review of Political Science, 14, 67–87.
Hopkins, V. (2014). “We are hungry in three languages”: Citizens protest in Bosnia. Resource docu-
ment. Open Democracy. Retrieved from https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/valerie-hopkins/
we-are-hungry-in-three-languages-citizens-protest-in-bosnia. Accessed 21 August 2016.
Insel, A. (2013). Haysiyet ayaklanması [Uprising of dignity]. Resource document. Radikal. Retrieved
from http://www.radikal.com.tr/yazarlar/ahmet-insel/haysiyet-ayaklanmasi-1136174/. Accessed
15 August 2016.
Jasper, J. M. (2014). Feeling-thinking: Emotions as central to culture. In B. Baumgarten, P. Daphi, &
P. Ullrich (Eds.), Conceptualizing culture in social movement research (pp. 23–44).
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kaldor, M., Moore, H. L., & Selchow, S. (2012). Global civil society 2012: Ten years of
critical reflection. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Khromeychuk, O. (2015). Gender and nationalism on the Maidan. In D. R. Marles & F. V. Mills
(Eds.), Ukraine’s Euromaidan. analyses of a civil revolution (pp. 123–147). New York:
Columbia University Press.
Kitschelt, H. P. (1986). Political opportunity structures and political protest: Anti-nuclear move-
ments in four democracies. British Journal of Political Science, 16(1), 57–85.
Kruk, K. (2013). In Ukraine, we are protesting to preserve our dignity. Resource document. The
Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/17/ukraine-
protesting-euromaidan. Accessed 2 September 2016.
Moghadam, V. M. (2013). Globalization and social movements: Islamism, feminism, and the
global justice movement. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.
Ortiz, I., Burke, S. L., Berrada, M., & Cortés, H. (2013). World protests 2006-2013. New York:
Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Pearlman, W. (2013). Emotions and the microfoundations of the Arab uprisings. Perspectives on
Politics, 11(02), 387–409.
Petras, J. (2013). The new development politics: The age of empire building and new social move-
ments. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Santos, B. D. S., & Avritzer, L. (2005). Introduction: opening up the canon of democracy.
In B. D. S. Santos (Ed.), Democratizing democracy: Beyond the liberal democratic canon.
(pp. 7–33). London: Verso.
Schuurman, F., & Van Naerssen, T. (2013). Urban social movements in the Third World.
London and New York: Routledge.
Smith, J., & Wiest, D. (2012). Social movements in the world-system: The politics of crisis and
transformation. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Smyth, R., Soboleva, I., Shimek, L., & Sobolev, A. (2015). Defining common ground: Collective
identity in Russia’s post-election protests and rallies. In C. Ross (Ed.), Systemic and Non-systemic
opposition in the Russian Federation: Civil society awakens? (pp. 51–77). London and
New York: Routledge.
Tarrow, S. (2005). The new transnational activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tilly, C. (1999). From interactions to outcomes in social movements. How Social Movements Matter,
10, 253–270.
Tilly, C., & Wood, L. J. (2013). Social movements, 1768-2012. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
Yang, G. (2013). The power of the Internet in China: Citizen activism online. New York:
Columbia University Press.
The “Colorless” Protests in Russia: Mixed
Messages and an Uncertain Future
Dina Rosenberg
1 Introduction
The recent 5 years witnessed an unprecedented rise of social protests: The Arab
Spring; Occupy Wall Street; mass protests in Greece, Spain, Brazil, and Turkey; the
Maidan revolution in Ukraine; and student demonstrations in Hong Kong. Pro-
testers’ similar, yet diverse, demands and social bases, global geographical scope of
protests, their new organizational forms and unexpected implications (Mubarak is
out of power, Putin won the presidency for the third time) rekindled researchers’
interest in the contemporary social movements. They are interested in protests’
potential for regime change, the “boomerang effect” (Keck and Sikkink 1998),
transnationalism, and “global framing” (Tarrow 2005).
This time, Russia, with its domestic and international image of politically infan-
tile citizens and unquestionable authority of the ruling elite, proved no exception.
The Russian State Duma elections in December 2011 are strikingly different from
many other “window-dressing” democratic procedures in that they provoked real
protest movements, unprecedented in their numbers, geographical scope, and socio-
economic diversity of participants within the last two decades. During 2011–2013,
the protest movements manifested themselves in various ways ranging from live
circles to sit-in camps. Are these protests a product of the well-known modernization
theory (Lipset 1959; Huntington 1991)? Whereas some researchers claim that the
Russian protests are incapable of ousting a dictator, noting that “Russia is clearly
neither Georgia nor Kyrgyzstan” (Robertson 2013, p. 22), others question whether
D. Rosenberg (*)
e-mail: balalaeva@gmail.com

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_2
12 D. Rosenberg
the Russian protests can be interpreted along the lines of the Color Revolutions
(Wolchik 2012).1 Are they agents of domestic or global change? Will they ever
become a part of the “regime change cascade” (Hale 2013), or will they remain the
“regime contention” movement2 (Weyland 2010; della Porta and Tarrow 2012;
Markoff 1996)?
In our view, this question cannot be answered in isolation and requires an under-
standing of whether these protests fit the emerging paradigm of contemporary social
movements that can be characterized by (1) an important role of digital communica-
tion technologies and, partly as a consequence, the role of mass media, in facilitating
collective action problems among protesters, (2) an increasing number of protesters
with higher education and decent wages, (3) fragmented character of opposition forces
and lack of strong leadership, (4) “permanent” presence of protesters in the political
landscape waiting for “political opportunity structures”, and (5) “globalization” and
“interactive diffusion” of protests in that participants from different countries learn
from each other.
These features square well with Hale’s four broad causes of what he terms “regime
change cascades”: demonstration effects, active mediation, common external causes,
and contemporaneous domestic triggers (Hale 2013). He evaluates different weights
these reasons possessed for the successful regime change (as opposed to mere protest
demonstrations, or those that brought about individual, but not system-level changes)
within four cases: the 1848 revolutions, 1989 collapse of European communism,
1998–2005 revolutions, and the Arab Spring. For the purpose of this paper, I focus
on his conclusions regarding the last two as (1) the most recent examples, and (2) the
two most often compared to the Russian case. Whereas the demonstration effect
played an important, although far from sufficient, role in provoking the Arab Spring
protests, it is not regarded as crucial for the Color Revolutions, where elections as focal
points for opposition coordination appear to be of far greater importance.
The mediators (especially democracy-promoting activists, international organiza-
tions, and NGOs) seem to play an important role, although debated in the literature, in
instigating the Color Revolutions, whereas only a modest one in inflaming the Arab
Spring. However, Lynch (2012) ascribed importance to activist movements in facili-
tating demonstration effects. Common external causes cannot constitute a sufficient
explanation for either Arab Spring or the Color Revolutions (although some researchers
see an important role of the EU policies in regime change for the latter case). Con-
temporaneous, but domestically originated catalysts are shown to be important for the
1
The fact that in 1998–2005 six post-communist European states witnessed their authoritarian
leaders fall because of the actions of both domestic and external opposition, which even ushered in
a new era of democratization in some countries, allows Wolchik to ask whether the Russian social
movements can be interpreted along the same lines (Wolchik 2012).
2
Hale (2013) provides an excellent survey of the literature on what he refers to as “regime change
cascades”. Although similar to alternative concepts of mass protests diffusion (cascade also means
that earlier events in one country triggered similar events in other countries), the concept differs in
that it attempts to spot reasons of only those protests, movements, and revolutions that actually led
to regime change.
The “Colorless” Protests in Russia: Mixed Messages and an Uncertain Future 13
Color Revolutions (e.g., unpopular incumbents) and Arab Spring (e.g., succession
crises).
The case-study of Russia, usually portrayed as a unique country with its own
“Sonderweg” that cannot be analyzed within Western theories and standards, can be
added as another point to the data on contemporary social movements. However,
certain reservations should be expressed: the Russian social movement develop-
ment is overshadowed by the Soviet past, peculiarities of the Russian modern
“managed democracy”, and an abysmal discontinuity between the social portraits,
political preferences, and demands of metropolitan protesters and the rest of Russia.
The latter features make it particularly difficult to predict the viability of the
Russian social movement in the future and its ability to change the regime, either
evolutionarily or revolutionarily.
In what follows, I argue that the Russian protests are presently more of a “regime
contention” movement exploiting certain focal points for mass protest actions that
to date failed to succeed. However, its democratizing effect is unclear: the partic-
ipants’ social portraits, grievances, and demands are too variegated to give democ-
racy a place of pride, and the elite opposition is too weak to set a united agenda.
Nevertheless, it seems that the very emergence of the movement signals its poten-
tial to become more institutionalized, but with local and civic, rather than political,
demands. In addition, the use of international symbols and borrowing protest prac-
tices hint at the slow transnationalization of the movement, which is an important step
forward given the isolated past of the Soviet man. In this sense, forming expectations
about the overall possibility of bottom-up change can bear a self-fulfilling impact
across nations and thus become the most important “global framing” (Tarrow 2005).
The final outcome depends on the strategic interplay between the ruling elite, the
opposition, and civic society. Despite signs that the Russian opposition movement
is petering out, the current economic turmoil as a direct consequence of the ruling
elite policy will put Russia into a long-term recession and allows us to anticipate a
reinvigoration of the movement. The question whether the movement will be able
to dislodge the existing regime, as opposed to merely ousting the current elite,
should not be overlooked in the literature and merits scholarly attention.
2 Brief Chronology
On December 5, 2011, several thousand people took to the streets near metro station
Chistye Prudy in Moscow to protest against the fraudulent State Duma Elections
held the previous day. In less than a week, around 50,000–60,000 protesters gathered
at Bolotnaia Square in the center of Moscow (Savina et al. 2011). The 24th of
December witnessed more than a 100,000 protest participants on Sakharov Avenue,
which qualifies for the largest protest in Russia in two decades (“Zhurnalisty
naschitali” 2011). Concurrently, and in the ensuing months, similar demonstrations
inflamed in 96 cities across Russia (Wolchik 2012). Arkhangelsk, with more than
8000 protesters in spring 2012, came third after Moscow and St. Petersburg, largely
14 D. Rosenberg
because the presidential and mayoral elections were held the same day (Sobolev
2012).3 In general, protests shifted from province to capital cities. If in 1997 more
than 97% of the protests from the data took place outside of Moscow or St. Petersburg,
in 2011—these two cities hosted more than half of the protests (Robertson 2013).
However, many researchers warrant against overselling these numbers given the size
of the Russian population of circa 143 million people (Dmitriev and Treisman 2012)
and in comparison to the recent social movements in MENA countries (“Zhurnalisty
naschitali” 2011), to the Russian protests in the 1990s and Orange Revolution in
Ukraine in 2004, which mobilized 500,000 and 1 million protesters, respectively
(Wolchik 2012).
Small rallies continued through the winter and spring 2013 culminating in the
mass protests on March 5th and May 6th against the reelection of Vladimir Putin for
a third presidential term. The latter turned into a pitched battle between policemen
and around 50,000 protesters (Kolpakov and Tsybulskii 2012). The police res-
ponses oscillated between professional (e.g., controlling entry to the cordoned areas
using metal detectors) and brutal (e.g., breaking the arm of one of the activists
during the mass protests on June 6, 2012). Each episode of uncalled-for brutality
brought more momentum to the protests and new actions from the protesters.
According to the report by the independent media project OVD-Info, in 2011–2012
after 228 protests (only in Moscow and adjacent territories inside Moscow Oblast)
5169 people were detained for political reasons. Although there are signs that the
protest movement is waning (e.g., Gelman 2014), it did not vanish completely. At the
time of this writing, protesters plan their next meeting on January 15, 2015, against the
prosecutors’ recommendation of long prison terms for Navalny (Russian famous anti-
regime blogger, an anti-corruption activist, and an informal leader of nonsystemic
opposition) and his brother (allegedly for politically motivated state-fabricated
convictions).
Finally, the Russians were primed for an action, which allowed some researchers
to talk about the “Slavic Spring”. As staged as the protests may seem in hindsight,
let alone conspiracy theories assigning the prime role to the US or Russian govern-
ment, most researchers admit the spontaneous beginning of the Russian protests
(Greene 2013; Lankina 2014; but see Robertson 2013). At the same time, the
reasons for protesting are much deeper and more systemic than the fraud-ridden
elections, which served only as a catalyst, and the roots of the protest movement can
be traced back to the earlier years. The appropriate research question to pose is not
simply why the protests occurred, but why, given that falsified elections were a
pertinent feature of the political landscape in Russia for a long time, they had not
happened earlier (Shevtsova 2012; Volkov 2012a; Greene 2013; Gelman 2012,
2014; Krastev and Holmes 2012). What was different this time?
3
Curiously, the geographical conditions and technology (Internet) penetration rate were shown to
predict the scope of protests in the Russian regions (Sobolev 2012).
3 Origins of Protests
There are two contrasting answers to the question why protests erupted in December
2011 and not earlier. Some researchers acknowledge that the Russian protests took
the authorities and other citizens by surprise (see, for example, Greene 2013; Lankina
2014), whereas others view the same protests as a logical continuation of the previous
social events (e.g., Robertson 2013) and local civic organizations (Kleman et al.
2010). We will briefly survey each viewpoint.
In consensus with the broad literature on social movements and contention (Bunce
and Wolchik 2011; Touraine et al. 1983), historical perspective on the protests in
Russia in the post-communist era gives an opportunity to evaluate their potential more
rigorously (Robertson 2013). The preceding protests (i.e., before December 2011)
illuminate such important features of the recent protests as identity and demands of
protesters, political geography of protests, their exact timing, and even probability of
success. The existing small local activist groups, often formed with the sole intention of
addressing very concrete socio-economic problems, were assessed to possess a volu-
minous potential to turn into activists with broad political identity (Kleman et al. 2010).
The preceding protests are diverse and include labor strikes at automobile plants in
Vsevolozhsk and Moscow in 2009, mass protests in Vladivostok and other monocities
in 2009 against the imposition of higher tariffs on used cars, protests in Kaliningrad in
2010 calling on Putin to resign, protests against the construction of a superhighway
through the forest in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, public unrest regarding a car
accident that involved vice-president of the Russian oil company Lukoil, riots at
Manezhnaya Square in 2010 (that included violent skirmishes with police) against
the supposedly corrupt handling of the killing of a Russian football team Spartak fan by
a North Caucasus native. Although these protests and public scandals were minor in
terms of numbers of people taking to the streets, their participants and broader segments
of the society updated their beliefs about the unaccountability of their authorities,
primarily through independent media and the Internet.4 By this token, according to
Robertson (2013), these protests had two functions. First, they prepared a new ground
for interpreting and framing events of 2011 as violating peoples’ basic rights. Second,
they supplied the 2011 social movement with the necessary human and organizational
capital (Robertson 2013). Indeed, most participants of protests in December 2011 were
experienced old hands in the protests (Paniushkin 2011). The fusion of old and new
participants provided for an efficient delegation of responsibilities (e.g., representatives
of broad opposition coalitions such as “Solidarnost” took organizational matters in their
hands that required much effort and specific knowledge regarding red tape obstacles,
etc.). According to Robertson (2013), the main reason why protests did not happen
earlier is because the necessary interpretive framework and human and organization
capital were not mature enough.
4
In fact, the 2005 protests against monetization of a range of benefits are viewed as the most direct
predecessor to the 2011 protests in that they spread all over Russia, and the core activists of these
movements are basically the same people (Robertson 2009, 2013).
16 D. Rosenberg
Without diminishing the role of the previous protests, it is necessary to take into
account structural indicators. The particular role should be attributed to the young
generation that is free from the Soviet memory, especially, nostalgia for those times,
its stereotypes and fears, and view themselves as the future leaders of a country
(Gelman 2014; Shevtsova 2012; Lipman and Petrov 2011). Deteriorating corruption
and disenchantment with modernization under Medvedev, coupled with the conse-
quences of the 2008 world financial crisis, also added to revealing the country’s
economic and financial vulnerability, not least by robbing the ruling regime from its
scarce achievements, such as growth in households’ incomes (Gudkov 2012; Volkov
2012a; Shevtsova 2012; Gelman 2014; Chaisty and Whitefield 2012, 2013). Gelman
(2014) attributes much of the opposition’s success in 2011–2013 to its turn from
political and civic agenda to a populist strategy—exposing the “party of crooks and
thieves”, a popular expression in Russia put into use by Navalny in 2011. However,
the protest-learned human capital accumulation, structural changes, and external
shocks cannot explain the exact timing of the first large demonstrations that took
advantage of the window of opportunity in the form of elections.
4 The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back
Under autocracies and hybrid regimes, elections, usually marred by fraud, are shown
to play a crucial role in provoking protests and occasionally regime change by
providing opposition elements with necessary focal points (Hale 2005; Bunce and
Wolchik 2011; Schedler 2006; Tucker 2007; Levitsky and Way 2010; Radnitz 2010;
Reuter and Gandhi 2010; Koesel and Bunce 2012; Morse 2012; Chaisty and
Whitefield 2013). Russia was no exception, albeit without a regime change.
In the absence of direct vote counts abuse, the State Duma 2011 elections were still
rigged by denying opposition parties either equal access to campaign resources or
overall participation in the elections. According to the independent media sources, the
real support for the United Russia was around 35% against the official 49.3% of votes
(Shevtsova 2012) and for Putin 46% against the official 63.6% (Shevtsova 2012).
However, many acknowledge that the fraud magnitude did not exceed that of the
previous elections, both at the federal and municipal levels (Gudkov 2012; Oreshkin
2012; Krastev and Holmes 2012).
This ballot-stuffing was, however, qualitatively different from all the previous
elections in that it failed to give the society any hope for much-needed systemic change
(Gudkov 2012). This fact was reflected in the protesters’ explanations for why they
took to the streets, with the most common being “I’m sick of it.” (Shuster 2011). In
addition, this time, the protests’ fraudulence received an unprecedented coverage by
the independent media, mostly through Internet sources such as YouTube video clips or
an interactive map of falsifications at the website of Nezavisimaya Gazeta. The
elections-monitoring organization “Citizen Observer”, with the support of an opposi-
tion political movement, “Solidarnost”, was formed as well (Volkov 2012a).
The elections campaign itself was shaken by numerous scandals with its pinnacle
“Putin-Medvedev castling”5 deserving particular attention: not only did it dash hopes
of many citizens for any change but also split the ruling elite itself (Volkov 2012a).
Krastev and Holmes (2012) doubt that the MENA events can be solely responsible for
the Russian peoples’ decision to flood the streets in December6 and conclude that
“what enflamed [sic] the protesters can only have been Putin’s decision to return to the
presidency” (Krastev and Holmes 2012, p. 41).
By their elections-triggered inception, the Russian protests are similar to the
Color Revolutions, but, as the next section will show, are much different in terms
of the negligible role of organized democratic structures. In addition, the Russian
protests take roots in the domestic turmoil of independent origin, and in contrast to
the Arab spring, are marginally affected by any type of cascading, or diffusion.
5 Who Are the Protesters?
The composition of the protesters astoundingly changed in comparison to the partic-

ipants of the previous protests; most importantly, in 1993, they became younger and
grew in numbers (Barakovskaia 2011). Most reports and articles document that these
protests were prevalently attended by young people who were especially comfortable
with new media technologies (e.g., Volkov 2012a; Barakovskaia 2011). “Hipsters—
twenty-something, young, cosmopolitan urbanites” (Greene 2013, p. 48) replaced
“crowds of impoverished old women”—the core of the previous Russian protesters
(Robertson 2013, p. 17). However, by the beginning of 2012, the demography of
protesters shifted to the middle-aged men with the youth (19–24) and elderly (55 and
older) each representing one-fifth of the protesters (Volkov 2012b). The cherished
hopes for the awakened middle class in Russia (Petrov 2012; Robertson 2009) were
soon dissipated by other scholars who emphasized the absence of any class, social, or
professional identities among the protesters (Bikbov 2012; Gabowitsch 2013). The
“catch-all” portrait of protesters allows some scholars to even talk about ideological
elements of populism (Magun 2014) and social racism (Matveev 2014).
By their priorities and the degree of “politization”, according to Volkov (2012a),
protesters can be classified into four broad groups: First, the veterans of the Russian
‘nonsystemic’ opposition (Iashin, Nemtsov, Ryzhkov); second, civil movement activ-
ists (e.g., anti-corruption campaigner Navalny, environmental advocate Chirikova);
third, famous journalists; and fourth, other representatives of intelligentsia (poets,
artists, etc.). Kudrin, then the long-serving Russian finance minister, resigned and joined
protests against fraud elections. Relatedly, based on the network analysis of Facebook
5
Return of Putin to the third term as president after an intermission as Prime-Minister, switching
places with Medvedev, the former president and current Prime-Minister of Russia.
6
Middle-aged and relatively well-off Russian protesters still feared a revolutionary scenario,
unlike young and resolved Arab protest participants.
18 D. Rosenberg
users, Greene (2013) concludes that the distinguishing feature of this new Russian
movement was not the inflow of new participants, but rather the establishment of
new connections and relations between the existing political opposition groups and
coalitions.
By their demographics, socio-economic statuses, and political views, protesters
were radically different from the rest of Russia and even Moscow (Dmitriev and
Treisman 2012; Gudkov 2012; Volkov 2012a). About 80% claimed at least some
post-secondary education compared to only one-third of all Russians (Volkov
2012a). About 65% were male, given Russia’s male/female ratio of 0.86%. Those
who were able to afford expensive things, but not a vehicle; those who were able to
buy a vehicle and those who were able to buy anything they want constituted 70%
of the social movement participants as opposed to 22% in Russia. In contrast, those
who did not have enough money to buy groceries; those who had enough to buy
products, but not clothes; and those who had just enough to buy both constituted
around 28% compared to 79% among all Russians. 70% of protesters cited the
Internet as their primary source of information, in contrast to a mere 13% among the
total Russian population.
Ideologically, protesters identified themselves as democrats (38% in December
and 30% in February) and liberals (31 and 28%) followed by communists (13 and
18%), nationalists (6 and 14%), and socio-democrats (10%). In fact, a partnership
between liberals and nationalists is viewed as the most striking feature of the
protests by Popescu (2012). These two groups started to embrace each other’s
ideas. For example, there were nationalists who started to favor democracy instead
of authoritarianism and liberals who supported such campaigns as “Stop Feeding
the Caucasus” (Popescu 2012). It is not clear, however, whether liberal opposition
candidly embraces nationalist ideas—at least some of them—or whether it oppor-
tunistically flirts with nationalists to court more supporters. Neither is it clear
whether nationalists truly share democratic values.
6 What Do Protesters Want?
During the 2011–2013 Russian protests, people took to the streets with mottos as
diverse as “Time to take power”, “Revolution”, “Navalny as President”, “Russia
without Putin”, “One for all, and all for one”, and “Russia will be free” (Barakovskaia
2011). What did these people really want?
Protesters’ demands shifted from socio-economic issues in Yeltsin’s years (payment
of wages and other material rights) to a political and civic agenda: anti-corruption,
human rights, civil development planning, and environmental preservation (Robertson
2013). The latter was also confirmed by the analysis of the unique dataset on 5100
protest events in Russia which occurred between April 2007 and December 2013,
gathered from the website started by Garry Kasparov, a famous chess player and a
representative of Russia’s liberal opposition (Lankina 2014, 2015). More specifically,
Lankina (2014) also noticed that if viewed in dynamics, although protests waned after
Putin’s reelection, they reemerged in the second half of 2013, albeit with less political
and more civic demands. Volkov (2012b) also sees one of the main drivers of the
Russian protest movements in “the confluence of material privilege with political
impotence and defenselessness” and “inability of citizens to address Russia’s systemic
corruption through legislative or judicial means” (Volkov 2012b, p. 55). However, the
mismatch between protesters’ economic influence and political impotency was only
one among many.
The initial direct demands put forward by protesters can be summarized as punishing
those behind the staged elections, annulling results of the latter and holding free and fair
elections. Statistically speaking, the most popular reasons why people took to the
Sakharov Prospekt, December 24th, were dissatisfaction with the current situation in
the country (73%), falsified elections results (73%), and disappointment in Medvedev-
led modernization (42%). However, this is, of course, was only the tip of the iceberg,
which was soon proved by the fact that voters started to oppose the failure of the system
as a whole. Overall, the feeling of social injustice for the authorities riding roughshod
over people’s basic rights, such as rights to assemble, to protect the environment, and to
fair prosecution is cited as the root of protest movements (Robertson 2013; Volkov
2012a).
The above mentioned demographic and socio-economic gap between protesters
and the rest of Russia translated into the same gap in their political attitudes. “For
example, 97 percent of protesters called for the removal of Vladimir Churov, the
head of Russia’s Central Election Commission, while just 39 percent of Russians felt
similarly. Almost 85 percent of protesters called for the release of political prisoners;
only 35 percent of Russians shared a similar sentiment. Ninety-five percent of
protesters called for new parliamentary elections; only 29 percent of Russians
agreed. Eighty-nine percent of protesters liked the slogan “Not one vote for Vladimir
Putin!”; only 24 percent of Russians agreed” (Volkov 2012b, p. 57).
However, analyzing the results of 62 focus groups conducted by the Moscow-based
Center for Strategic Research (CSR) with representatives of 16 Russian regions,
Dmitriev and Treisman (2012) state that a provincial man, typically imagined as
pro-regime and longing for the Soviet times, is an artifact of the past. Today, although
these people do not share protest sentiments with Moscow and St. Petersburg residents,
they are far from supportive of the Russian political system, labeling it as highly corrupt
and incapable of providing public goods at a decent level. Curiously, in contrast to
metropolitan elites who shout out abstract and cloudy concepts such as democracy
and freedom, provincial men tend to exhibit concerns about concrete issues such as
education, housing, healthcare, and properly functioning courts.
It is also noteworthy that the Russian protesters have already overcome bread-
and-butter issues and are now concerned with the civic and political agendas as well
(Dmitriev and Treisman 2012; Lankina 2014; Volkov 2012b). According to the
Levada Center opinion polls, as stated in Dmitriev and Treisman (2012), if in 2000
47% of Russians viewed political opposition as necessary, now it is 72%.
Today, there is an emerging demand—tantamount to the consensus in the 1990s
on the necessity of grand political transformation—that unites all Russians, and not
only the relatively well-off, educated and urban-based protesters, for increasing
20 D. Rosenberg
quality of public goods provision, stifling corruption, and strengthening institutions

(Nekrasov et al. 2012). However, the unique survey data from Chaisty and White-
field (2013) show that protesters themselves were more likely to support authori-
tarian leadership rather than a transition to democracy.7 In addition, Busygina and
Filippov (2015) argue that a broad opposition coalition in support of democracy
in Russia is largely prevented by the citizens’ entrenched expectations of highly
unequal and unfair redistributive consequences of any political reforms.
7 How Do the Protesters Coordinate?
Protesters’ mobilization through the Internet and social networks has become a pow-
erful tool in solving the collection action problem (Bennett and Segerberg 2012). The
trend has already manifested in the “Twitter revolutions” in Moldova and Iran and in
Facebook’s impact during the Arab spring, to name a few (Greene 2013). The increased
use of online media (especially blog platform LiveJournal, microblogging platform
Twitter, online social networks Facebook and Vkontakte) among social and political
activists in mobilizing protesters as well as impacting their preferences, both worldwide
and in Russia, has been extensively documented (Aron 2011; Machleder and Asmolov
2011; Greene 2012a, b, 2013; Volkov 2012a; Gelman 2014; Etling et al. 2010). At least
one-third of the protesters were mobilized through online media (Volkov 2012a).
Curiously enough, while the Russian social network Vkontakte (national analog of
Facebook) has approximately 20 times the user base of Facebook in Russia (100 million
versus 5 million), the protest community on Facebook was significantly larger (around
45,000 versus 20,000) (Panchenko 2012).
The analysis of 11,000 tweets during the presidential elections in March 2012
allows Greene (2012b) to identify three main functions of this microblogging
platform: information aggregation, transmission, and reinforcing group solidarity.
Greene (2013) concludes that the primary role of Internet networking was to appeal
to and mobilize those citizens that were previously politicized, but passive. Krastev
and Holmes (2012) view the Internet more as confirming the overall feeling of
injustice and dissatisfaction with the system rather than providing information
about such deficiencies.
The comparison between bloggers, all Internet users, and representatives of the
TV audience revealed far more oppositional sentiments among bloggers (Etling
et al. 2010). The opposition networks, on average more dispersed and informal than
pro-regime activists, were shown to dominate Twitter in that period and to make an
extensive use of the opposition-minded media, more so than professional journalists,
full-time bloggers, politicians etc. (Greene 2012b; Neyaskin 2012) concludes that
Ru.net prefers opposition. Bode and Makarychev (2013) raised a related yet distinct
7
Curiously, as Beissinger (2013) argues, democracy was not the primary driver even of the makers
of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2005.
question about the Internet being an intimidation, propaganda, and coercion tool
employed by the ruling elite, and came to the conclusion that new technologies
served to empower opposition to a much greater extent than the ruling authorities.
On the other hand, some (Volkov 2012a; see also Gelman 2014) caution against
overestimating the mobilizing effect of the social network because it largely depends
on the public sentiments.
Not only is the magnitude of Internet impact highly contested, there is also a high
degree of disagreement on which exact organizational types, social networks, and
communities the Internet can enable. Greene (2012b) finds that there is a significant
structure within the Network Internet community. For example, the Facebook group
“We were at Bolotnaia and we will return” served as the main coordinating device
for discussing and subsequently disseminating information about the place, time,
and number of protesters permitted by the government in Russia (Volkov 2012a).
Sidorenko (see in Lipman and Petrov 2011) goes so far as to predict that the 2011
elections would result in what he calls a “revolution of bloggers”. Suvorov (2012),
based on the analysis of protesters’ Internet profiles, views protests as political
flashmobs of alienated individuals with no hierarchy or structure (out of 20,000
participants, 8000 do not have friends from Bolotnaya).
Theoretically speaking, the resistance movements in Russia may be conceptu-
alized as part of what Hardt and Negri (2000) called “the movement of movements”
which is not necessarily to evolve into party-like structures. “They are most likely
to avoid institutionalization and preserve their networked status to challenge the
system from outside” (Bode and Makarychev 2013, p. 55).
As the protests became more digital, they also ended up leaderless. A lot of
respondents did not trust their leaders (Volkov 2012a). Some respondents point out
that in many cases it is leaders who had to follow the masses and often lagged behind,
not vice versa (Volkov 2012a). The analysis of the social network (Facebook and
Vkontakte) profiles of 20,000 protesters revealed the lack of visible leaders at either
high-, meso-, or low-level. Some think that “the Internet compensated for the
organizational weakness of the opposition, making a virtue out of the nonpolitical
nature of the protesters and the lack of popular leaders. It was through voting on the
Internet, for instance, that the protesters selected who addressed them at Prospekt
Akademika Sakharova on December 24” (Krastev and Holmes 2012, p. 42).
Not only did the means of communication and coordination change, but also the
methods used in the protests themselves. The comparison of the unique data
gathered from the website organized by the leftist opposition Institute of Collective
Action on the protests during Yeltsin’s and Putin’s term reveals that manifestation of
protests shifted dramatically from direct (industrial strikes, hunger strikes, road
blockades) to more creative, especially symbolic, actions (demonstrations and
marches) (Robertson 2013). Even the preceding protests took symbolic form: for
instance, the Blue Bucket movement (protesting corrupt government officials in the
cars with blue flashing lights by taping blue buckets to the roof of their own cars) and
Pussy Riot (the punk group that performed an anti-Putin song in the Cathedral of
Christ the Savior in February 2012). Apart from the improvements in the economic
conditions and changed characteristics of the protesters, one important explanation
22 D. Rosenberg
of such a shift to symbolism is that protesters change their strategy in order to appeal
to broader segments of society and politicians (Robertson 2013).
8 Institutionalization
The diversity of protest activities allows Volkov to identify three major manifesta-
tions that constitute the modern social protest movement in Russia: political pro-
tests (e.g., pickets, marshes, etc.), new forms of civil activity (white rings, walking,
camping), and monitoring elections (Volkov 2012b). New creative forms of pro-
tests and organizations were partly sparked by the violent responses by the police.
The former included famous poets’ and artists’ walking to protest radicalization
of protest and bring it back to the peaceful means, whereas the latter included a
new institutional body such as the Committee 6th of May that aimed at assisting
detained protesters.
Overall, several movement organizations, such as the Coordination Council of
Opposition, White Ribbon, White Streets, The League of Voters and Citizen Observer,
and We Were on Bolotnaia Square and Will were created and attracted support and
membership from the previously existing nongovernmental and opposition organiza-
tions, e.g., the election monitors of the Golos association and the banned People’s
Freedom Party (Parnas). These organizations contributed not only to disseminating
important information regarding protest movements, its goals and actual meetings, and
thereby attracting new members, but also to the peaceful character of protests (Volkov
2012a). However, these structures appeared to be superficial, leaderless, and under-
institutionalized, which calls their ability to maintain the oppositional movement active
in question. Neither did the systemic opposition contribute much to the protest
movements. The Coordination Council of Opposition, to which elections were held
through the Internet with more than 81,000 Russians voicing their choices, was naively
supposed to become a truly democratic analog of parliament but failed largely because
of the lack of positive political agenda (Gelman 2014).
Lankina (2014) finds that the Russian protests act as communicating vessels:
when political agenda is off the table (at times of increased political repression),
protests transform into civic actions, and vice versa. Lankina (2014) interprets this
as indicating the much higher potential of the Russian civil movement, which might
be overlooked due to its latent character. This very swinging between the political
and civic focus of protests contributes to maintaining the abeyance structures that
are necessary to keep the movement alive. Examples of civic actions range from
effective public charity operations to volunteer firefighting in the summer of 2010.
The resulting local groups and initiatives can be viewed as a sort of “institutional-
ization” of collective solidarity (Della Porta and Tarrow 2012) and thus a true
embryo of the Russian civil society with a potential of not just civil, but political,
mobilization (Erpyleva and Magun 2014).
To conclude, the organization of the Russian protest movements can be charac-
terized by the following features, which are shared by most contemporary social
movements: first, the increased role of the Internet as a soft power instrument of
opposition; second, a shift to symbolic actions; third, lack of strong leadership; and
finally, some degree of institutionalization, albeit in the Russian case insufficient
for maintaining a permanent presence of opposition movement in the political
landscape. Given that people still take to the streets, there is a hidden potential in
these scattered, seemingly unrelated protests and structures to become a full-blown
social movement in the future.
9 Government Response
The Russian government employed the whole gamut of response measures that
square nicely with what Treisman (2013, p. 254) summarized as “coopt, intimidate,
and disable” (see also Smyth et al. 2013; Smyth and Soboleva 2014). This begs an
important question: whether these measures suffice to nip the Russian civil move-
ment in the bud or if they will anger and mobilize even more protesters.
The ruling elite’s response tactics are various and include repressive measures,
both on spots (riot police, staged investigations, arrests and biased court decisions)
and institutional (new restrictive laws), regaining initiative and copying actions of
protesters (the so-called “Putings” e.g., pro-regime events such as marches led by
top-down movements such as Nashi or the Youth Movement of the People’s Front),
blackwashing protesters through state-controlled media, as well as cosmetic, and
always non-credible, concessions, perhaps, to partly mask the scope of repression
(Volkov 2012a). Some suggest that it is also the ruling authority who drives a
wedge between the urban, relatively well-off, pro-change and the provincial, worse-
off, anti-change Russia, not least by the extensive use of the state-controlled media
that helps to create the image of the social movement as feminist, LGBT, and
bourgeois (Krastev and Holmes 2012; Treisman 2013). The top influential politi-
cians from the ruling elite resorted to the well-known tactics of playing off different
elite factions against each other in order to prevent the real split in their ranks and
putting business, especially oligarchs closely connected with the Kremlin, in their
place in order to prevent them from siding with the opposition (Treisman 2013).
The concessions granted to the opposition (e.g., restoration of direct elections of
regional governors, adopting milder registration requirements for political parties,
resources decentralization to the regional and local level) appeared to be cosmetic
and failed to work in reality (Treisman 2013). In addition, they were overshadowed
by the draconian laws that, as many argue, encroached upon civil rights: new
legislation requiring NGOs that receive foreign funding to register as “foreign
agents”, exclusion of foreign broadcast media, Internet restrictions, increased
fines for participating in unsanctioned protests,8 blasphemy law, a law banning
8
The law dramatically severed punishments for unsanctioned public meetings and violence during
sanctioned meetings, echoing the Belorussian law of 2010. The new law made organizations
24 D. Rosenberg
LGBT propaganda, prohibition of the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans

and of all children by Russian single-sex couples, and an expanded definition of
treason (Treisman 2013; Kramer 2013).
Not only do such actions irritate the already angered protesters, but they can also
destroy the existing peaceful channels of protest. Given that the problems do not
disappear, and the situation is getting worse, this may only trigger a violent response
from protesters. On the other hand, given the revived economy in 2011, the govern-
ment easily convinced the majority of Russians that mass protests were to hamper
economic achievements and, therefore, should be resented. In addition, the opposi-
tion made several unforgivable mistakes such as tolerating a rather long hiatus
between protest activities at the very beginning of the movement’s birth, which
was frequently proven wrong in history. It is necessary to exploit every opportunity
to mobilize people so that such mobilization happens frequently enough to sustain
the movement (Kramer 2013).
10 What Is Next?
Many view the protests on December 4, 2011, as game-changing (Shevtsova 2012;

Krastev and Holmes 2012; Robertson 2013). The protests clearly exposed the
vulnerability of the political status quo, questioned its legitimacy in the eyes of the
whole of Russia and the international community, and, in the view of Krastev and
Holmes (2012), robbed the regime of its main legitimizing tool—rigged elections
that usually go unnoticed.9 Robertson (2013) acknowledges that the “December
movement” marks the beginning of real pressure upon the existing authorities from
below, from the slowly emerging Russian civil society. Despite some signs of the
movement’s demise, protests against the draconian law on demonstrations as well
as Navalny’s ability to obtain 27% of the vote at the mayoral elections (no one
predicted such a high level) indicate the possible revival of the movement (Treisman
2013).
At the same time, many would agree that “the political and social actors ready to
exert this kind of sustained, organized pressure have not yet emerged” (Shevtsova
responsible for the actions of other protests and introduced penalties for advertising unsanctioned
gatherings online, which can be evaluated as targeting two factors crucial for the success of
protesters: leadership and the Internet. Not only did the law make some activists in their blogs
welcome Russians to a new “North Korea”, but also its draft, less predictably, provoked the first
filibuster in the Russian rubber-stamp State Duma (Davidoff 2012).
9
Krastev and Holmes (2012) refer to the political regime in Russia as “managed democracy”.
Rigged elections, among other functions, serve to maintain autocracy (rather than imitate democ-
racy as in hybrid regimes) by demonstrating a ruling elite’s ability to extensively manipulate
political process. Thus, the protests unfolding after rigged elections deprived the regime of such
ability. For a related, but qualitatively different, concept of “overmanaged democracy”, see Petrov
et al. (2010).
2012, p. 30). On December 5, 2014, the ruble had depreciated against the dollar by
70% over the last 3 years, oil prices had dropped by 29%, and the “Bolotnaia”
square in Moscow was empty. As of December 2014, instead of celebrating its 3-year
anniversary, the Russian protest movement experienced a serious crisis (e.g., Gelman
2014). The Russian Coordination Opposition Council ceased to exist. According to the
figures provided by the opposition itself, the monthly number of protest participants
shrank from 210,000 in December 2011 to a mere 5000 in July 2013 (Treisman 2013).
As time passed, reservations about the ability of the Russian social movement to
transform into an influential political actor and really make a difference were expressed
more often (e.g., Matveychev 2014). Among the most plausible reasons are failure
among the participants to form a necessary collective political identity (Erpyleva and
Magun 2014), disappointment in opposition leaders, fear of the “Russian Maidan” and
a short-term euphoria about the Crimea. According to Levinson (2014), summer 2014
witnessed the lowest point in the history of the Russian social protest movement during
Putin’s epoch: 81% of respondents do not see mass political protests in their towns/
districts as plausible, and 86% are in favor of the current political course. Strikingly, the
lowest percentage of those who are ready to protest is among the youth (8%). The data
are consistent with the theory offered by Busygina and Filippov (2015): the highly
uncertain redistributive consequences of the next political regime (in case the opposi-
tion wins) make protests a too costly investment for the majority of Russians. Such
considerations allow the authors to predict waning of pro-democracy protests and
reduce their role, albeit very important, in cementing socio-economic and political
cleavages and agendas (Busygina and Filippov 2015). Whether the Russian movement
is petering out or awaiting its second breath is a subject of scholarly debate.
What is next crucially depends on several factors: first, whether the opposition can
court supporters from the “provincial” Russia (Volkov 2012b; Kramer 2013); second,
whether the opposition can reconcile ideological differences among its members and
draw their own unified and, most importantly, positive political agenda as opposed to
the existing negative consensus, and create an organizational structure and fight for
institutional change (Gelman 2014); and third, whether the ruling elite can maintain
order and prevent its own splitting (Treisman 2013; Lankina 2014).
Volkov (2012b) argues that so long as the gap between the protesting minority
and supportive majority is preserved, primarily because the former cannot accom-
modate the concerns of the latter, the protest movement is deemed to fail. To that
condition Kramer (2013) adds the protesters’ ability to sustain the so-called abey-
ance structures that keep the movement alive in the absence of any obvious catalysts.
The surveys in the Russian provinces reveal the increasing dissatisfaction with the
status quo policies, especially public goods provision, which allows some to predict
that the next rallies will be held in the provinces (Dmitriev and Treisman 2012;
Treisman 2013). Relatedly, the most striking trend revealed by Lankina (2014) is
that at times of the increased political repression, whether direct or institutional,
protesters manage to reframe their contentions from a national to local-politics level,
e.g., blaming municipal politicians for rent-seeking. This strategy of “going local”
might be indicative of the opposition’s resolve to win the hearts and minds of the
provinces.
26 D. Rosenberg
From the ideological standpoint, it is not clear whether ultranationalists’ band-

wagoning with liberals could subvert the peaceful character of the Russian protest
movement and turn its (although yet negligible) results to null, not least by splitting
the opposition and providing the ruling elite with a comfortable pretext for quelling
the protest (Popescu 2012; Umland 2012).
The ruling elite seems to split. Lankina’s data analysis reveals that the protesters,
including public figures from the ruling elite itself and representatives of large
businesses, tend to deny any possibility of a top-down policy change, which, first
and foremost, prompt a split within the seemingly pro-regime forces (Lankina
2014). Treisman (2013) also shows the increasing divide among members of the
ruling elite and predicts the reinvigoration of protests given the worsening economy
and dysfunctional government. In a paper written a year later, Lankina (2014) views
the actual economic hardships (not least due to the foreign sanctions against
Russian policy towards Ukraine’s civil war and the plunging oil prices) coupled
with the already existing “political opportunity structures” as enabling a new wave
of protests in the future, albeit in a more overt and violent form. The financial
difficulties faced by Russia with the predicted 2-year recession certainly qualify for
a “suddenly imposed grievance” that might trigger not only protests by provincial
Russia but also split the ruling elite.
11 Reaching Out to the Broader Context: Tahrir vs. Slavic

Russia?
The Arab Spring and “Slavic Winter”, according to Carr and Koulinka (2012), do share
the starting conditions such as growing income, mounting inequality, heightened
corruption, and strengthened authoritarian rule (see in Carr and Koulinka 2012). Absent
a clear plan for the future, protesters united in their dissatisfaction with the status-quo
and loathing for the current political regime. They demanded democracy, freedom, civil
and political rights, an uncorrupt society, and good governance in general (e.g., high
level of public goods provision).
In addition, young people constituted a significant number of protesters in these
countries. Many protest participants do not beg for food and clothes, they are well-off,
educated, and web-savvy representatives of society. New social media, in particular,
played a crucial, if not decisive, role in facilitating collective action in both cases.
However, protests in MENA and Russia reveal important distinctions. The share
of the young population among protesters was much higher in MENA, mostly due
to demographic reasons (Eremenko 2014). In addition, the social base of the MENA
protesters was much more diverse and embraced its core activists from the working
class, who were still relatively poor and thus frustrated with their economic situation,
which might have determined their high resolve to use violent methods if necessary
(Carr and Koulinka 2012; Eremenko 2014). Not surprisingly, in contrast to, say,
Egypt, protests in Russia did not result in ousting the incumbent out of power.
In some sense, the systemic-level reasons for the rapid emergence and spread of
the protests in Russia are much closer to those in Turkey than in the “Arab Spring”
countries: the lack of political alternatives, fierce corruption, poorly functioning
institutions, and deteriorating social and economic conditions. No wonder that in
both cases violent responses by the police only triggered further resistance from the
protesters, although both Putin and Erdogan still enjoy their leadership.
Not only did the protests occur under similar settings, but also protesters exten-
sively borrowed tactics from recent as well as historical social movements. For
instance, protesters in Russia formed human chains (a tactic borrowed from the
Baltic-state independence activists of the 1980s (Shevtsova 2012). In addition, the
Occupy Abai movement (its first sit-in was organized under the statue of the Kazakh
poet Abai) was partly inspired by the Act Up movements in New York City in the
1980s (Volkov 2012a). The campers actively borrowed practices from the Occupy
Wall Street movement, such as general assemblies (decision-making bodies that use
egalitarian principles to come to consensus), human microphones (people repeat a
speaker’s words), etc. During the surveys, journalists often referred to the historical
and modern examples of violent coups ranging from the murder of Emperor Pavel I
to the recent overthrows of Gaddafi in Libya and Mubarak in Egypt. Some protesters
were even shouting “Tahrir Russia”. According to Shevtsova (2012), not only the
Russian opposition, but also the Russian elite learned a lesson from the Arab spring:
“Lose your grip on power, and you end up like Hosni Mubarak or Muammar
Gaddafi” (Shevtsova 2012, p. 28). So, confirming the words of Tarrow, an “interac-
tive diffusion” took place. However, as confirmed by the case of Russia, the protests
fell short of being global and can be best understood if framed as sovereign agents
for change. However, their potential to become global should not be overlooked.10
12 Conclusion
The analysis of the Russian case presented in this paper allows me to conclude that
the Russian protest events in 2011–2013 cannot be described within one theoretical
framework alone. They are similar to the Color Revolutions in their usage of
elections as focal points but dissimilar in terms of the essential role of democracy-
diffusing activists. In contrast, they are similar to the Arab spring in being started by
“loose coalitions of disparate groups and individuals” (Lynch 2012, p. 70), but
dissimilar in the strength of the cascading effects. Protesters’ grievances and social
10
Qualitatively, these movements, including the case of Russia, are much more resembling of the
“austerity protests” that unfolded in 1976–1992 in 39 countries against IMF policies (Tarrow
2005). Indeed, protesters represented similar socio-demographic strata, they shared the same
grievances and used similar tactics and mottos—and even borrowed them from each other.
Geographically, protests in Latin America “boomeranged” into the protests in Asia, MENA, and
even Central and Eastern Europe (Tarrow 2005). However, Tarrow (2005) himself contrasts these
protests to what he calls “global protests”.
28 D. Rosenberg
portraits, certain government and opposition tactics, especially the wide use of the
Internet by young opposition members, also resemble the Arab Spring.
Most importantly, the Russian social protests are qualitatively different from
both the Color Revolutions and most of the Arab spring cases in that they failed not
only in changing the regime but also in ousting its leaders from power. That is
why the important question is whether changing the status-quo in the democratic
direction was what the Russian protesters had in mind when taking to the streets in
2011–2013. Apparently, as my analysis demonstrates, democracy was not the main,
if at all, demand of the protesters, but rather grievances for social justice, human
dignity, and a corruption-free country. As a result, many protests now “go local”.
As I stated earlier, the Russian social movement is in a sense a “regime conten-
tion” type, albeit unsuccessful. Three important features hinder the Russian case
from successful regime change: the lack of a split in the ruling elite, a lack of the
organized pro-democracy social activists (both in contrast to the Color Revolutions),
and a lack of a common narrative behind the social movement, largely due to the
identified differences between protesting Muscovites and humble provincials
(in contrast to the Arab spring). Guided by the careful analysis of the recent surveys
and secondary sources, one can claim that all three features are starting to change:
the iron-clad ruling elite is beginning to split, the gap between the capital and
provincial Russia is narrowing, and the opposition is able to maintain its activities.
The long-term outcome of the movement will much depend on the ability of
civic and local movements to accumulate necessary social and human capital and
form expectations about the possibility of success among the Russian citizens and
opposition elite. Such expectations are essential for enabling regime change (Olson
1990; Kuran 1989; Hale 2013). Gandhi and Lust-Okar (2009, p. 416) emphasize the
significance of elites’ and citizens’ “perception of the likelihood of regime change”.
Morse (2012, p. 178) contends that the likelihood of elections bringing about
change is “conditional upon the perceived vulnerability of the regime”.
The future of the Russian social protest movement and whether it can succeed
at changing the current political regime depends on the strategic actions of both
political incumbents and opposition as well as exogenous shocks that may result in
long-term economic turmoil and thereby serve as a trigger for the rebirth of the
Russian social movement.
References
Aron, L. (2011). Nyetizdat: How the internet is building civil society in Russia. Russian Outlook,
pp. 1–10.
Barakovskaia, K. (2011, December 6). Na Chistykh prudakh mitingovali s aipedami v rukakh
[They protested at Chistye Prudy with iPads in their hands]. Resource document. Vedomosti.
Retrieved from http://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/1444277/. Accessed 6 December 2011.
Beissinger, M. R. (2013). The semblance of democratic revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine’s orange

revolution. American Political Science Review, 107, 1–19.
Bennett, W. L., & Segerberg, A. (2012). The logic of connective action: Digital media and the
personalization of contentious politics. Information, Communication & Society, 15(5), 739–768.
Bikbov, A. (2012). Methodology of studying “abrupt” street activism (Russian protests and street
camples. December 2011-June 2012). Laboratorium, 2, 130–163.
Bode, N., & Makarychev, A. (2013). The new social media in Russia: Political blogging by the
government and the opposition. Problems of Post-Communism, 60(2), 53–62.
Bunce, V. J., & Wolchik, L. S. (2011). Defeating authoritarian leaders in postcommunist
countries. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Busygina, I., & Filippov, M. (2015). The calculus of non-protest in Russia: Redistributive
expectations from political reforms. Europe-Asia Studies, 67(2), 209–223.
Carr, J., & Koulkina, N. (2012). Arab spring, Russian winter? Comparative perspectives on protest
and revolution. Resource document. The Stanford Post-Soviet Post. Retrieved from http://
postsovietpost.stanford.edu/discussion/arab-spring-russian-winter-comparative-perspectives-
protest-and-revolution. Accessed 6 March 2012.
Chaisty, P., & Whitefield, S. (2012). The effects of the global financial crisis on Russian political
attitudes. Post-Soviet Affairs, 28(2), 187–208.
Chaisty, P., & Whitefield, S. (2013). Democracy or back to authoritarianism: The attitudinal bases
of mass support for the Russian election protests of 2011–2012. Post-Soviet Affairs, 29(5),
387–403.
Davidoff, V. (2012, June 8). Russia passes draconian anti-protest law after first filibuster in
Duma’s modern history. Eurasia Daily Monitor, 9(109), 1.
Della Porta, D., & Tarrow, S. (2012). Interactive diffusion the coevolution of police and protest
behavior with an application to transnational contention. Comparative Political Studies, 45(1),
119–152.
Dmitriev, M., & Treisman, D. (2012). Other Russia: Discontent grows in the hinterlands. Foreign
Affairs, 91, 59.
Eremenko, A. (2014, December 12). The Slavic Spring is starting to look like the Arab Spring.
Russia Direct. Retrieved from http://www.russia-direct.org/opinion/slavic-spring-starting-
look-arab-spring. Accessed 12 December 2014.
Erpyleva, S., & Magun, A. (eds). (2014). Politics of apolitical: Civil movements in Russia in 2011–
2013. Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie.
Etling, B., Alexanyan, K., Kelly, J., Faris, R., Palfrey, J. G., & Gasser, U. (2010). Public discourse
in the Russian blogosphere: Mapping RuNet politics and mobilization (pp. 1–46). Berkman
Center Research Publication no. 2010–11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
Gabowitsch, M. (2013). Putin kaputt!? Russlands neue Protestkultur. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
Gandhi, J., & Lust-Okar, E. (2009). Elections under authoritarianism. Annual Review of Political
Science, 12, 402–422.
Gelman, I. (2012). The regime, the opposition, and challenges to electoral authoritarianism in
Russia. Russian Analytical Digest, 118(2), 2–4.
Gelman, I. (2014). Trudnoe vozrozhdenie rossiyskoy oppozitsii [Hard renaissance of Russian
opposition]. Pro et contra, 18(1–2), 106–123.
Greene, S. A. (2012a). The end of virtuality. Resource document. Center for the Study of New
Media and Society. Retrieved from http://www.newmediacenter.ru/2012/01/18/the-end-of-
virtuality/. Accessed 18 January 2012.
Greene, S. A. (2012b). Twitter and the Russian street: Memes, networks, and mobilization
(Working Paper No. 2012/1). Moscow: Center for the Study of New Media and Society,
New Economic School.
30 D. Rosenberg
Greene, S. A. (2013). Beyond Bolotnaya: Bridging old and new in Russia’s election protest
movement. Problems of Post-Communism, 60(2), 40–52.
Gudkov, L. (2012, March 6). Nedovolstvo vlastyu usilivaetsya [Dissatisfaction with government is
increasing]. Resource document. Novye Izvestia. Retrieved from http://www.newizv.ru/soci
ety/2012-03-06/160267-direktor-levada-centra-lev-gudkov.html. Accessed 6 March 2012.
Hale, H. E. (2005). Regime cycles: Democracy, autocracy, and revolution in post-Soviet Eurasia.
World Politics, 58(1), 133–165.
Hale, H. E. (2013). Regime change cascades: What we have learned from the 1848 revolutions to
the 2011 Arab uprisings. Annual Review of Political Science, 16, 331–353.
Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Huntington, S. P. (1991). The third wave: Democratization in the late twentieth century. Norman:
University Oklahoma Press.
Keck, M. E., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Kleman, K., Miryasova, O., & Demidov, A. (2010). From ordinary people to activists. Emerging
social movements in modern Russia. Moscow: Tri kvadrata.
Koesel, K. J., & Bunce, V. J. (2012). Putin, popular protests, and political trajectories in Russia: A
comparative perspective. Post-Soviet Affairs, 28(4), 403–423.
Kolpakov, I., & Tsybulskii, V. (2012, May 7). Na piatachke. Grazhdane i omonovtsy vpervye
poprobovali drug druga na prochnost [On the lot: Citizens and riot police test each other for the
first time]. Resource document. Lenta.ru. Retrieved from http://www.lenta.ru/articles/2012/05/
07/shestoyemaya. Accessed 31 October 2012.
Kramer, M. (2013). Political protest and regime-opposition dynamics in Russia. PONARS Eurasia
Policy Memo, № 280.
Krastev, I., & Holmes, S. (2012). An autopsy of managed democracy. Journal of Democracy, 23
(3), 33–45.
Kuran, T. (1989). Sparks and prairie fires: A theory of unanticipated political revolution. Public
Choice, 61(1), 41–74.
Lankina, T. (2014). Daring to protest: When, why, and how Russia’s citizens engage in street
protest. PONARS Eurasia, № 333. Washington, DC: George Washington University.
Lankina, T. (2015). The dynamics of regional and national contentious politics in Russia:
Evidence from a new dataset. Problems of Post-Communism, 62(1), 26–44.
Levinson, A. (2014). Nashe “My”: vmesto protesta [Our “We” instead of protest]. Resource
document. Yuri Levada Analytical Center. Retrieved from http://www.levada.ru/23-07-2014/
nashe-my-vmesto-protesta. Accessed 23 July 2014.
Levitsky, S., & Way, L. A. (2010). Competitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the Cold
War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lipman, M., & Petrov, N. (Eds.). (2011). Russia in 2020: Scenarios for the future. Washington,
DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Lipset, S. M. (1959). Some social requisites of democracy: Economic development and political
legitimacy. American Political Science Review, 53(1), 69–105.
Lynch, M. (2012). The Arab uprising: The unfinished revolutions of the New Middle East.
New York: Public Affairs.
Machleder, J., & Asmolov, G. (2011). Social change and the Russian network society. Washington,
DC: Internews.
Magun, A. (2014). 2011-2013 protest movement in Russia: New middle class populism. Stasis,
2(1), 192–227.
Markoff, J. (1996). Waves of democracy: Social movements and political change. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Pine Forge.
Matveev, I. (2014). The “Two Russias”: Cultural war and construction of the “People” during
2011-2013 protests. In S. Erpyleva & A. Magun (Eds.), Politics of apolitical: Civil movements
in Russia in 2011-2013 (pp. 292–311). Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie.
Matveychev, O. (2014, January 24). Protestnoe dvizhenie v Rossii snizhaetsya [Protest movement
in Russia is decreasing]. Resource document. RBK. Retrieved from http://www.rbc.ru/
rbcfreenews/20140124141234.shtml. Accessed 24 January 2014.
Morse, Y. L. (2012). The era of electoral authoritarianism. World Politics, 64(1), 161–198.
Nekrasov, D., Voronkov, K., Gudkov, D. (2012, June 26). Chego hotyat revolutsionery? [What do the
revolutionaries want?]. Resource document. Vedomosti. Retrieved from http://www.vedomosti.ru/
opinion/articles/2012/06/26/chego_hotyat_revolyucionery. Accessed 27 September 2016.
Neyaskin, G. (2012, March 7). Polzovateli interneta menshe lyubyat Putina i Stalina [Internet users
like Putin and Stalin less]. Slon.ru. Retrieved from http://slon.ru/russia/polzovateli-interneta-
menshe-lyubyat-putina-i-stalina-762175.xhtml. Accessed 7 March 2012.
Olson, M. (1990). The logic of collective action in Soviet-type societies. Journal of Soviet
Nationalities, 1(2), 8–27.
Oreshkin, D. (2012, October 10). Putin ne umryot [Putin will not die]. Resource document. Novaya
Gazeta, p. 115. Retrieved from http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/54831.html. Accessed
27 September 2016.
Panchenko, E. (2012). Mitingi ‘Za chestnye vybory’: Protestnaia aktivnost v sotsialnykh setiakh
[Protests “For Fair Elections”: Protest activity in social networks]. Digital Icons, 7, 149–154.
Paniushkin, V. (2011). Twelve who don’t agree: The battle for freedom in Putin’s Russia.
New York: Europe Editions.
Petrov, N. (2012). On whether Russian Society is awakening. Resource document. PONARS Eurasia,
p. 213. Retrieved from http://www.ponarseurasia.org/node/5927. Accessed 27 September 2016.
Petrov, N., Lipman, M., & Hale, H. E. (2010). Overmanaged democracy in Russia: Dilemmas of
hybrid regime governance (p. 106). Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace.
Popescu, N. (2012). Russia’s liberal-nationalist cocktail: Elixir of life or toxic poison. Resource
document. Open Democracy, p. 3. Retrieved from https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/nicu-
popescu/elixir-of-life-or-toxic-poison-russias-liberal-nationalist-cocktail. Accessed 27 September
2016.
Radnitz, S. (2010). The color of money: Privatization, economic dispersion, and the post-Soviet
‘Revolutions’. Comparative Politics, 43(2), 127–146.
Reuter, O. J., & Gandhi, J. (2010). Economic performance and elite defection from hegemonic
parties. British Journal of Political Science, 41(1), 83–110.
Robertson, G. (2009). Managing society: Protest, civil society, and regime in Putin’s Russia.
Slavic Review, 68(3), 528–547.
Robertson, G. (2013). Protesting Putinism. Problems of Post-Communism, 60(2), 11–23.
Savina, E., Smirnov, S., Tumanov, G., & Bocharova, S. (2011, December 10) Vlastiam dali dve nedeli
[Government was given two weeks]. Resource document. Gazeta.ru. Retrieved from http://www.
gazeta.ru/politics/elections2011/2011/12/10-a-3922210.shtml. Accessed 31 October 2012.
Schedler, A. (2006). Electoral authoritarianism: The dynamics of unfree competition. Boulder and
London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Shevtsova, L. (2012). Implosion, atrophy, or revolution? Journal of Democracy, 23(3), 19–32.
Shuster, S. (2011, December 24). Russia’s crisis: This winter, the bears will not hibernate. Resource
document. Time. Retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2103083,00.
html. Accessed 27 September 2016.
Smyth, R., & Soboleva, I. (2014). Looking beyond the economy: Pussy Riot and the Kremlin’s
voting coalition. Post-Soviet Affairs, 30(4), 257–275.
Smyth, R., Sobolev, A., & Soboleva, I. (2013). A well-organized play: Symbolic politics and the
effect of the pro-Putin rallies. Problems of Post-Communism, 60(2), 24–39.
Sobolev, A. (2012). Factors of collective action: Mass protests in Russia in 2011-2012 (Working
Paper No. 2012/05). Moscow: Institutional Problems of the Russian Economy, Higher School
of Economics.
Suvorov, G. (2012). Kto zhe vse-taki byl na Bolotnoy i na Sakharova? Analiz profiley 20 000
uchastnikov [So who was at Bolotnaya and Sakharov? Analysis of the profiles of 20000
32 D. Rosenberg
participants]. Resource document. Basilisklab. Retrieved from http://basilisklab.com/boloto-

analis-posetitelei.html. Accessed 5 November 2012.
Tarrow, S. (2005). The new transnational activism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Touraine, A., Dubet, F., Wieviorka, M., & Strzelecki, J. (1983). Solidarity: The analysis of a social
movement: Poland, 1980–1981. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Treisman, D. (2013). Can Putin keep his grip on power. Current History, 112(756), 256.
Tucker, J. A. (2007). Enough! Electoral fraud, collective action problems, and post-communist
colored revolutions. Perspectives on Politics, 5(3), 535–551.
Umland, A. (2012). Could Russia’s ultranationalists subvert pro-democracy pro-tests? Resource docu-
ment. World Affairs Journal. Retrieved from http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/could-rus
sia%E2%80%99s-ultranationalists-subvert-pro-democracy-protests. Accessed 23 November 2012.
Volkov, D. (2012a). Protestnoe dvizhenie v Rossii v kontse 2011-2012 [Protest movement in
Russia at the end of 2011-2012]. Moscow: Yuri Levada Analytical Center.
Volkov, D. (2012b). The protesters and the public. Journal of Democracy, 23(3), 55–62.
Weyland, K. (2010). The diffusion of regime contention in European democratization, 1830-1940.
Comparative Political Studies, 43(8–9), 1148–1176.
Wolchik, S. L. (2012). Can there be a color revolution? Journal of Democracy, 23(3), 63–70.
Zhurnalisty naschitali 102 tysjachi chelovek na prospekte Saharova [Journalists counted 102 thou-
sand people on Sakharov Avenue]. (2011). Resource document. Lenta.ru. Retrieved from
https://www.lenta.ru/news/2011/12/25/thousands/. Accessed 27 September 2016.
Palestinian Youth Movements and “the Arab
Spring”
Ibrahim Natil
1 Introduction
To understand Palestinian youth movements’ responses to the region changes

caused by the Arab Spring in relevance to changes taking place in Tunisia and
Egypt in 2011–2013, it is essential to discuss Aragonès and Sánchez-Pagés’ defini-
tion of participatory democracy. Aragones and Sánchez-Pagés (2009) define partic-
ipatory democracy as a process of collective decision-making where citizens have
the power to decide on change. This paper examines if youth active participation and
engagement in the Palestinian local organizations, student unions, political groups,
movements, and NGOs was as a form of ‘participatory democracy’ in responding to
the ‘Arab Spring’. Youth attempted to use the ‘Arab Spring’ opportunity to over-
come the shortcomings of representative democracy who failed to achieve their
inspiration of ending occupation and internal division between Fatah and Hamas.
However, Palestinian youth have not participated in regular public elections to elect
their representatives for more than 10 years now due to Palestinian division and
occupation. Specifically, this paper will discuss if youth movement was a form of
‘participatory democracy’ in the absence of regular elections in reference to the
definition of Aragones and Sánchez-Pagés (2009).
Youth witnessed a number of serious setbacks caused mainly by continued occu-
pation and partly by the absence of a Palestinian collective leadership. Youth response
to the absence of a collective strategy and common policies during the last three
decades made Palestinian society and youth in particular much more tired, frustrated,
and desperate. Youth movement responded to the Arab Spring by organizing events to
I. Natil (*)
Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction, Dublin City University,
Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
e-mail: dr.natil59@gmail.com

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_3
34 I. Natil
change the de facto in Palestine. It will analyze if the new Palestinian youth movement
equipped by a new culture of information technology to facilitate organizing protests
as well as framing political and social demands. It will also examine the efforts and
activities delivered by a number of local and international organizations to educate
youth on dialogue, tolerance, and reconciliation at the social and political levels. It will
examine the different communications and media strategies employed by Palestinian
youth to understand new patterns of organizing, mobilizing, and framing via the new
social networks.
On March 15, 2011, the new social youth movement organized massive peaceful
marches and non-violent protests to make a stand against the division and conflict in
Palestine. Youth groups were known as the March 15 Movement, which employed
different tools of modern social media networks to organize the protests. The
movement has faced a number of political and social challenges. Therefore, this
paper will compare the limits of the Palestinian youth movement and the success of
the Tunisia social movement. In this context, it will identify clearly if the new
Palestinian youth movement has established political processes and clear member-
ship. It will also question whether the Palestinian youth movement has an informal
hierarchy and leadership.
This paper will study the Palestinian case to identify the role of youth and their
impact in responding to the Arab spring on the Palestinian policies and politics. It will
examine the role of youth in disseminating a culture of social change in rebuilding
mutual trust, reconciliation, building capacities for conflict resistance, empowering
marginalized parties, and launching joint development policies and strategies. How-
ever, it is here essential to provide the readers with a very brief historical description of
youth movements’ emergence and engagement in the process of change in Palestine
before and during the Arab Spring.
2 Emergence of New Youth Movements
On June 7th of 1967, the Palestinian contemporary youth movements, which included
all Palestinian social and political fabrications, spectrums and beliefs, had faced a new
challenge when Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem.
Youth movements used different slogans to confront the Israeli military administration
that exerted control over the population by its military power but allowed Palestinians to
exercise their religious rights. In effect, power was in the hands of the military governor
who controlled Palestinian local institutions. The military governor was responsible for
appointing and dismissing the mayors and heads of councils. In the Gaza Strip, the
governor appointed four mayors in the main cities, eight heads for rural councils, and
three heads for local committees in three refugee camps in the Gaza Strip (Natil 2015).
In 1969, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was restructured to become an
umbrella for some ten Palestinian nationalist groups, headed by the Fatah National
Movement under the leadership of Yaser Arafat, who remained in this position for
36 years.
Palestinian Youth Movements and “the Arab Spring” 35
Palestinian national growth had intensified under Israeli occupation by the time the
first uprising, or Intifada, took place on the eve of December 8, 1987. This popular
uprising was an expression of national and political awareness by young Palestinians,
which aimed at establishing a future ‘entity’ without any politically-driven agenda or
any single national or Islamic movement leading it. The Palestinian youth were the
fuel of this Intifada that continued for 7 years. The Intifada had an organizational
infrastructure based on local and popular committees led by youth, coordinated
through a ‘Unified National Leadership of the Uprising’ (UNLU), which in turn
coordinated initiatives with the PLO elite based in Tunis. The popular committees
led by youth were dedicated not only to organizing actions against Israeli forces
but also to the provision of social welfare and health care, empowering women to
participate in economic development and social reconciliation among citizens and
encouraging self-sufficiency at grass-roots levels (Rigby 1991, pp. 23–24).
The UNLU organized a popular general strike action on the ninth day of every
month and threw stones at the Israeli soldiers. However, there were also Hamas youth
groups with ideological Islamic doctrine who ran social, political, and religious
resistance activities against the Israeli occupation. Hamas youth groups are educated
on ideologies and doctrine of refuting negotiations with Israel under any circumstances.
Yet during its early days, the Intifada created a real and unprecedented shift from
individual to collective actions with a sense of common and productive purpose. The
outbreak of the uprising was, in reality, a spontaneous collective action with no prior
planning. It was the result of the accumulation of continuing acts of aggression
committed by the Israeli occupying forces against youth in the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip from 1967 onwards. Most Palestinian people were prompted to respond to
the actions of the uprising in OPT, who met urgently and secretly to take part in this
public anger and resistance against the Israeli occupation. On November 15, 1988, at its
nineteenth meeting in Algeria, the PLO’s Palestinian National Council officially
decided to accept a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. The PLO called for an
international peace conference based on UN resolutions 242 and 338, which called for
Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967. Hamas rejected this proposal.
It described the recognition of Israel’s existence as high treason with regards to the
Palestinian cause, and for the Islamic nation as well (Khalidi 1990, pp. 29–42).
3 New Political Environment
On September 13, 1993, various youth movements and groups had faced a new
environment of challenges after secret negotiations took place between Israeli and
Palestinian representatives convened by the Norwegians. These secret talks in Oslo
were concluded with the Declaration of Principles Agreement between Israel and
the PLO signed in Washington on September 13, 1993 to establish a self-ruling
Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West bank and the Gaza Strip (Rigby 2010, p. 59).
As a result of the Oslo Agreement, the PLO’s security apparatus and most of its
political structures were moved from exile into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
36 I. Natil
to lay the foundation for the Palestinian Authority in 1994. The new Palestinian
political structure represented by PLO’s forces and the Palestinian Authority consti-
tuted a serious threat to Hamas (Natil 2012, p. 168). Hamas tried to hinder the progress
of the Oslo Agreement by challenging and weakening the newly established PA at
political and military levels. This agreement brought new hopes for both societies,
Israelis, and Palestinians. The PA recruited thousands of young people, who used to
resist the Israeli occupation in the popular intifada, to its police and national security
forces to protect the peace process. However, this process failed when the PA and
Israel failed to reach a political compromise aimed at establishing a viable adjacent
Palestinian state in July 2000.
The failure caused the outbreak of the second uprising, which came only 2 months
after the end of the Camp David negotiations between the PA and Israel. Israel used
excessive violence against unarmed youth protesters in the holy site. The number of
Palestinian youth casualties during the first weeks of the uprising was significantly
high. During the second uprising, that continued from 2000 to 2005, the Palestinian
youth were the major segment and were living in extremely harsh conditions. More-
over, they had lost their human security at all levels: political, economic, health,
personal, food, community, and environmental. Many young people thought of immi-
gration if they had the opportunity to do so. Moreover, the insecurity of the people of
Gaza Strip had worsened acutely, and life had become impossible for Palestinians as a
result of the Palestinian division in 2007 and Israel’s Operation Cast Lead waged on
December 27, 2008, and ended on January 18, 2009 (Natil 2012, p. 168).
4 Youth Hierarchy and Leadership
The Palestinian youth are represented by different local organizations, unions,

political parties and social groups in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They are not
represented in one movement, with a clear membership and formal hierarchy and
leadership. However, there is more than one youth union and movement under
different names and politically driven agendas. For example, one of these groups,
called the Independent Youth Movement (Hirak Shebabi), is a coalition of politi-
cally independent youth driven by national concerns. The Hirak Shebabi is an
umbrella organization composed of youth affiliated with various political factions
and parties as well as civil society organizations and local groups. It is not subordi-
nate to any political party or faction. Membership of Hirak Shebabi does not require
adherence to specific ideological or political leanings. Hirak Shebabi further seeks
to unite groups active in social and national liberation under one coalition and
considers diversity and plurality an advantage that pushes towards inclusiveness
(Alsaafin 2012).
Generally, different youth groups suffer from lack of coordination, networking, and
the absence of a clear strategy to achieve collective political, social, and economic
goals. They have a long history of organizing themselves and leading civil society
organizations as follows:
– Local Grassroots Centers: In 1949, the United Nations Relief and Working Agency-
(UNRWA) established women’s grassroots centers operating in 26 refugee camps
in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They aimed to serve young refugees who were
displaced after the establishment of Israel in 1948. These organizations deliver
activities for youth in different fields of culture, social and sports activities, educa-
tion, recreation, and services. UNRWA has been providing technical and financial
support for these centers, as they were first established. This support has been
essential for sustainability, despite a continuous reduction of assistance.
– Political Factions and Parties: Most political groups have youth associations.
They are active in different scopes of community awareness and societal mobi-
lization. They work with many issues, including youth sports, social and political
participation, legal aid, and psychosocial support. Their work is based on the
view of national liberation and youth engagement and mobilization within the
political group. For example, the Islamic NGOs have a very strong to function as
a social network of schools, sports clubs, kindergartens, youth groups/centers,
and medical centers serving at the grassroots level. This social welfare work was
delivered based on the Islamic social change strategy of building community
bases before bringing about political change. It also sought to mobilize commu-
nities by spreading Islamic values through its own good example of providing
social and community services. This strategy was inherited from its mother
organization, the Muslim Brotherhood society, rooted in Islamic culture, beliefs,
ideology, and practices. These NGOs also presented a challenge to the political
hegemony of the PLO (Roy 2011, pp. 70–75).
– Non-governmental organizations – (NGOs): Palestinian youth have always been
involved in the liberation movement, but they increasingly engaged in NGOs
after they were mostly excluded from participation in the change process and the
establishment of the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s (Natil 2014). NGOs’
activities contribute to youth movements by training and empowering youth at all
levels. In other words, many youth organizations are an integral part of youth
movements by their own contributions and engagement in the civic change
process in Palestine. NGOs, however, have limited capacity to challenge and
contribute to the policy-making processes of poverty alleviation and civil society
empowerment. These youth organizations reflect and represent a diverse spec-
trum of political, cultural and social groups in Palestine. Their influence on
policies and society, however, is still very weak. But the organizations attempted
to contribute to the reconciliation and peace building in Palestine. For example,
Society Voice Foundation, an NGO led by youth and serving youth launched a
3-year project funded by the European Union to activate and train youth on
advocacy, networking, peace-building, and dialogue (Natil 2014). Thus, NGOs
such as Society Voice Foundation sought to contribute to youth movements by
educating youth on the principles, tools, and strategies of peace, non-violence
concepts and practices based on mutual understanding and advance peace process
towards lasting regional peace and recognition of Palestinian self-determination
will contribute to a great extent in social change and empowering stability in the
Palestinian society.
38 I. Natil
Palestinian youth as individuals are also very active in the local organizations by
delivering and participating in different community activities at all levels. The local
civil society organizations target and educate a large number of young people on
different values of democracy, human rights, and peace building. These values have
been challenged by a number of internal and external circumstances and factors.
For example, youth are handicapped by the Palestinian division between Hamas
and Fatah on one hand and the Israeli occupation on the other hand. Youth use new
tools and techniques of social networking to express their views and to escape the
suppression and violence of the security agencies. There have been a number of
youth initiatives emerging in the Occupied Palestinian Territories that used social
media to protest against de facto circumstances. The first one was the initiative
called “Gaza Youth Breaks Out” (GYBO). This initiative of angry young bloggers
aimed to protest against the economic and political, including the restriction on the
public freedom situations in the Gaza Strip before the emergence of the Arab spring
in 2011 (Khosrokhavar 2012, p. 223).
5 Arab Spring
In early 2011, peaceful youth revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East that
ousted the dictators of Egypt and Tunisia had already brought new hope and
optimism to Palestinian society. In these countries, youth played a major role in
non-violent protests against dictatorships, widely known as the Arab Spring (Natil
2012, p. 180). The Palestinian youth had watched the events of the Arab Spring
and hoped that the revolutions in the Arab world would reflect positively on the
Palestinian cause. Some Palestinian youth leaders also attended several activities
and regional meetings in Tunisia and Egypt to learn from the experiences of other
colleagues about the Arab spring. The Palestinian youth attempted to organize
themselves under different initiatives.
1- Palestine’s 15 March Movement

On February 17, 2011, a group of young activists met in a café in the Ramallah city
of West Bank to plan for the march. They arranged a Skype conversation with four
activists from Gaza Strip to use social media effectively and efficiently to reignite
the Palestinian street. On March 15, 2011, movements and youth groups organized
massive peaceful marches and non-violent protests to make a stand against the
division and conflict between Hamas and Fatah in the Gaza Strip and the West
Bank. Those groups were known as the 15 March Movement, which employed
different tools of modern social media networks to organize the protests. These
protests were the first well-organized marches in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank
since 2007. The Youth March 15 Movement posed a real challenge for Hamas and
Fatah, and could become a similar phenomenon to Egyptian youth revolution, as the
organizers intended (Maan News Agency 2011). The Movement forced the Prime
Minister of Hamas, Ismail Hana, to invite the Palestinian President, Mahmud Abbas
to visit Gaza, and he responded positively to the call. This rapid and positive
response was an attempt from Hamas and Fatah to take into account the peaceful
youth protests and their efforts to unify Palestinian society. Hamas and Fatah also
wanted to avoid more protests and campaigns in the near future.
It was clear that the March 15 Movement was inspired by the regional changes.
However, the youth movement was also part of a series of peaceful efforts against
the Israeli occupation that emerged in different areas of the Gaza Strip and the West
Bank during the last few years. Many members of the March 15 Movement had
already learned the lessons of Gandhi and Martin Luther King in using non-violent
resistance, and they continued their efforts against the Israeli wall in the West Bank,
as well as against the security fence in the Gaza Strip.
The March 15 Movement was a brave initiative and a step forward, but it did
not succeed in bringing about genuine change similar to Tunisia or Egypt. This is
because there are many differences between Palestine and other Arab countries,
from society to politics to culture. The movement found it difficult to continue its
efforts to force Fatah and Hamas towards unity and reconciliation without external
intervention or regional changes in Egypt and Syria. The youth still hoped and
worked to bring change to the Palestinian society from the Israeli occupation and
internal division as well. They participated actively and regularly in protesting
peacefully against the Israeli settlement and separation wall. This initiative started
before the Arab Spring, but it still continues as the “popular resistance” (Sharek
Youth Forum 2014). Most of the protesters against the Israeli walls and settlement
were affiliated with youth groups. They played a role in shaping the views and
directions of the citizens in general and youth in particular towards the Arab Spring.
The AWRAD public poll conducted in July 2013 shows that the Palestinian youth
have already started to lose hope in the Arab Spring after the failure of the Islamic
parties in governance and the deterioration of political and economic stability in those
countries. Fifty-seven percent of Palestinian youth between 18 and 30 years old believe
that the regional events will negatively affect the Palestinian situation. The poll also
shows the differences between views and positions of youth in the West Bank under the
PA rule and Gaza Strip under Hamas’ rule. Forty-five percent of young people in Gaza
believe an uprising similar to those in Egypt and Tunisia could occur against the Hamas
government, and 48% would support such an event. Twenty-six percent of the partic-
ipants in the West Bank state that an uprising similar to those that have occurred in
Egypt and Tunisia could occur against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and
15% state that they would support it. Fifty-seven percent believe Morsi’s ousting will
have a negative effect on reconciliation between Fateh and Hamas. Moreover, 50% of
the respondents believe that the removal of Morsi will have a negative impact on the
peace process (Arab World for Research and Development 2013).
2- Palestinian Tamrod
Another group of young people initiated the “Palestinian Tamrod” revolt movement
shortly after ousting the Egyptian President Morsi, who is a member of the Muslim
Brotherhood. The movement was inspired by the ousting of President Morsi and aimed
to protest against Hamas’ rule in Gaza. On November 11, 2013, a number of masked
40 I. Natil
Tamrod members appeared online, calling the Palestinian youth to take to the streets
and protest Hamas’ rule. Tamrod issued and uploaded videos on YouTube which
circulated very rapidly on the social networks. The members of the movement were
unknown. However, Hamas’ government had already taken a number of steps to control
the protests before it started. Some Hamas leaders accused the PA, Egypt, and Israel of
backing this movement to topple its rule in Gaza Strip. Hamas questioned and detained a
number of writers and journalists who wrote about this movement. It also phoned a
number of journalists calling them to avoid participation or contribution to Tamrod
(al-Ghoul 2013). This movement could not achieve what the Egyptian one did. The
youth of Gaza Strip did not participate in the protests and this group soon disappeared
without achieving its goals.
However, peaceful youth revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East that ousted
the dictators of Egypt and Tunisia brought new hope and optimism for Palestinian
society at that time. But these countries of Tunisia and Egypt have experienced peace
and stability for more than 30 years, unlike Palestine. I summarize them as follows:
1. Palestinians have been living under Israeli occupation and violence for more
than 44 years; there has been no peace and development in Palestine.
2. Palestinians have been divided between Hamas and Fatah since 1987. The
Palestinian people have never had a representative leadership for all Palestinians
in order to consider a strategic plan for peace or war, even though the PLO has
been the legal body and Palestinian representative for more than four decades.
Hamas has disputed and refused the representation of PLO, as the latter was
unelected.
3. Palestinian political factions were fragmented and loyal to two different Arab
camps. Hamas was loyal and linked to Syria, and Fatah was loyal and linked to
the former Egyptian regime.
4. The Palestinian people have been fragmented and distributed between the Gaza
Strip, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, without any geographical unity.
5. The Palestinian youth witnessed two long, popular, and violent uprisings from
1987 to 1993 and from 2000 to 2005.
6. Palestinians suffered international sanctions after Hamas composed the Palestinian
government in 2006, which caused a number of humanitarian problems.
7. Palestinian youth witnessed the collapse of the peace process between Israel
and PLO under the Israeli expansionist settlement policy in the Occupied
Palestinian Territories.
8. Hamas’ military takeover of Gaza and the expulsion of the PA’s forces in 2007,
when about 700 young Palestinians were killed and injured, deepened the wounds
and social fragmentations among families.
9. The Israeli Military Cast Lead Operation in the Gaza Strip destroyed the poor
infrastructure and further deepened the wounds of Palestinians; it left more than
1300 dead, over 5000 wounded, and 2400 buildings destroyed.
10. There have been about 5935 Palestinian prisoners behind Israeli bars for many
years. Those prisoners represent an important segment of society. Since the
beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, over
650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel. This forms approximately

20% of the total Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
(OPT) in accordance with the Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights
Association as of January 1, 2011 (Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human
Rights Association 2011).
Despite the endeavors of the Palestinian youth movement to change the political
landscape during the Arab Spring, they still represent a decisive portion of the
population and a powerful contributor to, whether as a negative or positive impact,
changing and the community development process. Therefore, empowering youth in
civil society actions, including using social media, would give a different transi-
tional point in increasing this culture and practice as well.
6 Way Forward
Palestinian youth movements attempted to copy the achievements of Tunisian and

Egyptian revolutions and changes during the Arab Spring in 2011. The Aragonès and
Sánchez-Pagés definition of participatory democracy is inapplicable to the Palestinian
case because the Palestinian youth have not participated in public elections since 2006.
Palestine has no political system with democratic political parties as the political
landscape of Palestine was different and complicated, as youth have been challenged
and oppressed by the Israeli occupation for more than 45 years. They also have been
trapped by facing a very complicated and serious division between the national
movement of Fatah and Islamic movement of Hamas since 2007. More importantly,
Palestine is not yet a state to make genuine political change, such as happened in the
regimes of Tunisia and Egypt. In addition to Israeli occupation and Palestinian division,
the Palestinian youth movements were part of the political polarization between Hamas
and Fatah. The majority of youth are affiliated with Hamas and Fatah as well. The
geographical separation between Gaza Strip and the West Bank was also a main barrier
to uniting the youth movements, despite their coordination and use of social media
networks and protesting at the same time in Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
I think it is unlikely that youth movements will attempt to change the political
landscape peacefully after the destruction off the devastating 51 days of Israeli
military operations in summer 2014 in the short and mid-term periods. The Gaza
Strip, of which youth compose the majority of the population, suffers from a new
environment of destruction, overloaded with psychological problems. The latest
war has left 100,000 Gazans homeless and over 2100 dead, a majority of them
Palestinian civilians as compared with 76 Israeli soldiers (United Nations 2014).
42 I. Natil
References
Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association. (2011). Resource document.
Retrieved from http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/prisoners.html. Accessed 11 September
2016.
al-Ghoul, A. (2013). Tamarod calls for protest against Hamas in Gaza. Resource document.
Al-Monitor Palestine Pulse. Retrieved from http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/
2013/09/gaza-tamarod-november-11-hamas.html. Accessed 21 September 2014.
Alsaafin, L. (2012). Imperfect revolution: Palestine’s 15 March movement one year. Resource
document. Retrieved from http://www.electronicintifada.net/content/imperfect-revolution-
palestines-15-march-movement-one-year/11092. Accessed 25 September 2014.
Aragones, E., & Sánchez-Pagés, S. (2009). A theory of participatory democracy based on the real
case of Porto Alegre. European Economic Review, 53(1), 56–72.
Khalidi, R. (1990). The resolutions of the 19th Palestine National Council. Journal of Palestine
Studies, 19(2), 29–42.
Khosrokhavar, F. (2012). The new Arab revolutions that shook the world. London: Paradigm
Publisher.
Maan News Agency. (2011). Thousands of Palestinians rally for reconciliation. Resource docu-
ment. Maan News Agency. Retrieved from http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?
ID¼368811. Accessed 21 January 2016.
Natil, I. (2012). Hamas: Between militarism and governance. In M. Darweish & C. Rank (Eds.),
Peacebuilding and reconciliation contemporary themes and challenges (pp. 166–183).
London: Pluto Press.
Natil, I. (2014). A shifting political landscape: NGOs civic activism and response in the Gaza
Strip, 1967–2014. Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, 9(3), 82–87. doi:10.1080/
15423166.2014.983369.
Natil, I. (2015). Hamas transformation: Opportunities and challenges (p. 19). Newcastle upon
Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Rigby, A. (1991). Living the Intifada. London: Zed Books.
Rigby, A. (2010). Palestinian resistance and nonviolence. Jerusalem: Passia.
Roy, S. (2011). Hamas and civil society in Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sharek Youth Forum. (2014). The status of youth in Palestine 2013 report.
Brazilian Protests: Actors and Demands
for Political Changes
Dmitry Zaytsev
1 Protests in Brazil: Overview
Protests in Brazil have become a crucial factor for political changes since 2013, as
recently documented by numerous country experts.
Scholars had already studied Brazilian protests from different angles: news
coverage of protests; the causes, reasons, and triggers for the protests; political,
economic, and social context of the protests; genesis and significance of protests;
the geographical location of protesters their demands, and social base; repertoires,
contents, and frameworks of interpretations of protests; common trends of episodes
of Brazilian protests, as well as similarities and differences between Brazilian
protests and protests in other countries (e.g. Turkey and Spain) (Bastos et al.
2014; Gokay and Shain 2015; Mendonça and Fuks 2015; Mendonça and Ercan
2015; Oliva and Khoury 2013; Verdú and Ferraz 2015; Saad-Filho 2013; Shahin
et al. 2016; Sweet 2014).
I argue that these protests indicate the emergence of a new political actor—
“protest publics”—communities with their own identity and demands for changing
social reality according to their own ideas about the imaginary alternative future
world that was discursively constructed by them (Warner 2002). These specific
features make them different from traditional social movements (Warner 2002;
Mahony and Clarke 2013; Belyaeva and Dzhibladze 2014). Protest publics can be
considered an important driver of political changes. Namely, protest publics in
Brazil are visible not only as a factor but also as an actor of political changes.
They prompt further democratic development of Brazil by demanding a further
increase in the “quality of democracy” and moving from “liberal” to “embedded”
D. Zaytsev (*)
e-mail: zaytsevdi2@gmail.com

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_4
44 D. Zaytsev
participatory democracy (institutional change). The participants of the protests call for
policy change such as the redistribution of unduly high government expenditures on
sports infrastructure to public goods such as education, healthcare, public transportation,
and the fight against corruption. In addition, the change of the current political leadership
has become a special concern for protesters, as protests could lead to the change of
political leadership, elite change, change of balance of power, etc. (situational change).
In this chapter, I discuss and provide evidence for how protesters in Brazil move
the country towards the embedded participatory democracy. First, we argue that the
protests are a significant factor in the subsequent political changes. Second, “protest
publics” are autonomous and consolidated actors. Third, political changes that
Brazil has undergone since 2013 should be viewed as significant. Most importantly,
in these political changes, the Brazilian protest public play the role of “watchdogs”
who control the governmental decision making and are ready to take to the streets
again ‘if something goes wrong’.
The geographical scope of the protests is telling: protesters filled the streets not
only in the largest cities (Brasilia, Sao Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro) but also in many
other towns. For example, people from more than 300 Brazilian cities and towns
participated in the mass protests of March 2016 (Alliance News 2016; Watts 2016).
In the subsequent sections, I attempt to show that the Brazilian protests are of
both permanent and pendulum nature. In many Brazilian cities and states, a large
number of protesters take to the streets on a regular, systematic basis in order to
articulate their demands. This makes them a significant factor of contemporary
political changes in Brazil.
2 Factors of Political Changes in Brazil
The conventional wisdom holds that protests are often caused or at least triggered
by economic grievances (e.g., economic crisis) and sometimes a type of political
regime (Goldstone 2013). We argue that economic factors alone fail to explain the
recent protests in Brazil and political changes they brought. Nor do economic
factors hold a dominant explanatory power.
We think that political changes in Brazil were enabled by the unique combi-
nation of factors, actors, and processes that might have even started before the
protests, but it is the protest social movement that made these changes develop and
actually happen.
2.1 Economic Factors: From “Crisis of Hopes” to Economic

Recession
The economic situation in Brazil has changed dramatically within the last 10 years.
In 2004–2011 the Brazilian economy experienced rapid economic growth. The
annual GDP per capita growth varied from a low of 1.9% in 2005 to 6.5% in 2010,
with one exception of a negative 1.1% growth in 2009 (World Bank 2016). In 2012
Brazilian Protests: Actors and Demands for Political Changes 45
the annual growth rate dropped below 1% for the first time. The economic slowdown
turned into a recession in 2014, with negative 0.8% annual growth rate (World Bank
2016), and negative 3.8% in 2015, the maximum drop in Brazil’s GDP growth since
1990, when it was 4.3% during a recession (TASS 2016). Inflation had been
continuously falling from 2003 to 2007, with upward and downward tendencies
stabilizing between 2007 and 2012, and has been growing ever since (in 2015 annual
inflation reached 9%—the maximum at least in the last 12 years) (World Bank
2016). The steady downward trend in the unemployment rate has reversed since
2012 (World Bank 2016).
The year 2012 was a turning point when the long-lasting period of economic growth
and development turned into an economic slowdown and then recession. The main
outcome of this economic development, however, was strengthening of the “middle
class” (income share held by the second, third, and fourth quintiles increased from 34%
in 2001 to 39% in 2013). In its turn, it is the strengthened “middle class” that has
become a social base for the Brazilian protests in 2013–2016.1 Other outcomes include
the increase of governmental expenditures on health, education, and transport.
Dissatisfaction with health, education, and transport services and misallocation
of governmental resources devoted to these spheres was the main reason for protests.
However, since the mid-2000s governmental expenditures on health, education, and
transport policies rose significantly. For the first time, during 2000–2005 health
expenditures exceeded 8% of GDP and remained at that level until 2014. Govern-
ment expenditures on education exceeded 4% of GDP and increased steadily until
2012 when they amounted to almost 6% of GDP (World Bank 2016). Investments in
transport with the participation of private parties started to grow in 2006 and
increased eightfold in 1 year (from $450 to $3696 million). In 2014, this figure
reached its peak at $32,557 million. But in 2015, investments in transport with
private participation decreased dramatically (74 times!), and was only $437 million
(World Bank 2016).
The growth of the Brazilian economy that lasted until around 2013 gave experts
a reason to look for the causes of protests in “relative deprivation” of the expanded
“middle class”, rather than absolute numbers.2
“Relative deprivation” theory explains the rise of citizens’ protest activity not
during the periods of economic crisis, but in the periods of economic stability and
even economic development, when the improvement in the quality of life due to
more efficient governance, education, health, and transport policies is expected. It is
1
Interview with Boris Martynov, Institute of Latin America, Russian Academy of Science, March
2014. Interview with Victor Krasilschikov, Institute of World Economy and International Rela-
tions, Russian Academy of Science.
2
tions, Russian Academy of Science. Interview with Zbignev Ivanovskiy, Institute of Latin
America, Russian Academy of Science, March 2014. Interview with Emil Dabagyan, Institute
of Latin America, Russian Academy of Science, March 2014.
46 D. Zaytsev
believed that people are unhappy with the speed of policy change, rather than its
absence.
The further development of the Brazilian economy, when economic slowdown
turned into recession, showed that the protests, in fact, preceded problems in the
Brazilian economy rather than followed them. Protests might have served as an
“early warning system” for the government. In this sense, the deprivation theory
experts were proved wrong, and the causal arrow runs in the opposite direction.
Protesters did not react to the economic problems post factum. They expressed their
“actorness” by predicting economic crisis if the government did nothing to change
the direction of its policy. The forecast came true: the government failed to conduct
structural economic reforms in time, which entailed economic recession.
2.2 Socio-Cultural Factors: Lack of Conventional Social

Channels for Self-Expression
Socio-cultural trends in Brazilian society in the last few decades are very contro-
versial. On the one hand, the post-materialist shift has been documented (Inglehart
and Welzel 2005). The number of post-materialists in Brazil slightly increased
(from 6% in 1991 to 11% in 2014), which was matched by the reduction in the
number of materialists (from 41% in 1991 to 30% in 2014) (World Value Survey
2016). A more detailed analysis of the components of the post-materialist shift
shows that it happened largely on the scale of “survival—self-expression values”,
rather than “traditional—secular values”. On the other hand, experts concurred that
the Brazilian society is still traditional in many aspects, e.g., strong influence of
religion and the Catholic Church, cultural stereotypes (Brazil is carnival and
football!) as well as remnants of inequality, including that of racial basis. The
socio-cultural sense of protests and motivation to protest was to propose and defend
any alternative ideas and goals to those cultural stereotypes.3
The “post-materialist shift” in Brazil is also observed in the gradual spread of the
values of emancipation. While in Brazil in the last decade, popularity of such
emancipative values as individual’s “autonomy” (when autonomy and indepen-
dence, imagination, and qualities contrary to obedience are welcomed) and more
tolerant “choice” (like acceptance of homosexuality, abortion, and diversity) has
increased (World Value Survey 2016). This part of society with “self-expression”
or “emancipative” values co-exists with the “traditional” part of Brazilian society.
The first groups seem to be an “active minority”, which became the core of the
protests.
3
Interview with Boris Martynov, Institute of Latin America, Russian Academy of Science,
March 2014.
Brazil is infamous for the high level of social interpersonal mistrust4 and a much
lower level of civil participation in social structures and institutions.5 Being critical
of the government, especially from “leftist” positions, is also a part of the socio-
political culture in Brazil. Nevertheless, in Brazil, there is a universal social con-
sensus around the vector of the necessary changes that economic and technological
modernization of the country should be based on the solution of social problems, on
the principles of post-industrial and democratic society, respecting the supremacy of
“rule of law” principle.6
Altogether, these factors lead to the fact that the “active minority” experienced a
lack of social channels for articulating and representation of their interests. They are
not satisfied with conventional forms of political participation (elections, political
parties, trade unions, and NGOs) because of a lack of habits to participate in conven-
tional forms of civil participation, lack of trust in them and in the government, and lack
of general interpersonal trust in Brazilian society. That is why protesters demanded
new forms of civil and political participation, which indicate general demand for
participatory democracy.
2.3 Political Factors: Deepening “Legitimacy Crisis”

and Request for Participatory Democracy
One of the main trends of the last 10 years in Brazilian politics is the decrease of
public trust in government and state institutions in general. From 2006 to 2014,
people’s confidence in the vast majority of governmental and public institutions
in Brazil decreased (e.g., confidence in Church, Armed Forces, Labor Unions,
Government, Political Parties, and Parliament) (World Value Survey 2016). Public
trust in some non-governmental structures (e.g., the Environmental Protection
4
E.g., only 7% of Brazilians trust people, and 92% think that “Most people can’t be trusted”; these
numbers are stable since 1991. Source: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/.
5
The percent of people, who declared in 2014 “Active membership of church or religious
organization” is 50%,“Active membership of sport or recreation organization”—9%, “Active
membership of art, music, educational organization”—7%, “Active membership of labor
unions”—8%, “Active membership of political party”—2%, “Active membership of environmen-
tal organization”—2%, “Active membership of professional organization”—6%, “Active mem-
bership of charitable/humanitarian organization”—10%, “Active membership: Consumer
organization”—1%, “Active membership: Self-help group, mutual aid group”—5%, “Active
membership of any other organization”—2%. These numbers are stable since 2006. Source:
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/.
6
Interview with Victor Krasilschikov, Institute of World Economy and International Relations,
Russian Academy of Science.
48 D. Zaytsev
Movement, the Women’s Movement, the charitable and humanitarian organi-

zations) and even in the United Nations seemed to decrease as well.7
Simultaneously, the number of public actions in conventional forms of civil partic-
ipation such as signing a petition dropped, while those taking up nonconventional
forms, e.g., attending peaceful demonstrations, increased.8 The general decrease in
interest of Brazilians to the electoral politics crowns this trend of what can be rightfully
referred to as the legitimacy crisis.9
This “legitimacy crisis” of current public institutions made the Brazilian society
reformulate their political request for more responsible governance.10
Government responsibility, or absence thereof, is a number one concern for the
people, where it is about a policy of equalization of citizens’ income11 or welfare
policy, etc.12
The shifts demonstrated above in political attitudes of Brazilian society can be
explained by a rise in of the public’s general requests and demands for participatory
democracy in Brazil. This is accompanied by changing attitudes to democracy
itself. The importance of democracy in general13 and free elections as its essential
characteristic has considerably increased in the eyes of the public in the last decade.
The concept of democracy has also become much clearer to the public: democracy
7
National survey in Brazil was conducted in 2006 and 2014. The respondents were asked about
their confidence in public institutions. The percentage of those who answered “A great deal” plus
“Quite a lot” is presented in 2006 and 2014: Church (77% vs 70%), Armed Forces (69% vs 59%),
Labor Unions (45% vs 38%), Government (46% vs 41%), Political Parties (21% vs 16%), and
Parliament (25% vs 21%); the Environmental Protection Movement (66% vs 61%), the Women’s
Movement (64% vs 61%), the charitable and humanitarian organizations (65% vs 59%), the
United Nations (46% vs 37%). Statistical margin of error is 2.6%. Therefore a percentage
difference of less than 6% may not be statistically significant. But the general trend of the decrease
of public trust in institutions is evident. Source: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/.
8
The respondents were asked about their participation in political actions. Below % of those who
answered “have done” is presented in 2006 and 2014: signing a petition (56% vs. 44%), signing a
petition recently (74% vs. 62%); attending lawful/peaceful demonstrations (18% vs. 16%), attending
lawful/peaceful demonstrations recently (63% vs. 76%). Source: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/.
9
The respondents were asked about their Interest in politics. Below % of those who answered
“Very interested” plus “Somewhat interested” is presented in 2006 and 2014: 48% vs. 37%.
Source: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/.
10
The respondents were asked about Government responsibility. Below % of those who answered
“10-The government should take more responsibility+9+8” is presented in 2006 and 2014: 44%
vs. 52%. Source: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/.
11
The respondents were asked about Income inequality. Below % of those who answered
“Incomes should be made more equal+2+3” is presented in 2006 and 2014: 29% vs. 39%. Source:
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/.
12
The respondents were asked about Wealth accumulation. Below % of those who answered “10-
Wealth can grow so there’s enough for everyone” is presented in 2006 and 2014: 31% vs. 41%.
13
The respondents were asked about Importance of democracy. Below % of those who answered
“Absolutely important” is presented in 2006 and 2014: 40% vs. 49%. The respondents were asked
about Importance of democracy. Below % of those who answered “Absolutely important” is
presented in 2006 and 2014: 40% vs. 49%. Source: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/.
is now increasingly associated with equality, including social and gender equality,
as well as with civil rights, liberties, and freedoms.14
In addition, during the last decade, Brazilian society became more radical and
critical about the current level of democracy in the country. The most radical view
that Brazil was not a democracy at all is shared by 22% of the population in 2014,
and this number increased by 6% since 2006 (World Value Survey 2016). The
number of people who think that there is no respect at all for individual human
rights has increased by 10%.15
The crisis of the national identity in Brazil could serve as another potential
explanation for the “legitimacy crisis”. The number of people who are very proud of
their nationality dropped from 64% in 1991 to 39% in 2006 to 34% in 2014 (World
Value Survey 2016). Simultaneously, the number of Brazilians who share global
and local identity increased in the last decade by 10–11%.16
Democratization is always followed by the process of rethinking and reshaping
the boundaries and characteristics of the given community, which in turn requires
further democratic development (Dahl 1989). This is why this “crisis of national
identity” coupled with other trends described in this chapter also indicates a crisis of
the current democratic institutions of representative democracy in Brazil. Demands
from the public for deepening of the “quality of democracy”, which should manifest
itself in the increased government “responsiveness” and public “participation”
became the driver for political changes in Brazil.
3 Brazilian Protests as “Public Assemblies” around

“Troubled Message”
Mass protests in Brazil can be considered not only as an important factor of, but also
as an actor of change. This protest movement possesses two important features of a
political actor: autonomy from government and other actors and consolidation
around the common identity.
Comparing social movement theory (Tarrow and Tilly 2009) and theory of
publics (Warner 2002; Mahony and Clarke 2013) provides us with the additional
14
The respondents were asked about Democracy. Below % of those who shared certain charac-
teristic of democracy as an essential is presented in 2006 and 2014: “People choose their leaders in
free elections” (45% vs. 57%), “Governments tax the rich and subsidize the poor” (8% vs. 14%),
“People receive state aid for unemployment” (37% vs. 42%), “Civil rights protect people’s liberty
against oppression” (28% vs. 44%), “Women have the same rights as men” (54% vs. 62%).
15
13% in 2006 vs. 23% in 2014. Source: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/.
16
The respondents were asked about “I see myself as a world citizen”. Below % of those who
answered “Strongly Agree” is presented in 2006 and 2014: 27% vs. 37%. The respondents were asked
about “I see myself as member of my local community”. Below % of those who answered “Strongly
Agree” is presented in 2006 and 2014: 30% vs. 41%. Source: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/.
50 D. Zaytsev
insights into the “actorness” of protests (Belyaeva and Dzhibladze 2014) that can be
identified both as social movements and publics. Viewing protests in Brazil, not
only and not so much in light of the social movement, but also from the perspective
of protest publics, enables us to reveal latent characteristics of these protests.
According to the social movement theory, protest campaign is not a one-time
event (rally, demonstration or petition filing). It is a stable practice of interaction
between activists, government representatives, and protesters in general. Protest
campaign is usually based on various forms of association of protesters, ranging
from the rules for collecting funds for movement to establishing public organi-
zations. In contrast, Brazilian protests were not organized on a large-scale cam-
paign. There is no indication that the protests in Brazil were a planned and
organized campaign. Since June 2013 they have snowballed into larger protest
publics with the voluntary spirit of the disenfranchised and highly dissatisfied
participants cutting across the societal base.17
Neither constant interaction between protesters and authorities, nor a clear linear
connection between core activists and other participants of the protests was obser-
ved. The authorities experienced difficulties in the modus operandi of engagement
with protesters, partly because the leadership was too fluid. The organizations and
their representatives who claimed leadership (e.g., the Free Fare Movement, Land-
less workers movement, the Homeless Workers’ Movement, Subway workers, the
Teachers’ union), was not the basis of protests and cannot be regarded as authorized
representatives of the protesters.18
What are the Brazilian protests, then? There was a series of events in which the
people’s demands were not left, e.g., an increase in public transport fares, the 2014
World Cup, and the 2016 Olympic Games. The “troubled message”, which was
circulated for the most part on social media, conveyed to the people the following
accusations of the authorities: it is wrong to spend budget money on celebratory
events while there is a plethora of social problems (unemployment, inflation, poor
public services in transport, health, and education) that demand immediate attention
from the authorities and should be set as a first priority for public spending. This
message appeared as the root reason for the emergence of public assemblies.
There were plenty of “poetic messages”, mostly in the form of placards with
slogans that played with the basic message of protests in all possible creative ways
(for instance, at the recent protests, participants carried huge dolls of the President
and ex-President Rousseff and Lula). One of the slogans was very precise in
articulating the “alternative world”, for which protesters have been fighting: “We
want hospitals and schools in FIFA standards.” (Bartelt 2014).
Brazilian protests do not manifest themselves in the form of any permanent
public associations or organizations. The protests have always been and are now a
17
Interview with Zbignev Ivanovskiy, Institute of Latin America, Russian Academy of Science,
March 2014. Interview with Victor Krasilschikov, Institute of World Economy and International
Relations, Russian Academy of Science.
18
Ibid.
spontaneous collective action of different groups of citizens who take to the streets
to express their dissatisfaction with certain government’s actions and present their
requirements for political changes. Nevertheless, attempts to “put a halter upon” the
protests, to institutionalize them, and even to lead the protests have been made
regularly by various public organizations and political parties, albeit unsuccess-
fully. People always find new reasons to protest, sometimes even against those very
organizations that tried to lead a protest movement (e.g., the “Black Blocs”, an
anarchist organization that used violence and provoked the police to respond with
violent measures).
The “pendulum” nature of the protests, i.e., a systematic alternation between
noticeable spikes of collective action and a socio-political lull, when the streets are
empty, is one of the defining characteristics of these protests. At the same time, these
spikes tend to occur with a surprising regularity. Interpretations of the analysts, that
protest activity was growing, when we observed its next spike, or that it declined
when we observed recurrent lull after another spike, are not valid enough, or at least
are not full, as they do not take into consideration the regular and successive nature
of Brazilian protests.
About one quarter of protests in Brazil, with modest numbers of participants,
were organized by certain civil associations (the Free Fare Movement, the Landless
Rural Workers’ Movement, the Homeless Workers’ Movement, the Sao Paulo
subway workers, the Teachers’ union).19 However, all the major protest events,
and those with the largest number of participants, were organized through social
media on the Internet (e.g., the Anonymous Rio protest group on Facebook) and can
be rightly characterized as leaderless.20 This often becomes a major obstacle for the
authorities—with whom to meet? Many other protests share this problem (Ukraine,
Egypt, Turkey, and Russia).
To recapitulate, mass political protests in Brazil should be considered a new
social phenomenon and a new political actor. The distinctive features of the protests
are the following: complex multi-layered identity of protesters; absence of organi-
zation as a basis for collective action; diversity in self-expression forms with street
activity playing a dominant role; absence of a planned and clear campaign and/or
political program; sporadic and only few in total interactions with the authorities.
19
Based on the author’s analysis of about 300 headlines and news about Brazilian protests. Base of
news was generated by FACTIVA within the time period June 2013–March 2016.
20
March 2014. Interview with Boris Martynov, Institute of Latin America, Russian Academy of
Science, March 2014.
52 D. Zaytsev
4 Protesters’ Demands in 2013–2016: Participatory

Democracy as a Unifying Identity?
Mass protests in Brazil, which started in June 2013 and are still going on in 2016 and
have thus resulted in the impeachment and the subsequent resignation of the President
of Brazil Ms. Dilma Rousseff, have evolved in the recent past as a significant social
phenomenon that influences the political process and Brazilian society.
Protests that begun in June 2013 against poor public services in transport, education,
and healthcare; corruption; and simultaneously, excessive spending on the World
Cup—have not disappeared or transformed in a more structured and institutionalized
form (e.g., social movement or civil association). On the contrary, protests continued in
2013 (after reaching their peak in June) and 2014. They assembled hundreds and
thousands of participants who mostly spoke out against corruption and the unrestrained
pouring of money into the World Cup preparation. The smaller number of participants
in the period between two peaks of protests in June 2013 and March 2015 can be
attributed to the increased security measures and intensified use of violence against
protesters before and during the World Cup events sanctioned by the police and the
government (Associated Press 2013; AFP 2014; Globo 2014; Vargas and Ely 2014).
The next protest waves in March, April, and August 2015 as well as in March 2016
assembled more than a million people demanding the accountability of the state
authorities against the financial acts of omission and commission. The last wave of
anti-governmental protests in March 2016 became the largest mass protest in Brazilian
history (Watts 2016; Flynn and Soto 2016; Globo 2016) (Fig. 1).
It is equally important to note that according to the theory of social movements
(Tarrow and Tilly 2009), the emergence and success of protest movements depend
on “political opportunity structure”. The protests in Brazil not only took the policy-
makers and analysts inside the country by surprise but also opposition leaders and
outside observers.21
Although the protests in Brazil are far from waning, they have not turned into
institutionalized or any more or less structured bodies with clearly stipulated regu-
lations yet, and thus failed to fully integrate into the Brazilian current political
system. The reason for the continuation of the protests lies in the fact that protest
publics act despite the absence of any “political opportunity structure” that seems
a necessary condition for the emergence/activation of many other protest social
movements, similar in nature and scope. The participants focus on changing the
existing regime and institutions as well as crafting alternative ways for a country’s
political development.
21
March 2014. Interview with Boris Martynov, Institute of Latin America, Russian Academy of
Science, March 2014.
Calling for President Dilma Rousseff's

removal
5000000 "Dilma out", "Stop the corrupon", "Out
Against corrupon, police
with Dilma"
brutality, poor public
services and excessive
spending on the World Cup. Against corrupon
4000000 "Stop corrupon. Change Clamoured for President Rousseff and President
In
Brazil"; "Halt evicons"; impeachment over a mul-billion- Rousseff
support
"Come to the street. It's the dollar bribery scandal at "Out with
of the
only place we don't pay Petrobras, the state-controlled oil Dilma", "The
Preside
3000000 taxes"; "Government failure giant. Against rising prices and military must
nt and
to understand educaon will corrupon. intervene now"
Lula
lead to revoluon". "We "Enough, Dilma, you broke and
want hospitals and schools Brazil", "Dilma, exit with dignity, there against
2000000
in FIFA standards." "It's more is sll me", "Dilma, out!" the
than just 20 cents". impeac
Calling for the impeachment of hment
President Dilma Rousseff
1000000 "It is now or never. Dilma, go home"
“Military Intervenon, Help!!, FFAA —
SOS”. "Out with Dilma" and "Time for
change."
0
14 August 2013
16 August 2015
20 August 2015
13 December 2015
16 December 2015
06 February 2014
12 February 2014
07-15 October 2013
27-29 October 2013
17 May 2014
27 May 2014
31 May 2014
13 March 2015
15 March 2015
07 April 2015
12 April 2015
29 April 2015
13 March 2016
13 March 2016
18 March 2016
18 March 2016
31 March 2016
23 July 2013
07 September 2013
25 January 2014
13 July 2014
08 January 2016
21-23 June 2013
15April 2015
06 June 2013
13 June 2013
17 June 2013
18 June 2013
20 June 2013
24 June 2013
26 June 2013
28 June 2013
29 June 2013
30 June 2013
03 June 2014
04 June 2014
12 June 2014
13 June 2014
14 June 2014
15 June 2014
16 June 2014
17 June 2014
18 June 2014
23 June 2014
Fig. 1 Protesters’ demands in 2013–2016. Source: Created by the author based on the analysis of
about 300 headlines and news about Brazilian protests. Base of news was generated by FACTIVA
within time period June 2013–March 2016
Demands of Brazilian protesters in 2013–2016 evolved from calling for policy

change into demands for institutional and situational changes.
Protesters started with the demand that the government stop raising public transport
fares, but these requirements rapidly expanded and created a multiplier effect. As new
groups were joining the protests and people were reacting to new policies, more
demands were voiced (e.g., aboriginals protested against changes in laws concerning
the demarcation of indigenous land; participants protested against a “gay cure” law;
against $53 million spent on the visit of the Pope to Brazil; against the killing of
protesters by police (as protesters suspected); against the alleged price-fixing cartel
that was involved in the construction and upkeep of the subway and train systems of
the cities of Sao Paulo and Brasilia; against the law that permitted companies to treat
workers as independent contractors). Participants also called for the removal of
Geraldo Alckmin, the governor of Sao Paulo, demanding that successive governments
should undertake wide-ranging land reforms.
The core issues of the Brazilian protests remained intact for the entire 4 years of
protests: the intrinsic need to fight corruption; urgent changes in social policy (first
of all, in the spheres of transport, health, education e.g., reducing expenditures on
sports events and redistributing money in a more efficient way); effective monetary
policy (curbing inflation). However, the dominant trends in demands and issues
raised by the Brazilian protesters were changing. If in 2013 and 2014 demands for
social policy change and enhanced democratic responsiveness prevailed, in 2015
54 D. Zaytsev
and 2016 protesters increasingly focused on the requirements of the resignation and
impeachment of the President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff.
Do Brazilian protesters share a common identity, or do they represent a loose
association of autonomous individuals? It is difficult to talk about the common
identity of the Brazilian protesters based only on the criteria suggested by the theory
of social movements (worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment). Protests
attracted citizens with diverse political preferences: from anarchists to conserva-
tors, with different slogans, flags, and other attributes. The main demands laid out
before the authorities, as we show below, have also changed over time. The
protesters are always blamed for the absence of a clear and coherent program of
demands, which hardly indicates their unity as a protest movement. Despite the
presence of worthy groups of citizens in the protests (like women with children),
worthy groups’ representation in protests was neither the primary purpose of the
protests nor the special point of concern of protesters. The same conclusion can be
made if we take a look at the number of protesters and their potential commitment.
As protesters lack a clear organizational base, the vast number of people that took to
the streets on a regular basis always took the observers and organizers by surprise.
The composition of protesters was malleable: some people stopped protesting while
new participants were arriving. It is, thus, doubtful that every protester was able to
fully commit to joining the protest movement on a permanent basis. What is clear,
however, is that the protests occur repeatedly as a reaction to infringement upon
people’s dignity. The police frequently use violence during the protests, which adds
to protesters’ dissatisfaction.
At the same time, it is a stretch to argue that Brazilian protesters completely lack
a common identity. Despite a variety of strikingly different and sometimes oppos-
ing slogans and demands, as well as interests, goals, and values, they all share one
important mission: achieving greater political participation and responsiveness of
the authorities; deepening democratic reforms; enhancing power holders’ account-
ability before the citizens. These demands are largely the result of people’s dissatis-
faction with the “quality of democracy” (Morlino 2012) and are not unique to the
Brazilian case, as they are relevant for protests in other countries (Porta 2014;
Anufriev and Zaytsev 2016).
Dissatisfaction with the institutions of representative democracy translates into
protesters’ requirements to supplement the existing democratic institutions with the
mechanisms of direct, participatory democracy by introducing new practices of demo-
cratic political participation (e.g., monitoring democracy, deliberative democracy,
e-democracy, and democratic governance). Such common identity characteristics
of protesters in various countries are consistent with the data from the sociological
surveys, which mark the “post-materialist shift” in citizens’ values: such values as self-
expression, civic dignity, and participation are gaining momentum (Inglehart and
Welzel 2005).
5 Political Changes in Brazil 2013–2016: From Change

in Policy and Politics to “Punctuated” Institutional
Changes
The protests in Brazil brought about much political change in line with protesters’
demands. Right after the protests of 2013, the government decided not to increase
the cost of using public transport in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and some other
cities even decreased fares (Reutov 2013). However, under the conditions of the
economic recession and rising inflation, especially since 2014, the government has
continued to increase fares in public transport, which again led to the wave of
protests. As a result, the government had to meet the protesters demands again and
did not increase the fare. In addition, President Dilma Rousseff promised to redirect
part of the oil export revenues to the education sphere, to hire foreign specialists for
the health care system, to create a national plan for public transport optimization
(Echo 2013), to improve funding of this sphere (RBC 2013a), and to increase
resources for Brazil’s North (RBC 2013b), which, in comparison to the Brazilian
South, is extremely poor and is entirely different from economic, ethnic, and socio-
cultural points of view.22
The fight against corruption also strengthened after the protests. The Congress
approved of the Clean Company Act, which makes companies, and not just indi-
viduals, liable for corruption at home and abroad (Globo 2013). Under the new regu-
lations, a company can be fined up to 20% of its gross revenues, be prohibited from
signing contracts with the public sector and be prevented from taking loans from state
banks, among other restrictions. Nevertheless, the official anti-corruption policy, as
continuing protests demonstrate, has not yet produced any palpable results. According
to Transparency International, Brazil received its worst ranking in the last 7 years in
2015: 76th place in the Corruption Perception Index (Transparency 2015) (the only
worse result was in 2008 when Brazil was ranked 80th) (Transparency 2008). The
Worldwide Governance Indicators of the World Bank also revealed the overall
decrease in governance capacity of the Brazilian government in 2008–2016, and the
“Control of Corruption” index fell the most (Kaufmann et al. 2010).
The first wave of protests also resulted in situational changes. In June 2013,
President Dilma Rousseff’s ranking fell from 57 to 30% (RBC 2013c). Neverthe-
less, Dilma Rousseff won the presidential elections of 2014 in the second round
with 51.6% of voters, which was a much smaller margin, compared to the results of
the 2010 electoral campaign, when Dilma Rousseff won with 56.0%.The public
support for the ruling party—Workers’ Party—also dropped from 16.9 to 14.0%.
Dilma Rousseff was a successor of the previously very popular President Lula Di
Silva, and she was riding on the wave of his popularity in the 2010 elections. The
2014 elections were more an informed voting for/against Dilma Rouseff, as she
accumulated her own achievements during the first term of presidency.
22
Interview with Boris Martynov, Institute of Latin America of Russian Academy of Science.
56 D. Zaytsev
The dynamics of public support for Dilma Rousseff’s government during her
first term in the office had undergone dramatic changes. From the beginning of
the protests in June 2013, public support for the government had significantly
decreased. The percentage of Brazilians who assessed the work of Dilma Rousseff’s
government as “excellent and good” dropped rapidly from 65% in March 2013 to
30% by the end of June 2013.This number had never risen above the 42% threshold
until the end of 2014, and the percentage of opponents (those who assessed the work
of the government as “bad and very bad”) remained steady at 20% (Datafolha
Research Institute 2016).
The situation has changed dramatically again during the second term of Dilma
Rousseff’s presidency: the number of government opponents was twice the number of
its supporters (44% vs. 23% in February 2015, respectively), and then the difference
was fivefold (62% vs. 13% from March 2015 to April 2016, respectively) (Datafolha
Research Institute 2016). The protests are definitely responsible for this downward
trend in public support for the government because the protests were directed perso-
nally against the President and her government who were allegedly enmeshed in
corruption.
In May 2016, President Dilma Rousseff was removed from her office under the
procedure of impeachment. “Rousseff is suspected of creation of a black electoral
office for the 2014 elections and the manipulation of statistics to present the results
of her first term in the best light. Last autumn, court of audit of Brazil decided that
the President broke the law on the budget, agreeing to pay scarce articles by loans
which the state took from its controlled companies” (RBC 2016). During the next
6 months after the removal of the President from her office, the Parliament will be
evaluating the charges, which may be followed by impeachment. Experts undoubt-
edly believe that the impeachment of Rousseff is destined to happen (Svoboda
2016).
The changes of government do not necessarily entail grave institutional changes.
At first, Rousseff demonstrated high resolve to hold a referendum on political insti-
tutional reforms such as financing of electoral campaigns, voting rules for electing
the Congress, and rules regarding coalition building in legislature and secret ballots
laws (Boadle 2013; Castillo 2013; Fox News 2013). However, the idea was eventu-
ally abandoned (Wall Street Journal 2013).
No significant institutional changes are reflected in the main country rankings.
Freedom House has consistently put Brazil in a “free countries” category since 2002
(Freedom House 2016a), while Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation (BTI) views the
country as a democracy in consolidation, and Economist Intelligence Unit (Eco-
nomist) view it as a flawed democracy. Noticeably, BTI and Economist documented
a small decrease in the ranking of democracy in Brazil in 2010–2016, largely due to
the decrease in such parameters as “Political and Social Integration” (BTI)23 and
23
Decreased from 7.3 in 2010 to 6.8 in 2016.
“Political Culture” (Economist)24 that mostly reflect social trust within the society.25
The national experts and rankings agencies considered protests as decreasing social
trust in the society by splitting people into two camps—supporters vs. opponents of
the government.
According to the Freedom House rankings, the situation with the freedom of the
press in Brazil remained “partly free”26 and on the Internet even “free”.27 However,
political pressure and control of the media content, as well as a violation of users’
rights on the Internet, have increased in 2010–2015.28,29 In addition, violence
against and arrests of journalists have occurred much more frequently since the
beginning of the protests (Freedom House 2016b). Topics that were censored on the
Internet in 2015 include “Criticism of Authorities”, “Corruption”, and “Satire”
(Freedom House 2016c).
Contrary to the conventional wisdom that growth in civil activity should lead
to the development of democracy and democratization, according to the ranking
agencies, democracy in Brazil has shrunk since the beginning of the protests. This
counterintuitive conclusion can be explained by the inertia in the adopted definition
of democracy as the collection of institutions of representative democracy (such as
elections, political parties, and such features as political stability and public trust and
legitimacy of government), or in other words, Dahl’s famous “polyarchy” (Dahl
1989).
The Economist forecasts the rise of populism and erosion of electoral institutions in
Brazil, because protests made widespread understanding that “governments can no
longer be effectively punished at the ballot boxes, since corruption and mismanagement
are so widespread that all major parties are assumed to be, to some extent, complicit”
(Economist 2015). However, it is impossible to underscore the fact that the protests
raised the question of the “quality of democracy” (Morlino 2012) and further
24
Decreased from 6.25 in 2014 to 3.75 in 2015
25
BTI: from 8.2 in 2010 to 8.05 in 2016. The rating scale for each question ranges from 10 (best) to
1 (worst). Source: http://www.bti-project.org/uploads/tx_itao_download/BTI2003-2014_Scores_
02.xls. Economist: from 7.12 in 2010 to 6.96 in 2015. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index of
democracy, on a 0–10 scale. Full democracies—score of 8–10. Flawed democracies—score of
6–7.9. Hybrid regimes—scores of 4–5.9. Authoritarian regimes—scores below 4. Source: http://
www.yabiladi.com/img/content/EIU-Democracy-Index-2015.pdf and http://www.sudestada.com.
uy/Content/Articles/421a313a-d58f-462e-9b24-2504a37f6b56/Democracy-index-2014.pdf.
26
Freedom of the Press Index is changed from 43 in 2010 to 45 in 2015. Its score differs from
(0 ¼ Best, 100 ¼ Worst), (F) Free: 0–30; (PF) Partly Free: 31–60; (NF) Not Free: 61–100. Source:
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/brazil.
27
Freedom of the Net Index is changed from 30 in 2010 to 29 in 2015. Its score differs from
(0 ¼ Best, 100 ¼ Worst), where FREE (0–30 points), PARTLY FREE (31–60 points), or NOT
FREE (61–100 points). Source: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2015.
28
Freedom of the Press: B ¼ Political pressures and controls on media content (including
harassment or violence against journalists or facilities, censorship, self-censorship, etc.). Political
environment (“B” category): 0–40. It has changed from 18 in 2010 to 21 in 2015.
29
Freedom of the Net Index: VIOLATIONS OF USER RIGHTS Sub-Index: (0 ¼ Best,
40 ¼ Worst). It has changed from 13 in 2010 to 16 in 2015.
58 D. Zaytsev
development of democratic institutions to achieve the “ideal democracy” (Dahl 1989).

By this token, the protests can lead to the radical institutional change of democracy
rather than the rise of populism. These changes can take the form of the transition from
the traditional “representative democracy” (“polyarchy 1”) and “rule of policy elites”
(“polyarchy 2”) to the “democracy of mini-publics” (“polyarchy 3”), which was
predicted by Dahl long ago (1989). Many experts predict that the current protests in
Brazil will lead to further democratization and decentralization of power, increased the
role of non-governmental actors, and further development of social movements.30
To conclude, Brazilian protest publics are not going to leave the political scene.
It will always return to politics with both old and new demands in order to hold the
government accountable. The emergence of such protest publics as “mini-demos”
(Dahl 1989), who regularly participates in policy-making, and not only during the
elections but mostly between them, indicates the readiness of the Brazilian society
to make the transition to the fundamentally new institutional framework of partici-
patory democracy. Of course, such changes require much more time than a re-
shuffling of government officials. That is why government and other traditional
political actors’ responses to protests are very important, as well as cooptation of
protests publics in the political process.
6 Government’s Reply: Co-Opting or Splitting

the Protesters?
The formation of a stable center-left coalition has become a regular feature of the
electoral politics of Brazil in the last few decades. Most experts have been closely
tracking the development of this coalition since the beginning of the presidency of
Lula da Silva in 2003, with some experts—since the government of President
Fernando Cardoso in 1995.31
There are 25 political parties in Brazil, but the main political dynamic happened
between the three largest parties: The Workers’ Party (center-left political party,
associated with trade-unions, with its prominent leader Lula da Silva); The Brazilian
Social Democracy Party (center party, with its famous leader Fernando Cardoso and
current party president Aécio Neves, which represents the main opposition against the
administrations of Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff in the last elections of 2014);
and The Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (the party that is always the ally of
any ruling party) (Svoboda 2016).
30
Interview with Victor Krasilschikov, Institute of World Economy and International Relations of
Russian Academy of Science. Interview with Boris Martynov, Institute of Latin America of
31
Interview with Victor Krasilschikov, Institute of World Economy and International Relations,
Since Fernando Cardoso’s presidency, the general political consensus was

formed about the vectors of change in Brazil that should be directed towards further
democratic development. Economic modernization is viewed both as an instrument
to solve social problems (first of all, social inequality, corruption, and crime rates)
and as an alternative to authoritarian modernization path of the previous “military
rule” decades. This general consensus bridged policy differences and enabled the
formation of the broad policy-based coalition, with its members sharing the neces-
sity of policy change and trying to implement them by leftist or social-oriented
policies. Demands of protest publics in 2013–2014 were in line with this policy,
which was also shared by a large number of “traditional” political actors: main
political parties, political elites, social movements, and trade unions, as well as by
academics and analysts. That is why the first attempts of elites were to co-opt the
newly emerging political actors32—protest publics—into this broad “policy coali-
tion”. Indeed, President Dilma Rousseff met with protesters representatives (BBC
2013), and different social movements were able to organize joint actions (the Free
Fare Movement, the Landless workers movement, the Homeless Workers’ Move-
ment, Subway workers, and the Teachers’ union). The elites reacted peacefully and
cooperatively, trying to picture protests as a product of the decades of reforms led
by the left-center government, with protesters’ demands being consistent with the
essence of the socio-economic policy of the government and criticizing only the
speed of the ongoing change, and not the direction of change. Thus, the role of protest
publics in this coalition can be characterized as “watchdogs”: protest participants
activate every time the government strays from the chosen path by (re) formulating
demands and protesting, and deactivate when “things are going in the right direction
and with the right speed”.33
The situation changed in 2015 when the country entered the phase of a political crisis
and further worsened after the removal of President Dilma Rousseff from power
(Svoboda 2016). The ruling coalition itself split: the Brazilian Democratic Movement
Party, the second largest party in the Brazilian Parliament, withdrew its support from the
coalition with The Workers’ Party. The leaders of the Brazilian Democratic Movement
Party—Eduardo Cunha, President of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil, and Renan
Calheiros, President of the Senate of Brazil—initiated and supported the impeachment
of Dilma Rousseff.
But the drama of the situation lies in the fact that the entire political class of
Brazil, all key politicians, both from ruling and opposition parties, is involved in
the corruption scandals. E.g., in the Brazilian Congress, there are 513 deputies, of
which 299 have criminal or administrative charges filed by the prosecution and the
32
Interviews with experts also prove that protests are not only new phenomena, but are also newly
emerging political actors.
33
tions, Russian Academy of Science. Interview with Zbignev Ivanovskiy, Institute of Latin
America, Russian Academy of Science, March 2014.
60 D. Zaytsev
court; these people are under investigation or already charged; and 79 of them were
sitting (Svoboda 2016).
As a result, not only the elite but also the society split, which leads to the high
level of social polarization. If in 2013–2014 protests were not against “ruling
elites”, in 2015–2016 protesters have been already fighting against the Workers’
Party, Dilma Rousseff, and the center-left coalition. To make matters worse, this
split is increasingly becoming of a socio-economic nature: While poor provincial
citizens and workers support Dilma Rousseff; representatives of the middle class—
with higher income and better education—back the so-called “new opposition”, or
the anti-Dilma Rousseff coalition (The Brazilian Social Democracy Party and The
Brazilian Democratic Movement Party). This polarization is reflected in the polls:
about 60% of the population supported the impeachment, while 40% opposed it
(Svoboda 2016). The streets were filled with thousands of protesters, with around
half of them in favor of the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, against both Lula da
Silva and his successor Dilma Rousseff; and the other half in support of President
Dilma Rousseff and ex-President Lula da Silva.
The above-described political situation, in which all elite groups are ensnared in
corruption scandals and the electorate is split 60–40 between power holders and their
opponents, prompts a further change of key political figures, most likely again
through repetitive waves of protests, and the emergence of “new names”—politicians
and parties that are not involved in corruption, as well as new leaders of the vibrant
social movement.
7 Conclusion: From Oversight to Direct Participation

in Democracy
Between 2013 and 2016, protest publics’ demands evolved from the need to change
social policy and democratic institutions to the need to dismiss corrupt politicians.
The factual implementation of their demands seems to be in the reverse order:
social policy change and alterations in the elites’ composition precede institutional
changes, probably because the latter demands that Brazilian democracy is taken to
a whole new level, which is a long process. Nevertheless, the authorities have
not ignored protesters’ demands and even met some of them. Therefore, we can
conclude that protest publics in Brazil are not only a factor but also an actor of the
political changes.
The protests manifest themselves in the participatory political culture; people
with a critical eye towards government policies; mobilization potential of social
networks; public consensus about economic modernization as an instrument to
solve social problems.
We believe that it is the interaction of several economic, political, and socio-
cultural factors that underpins protests’ success. The relatively successful social
policy change, the economic slowdown and the concurrent increase in the number
of people, for whom values of self-expression trump survival values, led to a contin-
uous wave of protests rather than a “one-shot deal” protest. The continuous nature of
protests makes it impossible for the government to turn a blind eye to protesters’
demands. If authorities fail to satisfy participants’ demands, they will return to the
streets.
From the political standpoint, political change was enabled due to the high capacity
of different political actors to build coalitions in order to reach the common goals.
Political changes in Brazil in 2013–2014 were the results of an active coalition between
political parties and elites, academic and analytical communities, social movements
and protest publics themselves, which assumed the role of “watchdogs” within this
coalition.
The years of 2015–2016 brought a new political dynamic. The deepening economic
recession, acute political crisis of legitimacy, the lack of conventional social channels
for people’s self-expression, and increased political polarization split 2013–2014
coalition of “traditional” political actors and protest publics into two camps: those
who defend the status-quo (agree with the political leadership of Rousseff and the
Workers’ Party, because “they have to finish what they already started, despite the
corruption scandal in which they are involved”); and those who lobby for substitution of
political leadership (want to replace Rousseff and the Workers’ Party, because “we do
need those leaders who are not involved in corruption scandals to fight corruption”).
Both camps were supported by related protest public.
This development in the political situation in Brazil even more clearly demonstrated
that traditional political actors cannot operate without co-action with protest publics,
which from 2013 became a newly emerging political actor. Therefore, protest publics
are not only indicators of the powerlessness of traditional political actors (political
parties, trade unions, etc.), but also of the crisis of traditional democratic institutions
(like elections, and parliamentarism) and future change of those institutions of repre-
sentative democracy towards “participatory democracy”.
Furthermore, protests publics themselves, through their permanent activation
and exploitation of the role of “watchdogs” in the current political process in Brazil,
establish those new institutional practices of “participatory democracy” and boost
further institutional changes towards a new model of democracy.
Note
The chapter was prepared within the framework of the Academic Fund Program
at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in
2016–2017 (grant № 17-05-0018) and by the Russian Academic Excellence
Project “5-100”.
62 D. Zaytsev
References
AFP. (2014). Brazil police fire rubber bullets at landless protest. Resource document. Agence
France-Presse. Retrieved from http://www.breitbart.com/news/b7a54ba8-6d39-427f-aa12-
d7f74be33b16/. Accessed 8 March 2016.
Alliance News. (2016). Mass protests in Brazil as corruption scandal engulfs Rousseff. Resource
document. London South East. Retrieved from http://www.lse.co.uk/AllNews.asp?
code¼kwra7e96&headline¼Mass_Protests_In_Brazil_As_Corruption_Scandal_Engulfs_Rousseff.
Accessed 8 March 2016.
Anufriev, A., & Zaytsev, D. (2016). “Protest Publics” in Egypt and Turkey from 2011 till present
days: Assessment of impact on political changes. Comparative Politics, 2(23), 34–47.
Associated Press. (2013). Amid more protests in Brazil, clashes erupt in Rio slum over mysterious
death of local youth. Resource document. Fox News. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/
world/2013/08/14/amid-more-protests-in-brazil-clashes-erupt-in-rio-slum-over-mysterious-death.
html. Accessed 8 March 2016.
Bartelt, D. D. (2014). The end of a success story? The FIFA World Cup and protests in Brazil.
Resource document. Heinrich B€ oll Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.boell.de/en/2014/
06/05/end-success-story-fifa-world-cup-and-protests-brazil. Accessed 19 July 2016.
Bastos, M. T., Recuero, R. C., & Zago, G. S. (2014). Taking tweets to the streets: A spatial analysis
of the vinegar protests in Brazil. First Monday, 19(3). doi:10.5210/fm.v19i3.5227.
BBC. (2013). Brazil leader Dilma Rousseff promises reform referendum. Retrieved from http://
www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-23041396. Accessed 5 August 2016.
Belyaeva, N. Y., & Dzhibladze, A. (2014). “Public” as a “social actor” vs “public” as a “target
audience”: Conceptual connection between “the public” and “civil society”. In E. Yasin (Ed.),
XIV April international academic conference on economy and society development (Vol. 2, pp.
377–389). Moscow: HSE.
Boadle, A. (2013). Rousseff’s referendum plan for Brazil runs into trouble. Resource document.
Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/26/us-brazil-protests-
idUSBRE95P01620130626. Accessed 21 July 2016.
Castillo, M. (2013). Rousseff proposes referendum for Brazil political reforms. Resource docu-
ment. CNN. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/25/world/americas/brazil-protests.
Accessed 21 July 2016.
Dahl, R. (1989). Democracy and its critics. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Datafolha Research institute. (2016). Evaluation of President Dilma Rousseff [Avaliaç~ao da presidente
Dilma Rousseff]. Resource document. Datafolha Research Institute. Retrieved from http://media.
folha.uol.com.br/datafolha/2016/04/11/avaliacao-presidente-dilma.pdf. Accessed 21 July 2016.
Echo. (2013). President of Brazil called protests in the country as a part of democratic process
(in Russian). Resource document. Echo. Msk. Retrieved from http://www.echo.msk.ru/news/
1100656-echo.html. Accessed 21 July 2016.
The Economist. (2015). Democracy Index 2015. Resource document. The Economist. Retrieved from
http://www.yabiladi.com/img/content/EIU-Democracy-Index-2015.pdf. Accessed 21 July 2016.
Flynn, D., & Soto, A. (2016). Record Brazil protests put Rousseff’s future in doubt. Resource
document. Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-rousseff-protests-
idUSKCN0WF0IX. Accessed 19 July 2016.
Fox News. (2013). Brazil leader submits demands for the referendum. Resource document. Fox News.
Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/03/brazil-leader-submits-demand-for-
referendum/. Accessed 21 July 2016.
Freedom House. (2016a). Freedom in the world. Brazil. Retrieved from https://freedomhouse.org/
report/freedom-world/2016/brazil. Accessed 21 July 2016.
Freedom House. (2016b). Freedom of the press. Retrieved from https://freedomhouse.org/report/
freedom-press/2015/brazil. Accessed 21 July 2016.
Freedom House. (2016c). Freedom of the net. Retrieved from https://freedomhouse.org/report/
freedom-net/freedom-net-2015. Accessed 21 July 2016.
Globo. (2013). The senate approves the application of the fine for companies that practice corruption
[Senado aprova aplicaç~ao de multa para empresa que pratica corrupç~ao]. Resource document.
Globo. Retrieved from http://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2013/07/senado-aprova-punicao-para-
empresa-que-pratica-corrupcao.html. Accessed 21 July 2016.
Globo. (2014). With more than 20 protests, the 1st week of the Copa has the 180 arrested in acts [Com
mais de 20 protestos, 1ª semana de Copa tem 180 detidos em atos]. Resource document. Globo.
Retrieved from http://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2014/06/com-mais-de-20-protestos-1-semana-
de-copa-tem-180-detidos-em-atos.html. Accessed 19 July 2016.
Globo. (2016). Map of demonstrations against Dilma [Mapa das manifestacoes contra Dilma].
Resource document. Globo. Retrieved from http://especiais.g1.globo.com/politica/mapa-
manifestacoes-no-brasil/13-03-2016/contra/. Accessed 19 July 2016.
Gokay, B., & Shain, F. (2015). Making sense of the protests in Turkey and Brazil: Contesting
neo-liberal urbanism in ‘Rebel cities’. [Entendendo o sentido dos protestos na Turquia (E no
Brasil): A contestaç~ao do urbanismo neoliberal nas “Cidades Rebeldes”]. Estudos Ibero-
Americanos, 41(2), 242–260. doi:10.15448/1980-864X.2015.2.21732.
Goldstone, J. A. (2013). Bringing regimes back in—explaining success and failure in the Middle East
Revolts of 2011. Resource document. SSRN. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2283655. Retrieved from http://ssrn.
com/abstract¼2283655. Accessed 5 August 2016.
Inglehart, R., & Welzel, C. (2005). Modernization, cultural change, and democracy: The human
development sequence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kaufmann, D., Kraay, A., & Mastruzzi, M. (2010). The worldwide governance indicators: Method-
ology and analytical issues. Resource document. The Worldwide Governance Indicators.
Retrieved from www.govindicators.org. Accessed 27 September 2016.
Mahony, N., & Clarke, J. (2013). Public crises, public futures. Cultural Studies, 27(6), 933–954.
Mendonça, C., & Fuks, M. (2015). The relative deprivation and the activism in protests in Brazil:
An investigation about the horizon of possibilities. [Privaç~ao relativa e ativismo em protestos
no Brasil: Uma investigaç~ao sobre o horizonte do possı́vel]. Opiniao Publica, 21(3), 627–642.
doi:10.1590/1807-01912015213626.
Mendonça, R. F., & Ercan, S. A. (2015). Deliberation and protest: Strange bedfellows? Revealing
the deliberative potential of 2013 protests in turkey and Brazil. Policy Studies, 36(3), 267–282.
doi:10.1080/01442872.2015.1065970.
Morlino, L. (2012). Changes for democracy: Actors, structures, processes. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Oliva, J., & Khoury, A. (2013). Renewal of democracy in Brazil’s protests. Economic and
Political Weekly, 48(30), 12–15.
Porta, D. D. (2014). Mobilizing for democracy. Comparing 1989 and 2011. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
RBC. (2013a). President of Brazil proposed to protestors referendum (in Russian). Resource
document. RBC. Retrieved from http://top.rbc.ru/politics/25/06/2013/863208.shtml. Accessed
21 July 2016.
RBC. (2013b). President of Brazil promise to protestors improvement of living conditions (in -
Russian). Resource document. RBC. Retrieved from http://top.rbc.ru/politics/22/06/2013/
862960.shtml. Accessed 21 July 2016.
RBC. (2013c). Rating of the president of Brazil crash down during last month (in Russian).
Resource document. RBC. Retrieved from http://top.rbc.ru/politics/30/06/2013/863974.shtml.
RBC. (2016). In the name of Brazil: what were the reasons to remove from power of President
Dilma Rousseff (in Russian). Resource document. RBC. Retrieved from http://www.rbc.ru/
politics/12/05/2016/57334cc39a7947df829ce0a0. Accessed 21 July 2016.
Reutov, A. (2013). Brazil behave itself in an unsportsmanlike (in Russian). Resource document.
Kommersant. Retrieved from http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2215037. Accessed 21 July 2016.
Saad-Filho, A. (2013). Mass protests under ‘left neoliberalism’: Brazil, June-July 2013. Critical
Sociology, 39(5), 657–669. doi:10.1177/0896920513501906.
64 D. Zaytsev
Shahin, S., Zheng, P., Sturm, H. A., & Fadnis, D. (2016). Protesting the paradigm: A comparative
study of news coverage of protests in Brazil, China, and India. International Journal of Press/
Politics, 21(2), 143–164. doi:10.1177/1940161216631114.
Svoboda. (2016). Brazil: impeachment or coup? (in Russian). Resource document. Radio Svoboda.
Retrieved from http://www.svoboda.org/content/transcript/27682104.html. Accessed 21 July 2016.
Sweet, C. (2014). Brazil woke up stronger? Power, protest and politics in 2013 [Brasil despertó
más fuerte? Poder, protesta y polı́tica en 2013]. Revista De Ciencia Politica, 34(1), 59–78.
doi:10.4067/S0718-090X2014000100003.
Tarrow, S., & Tilly, C. (2009). Contentious politics and social movements. In C. Boix & S. C.
Stokes (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of comparative politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
TASS. (2016). Brazil’s GDP in 2015 has dropped at a record rate since 1990. Resource document.
Russian news agency TASS. Retrieved from http://tass.ru/ekonomika/2715672. Accessed
5 August 2016.
Transparency. (2008). Corruption Perceptions Index 2008. Resource document. Transparency
International. Retrieved from http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/cpi_2008/0/. Accessed
21 July 2016.
Transparency. (2015). Corruption Perceptions Index 2008. Resource document. Transparency
International. Retrieved from http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015/#results-table. Accessed
21 July 2016.
Vargas, B., & Ely, L. (2014). Protest against the Cup brings together more police officers than
protesters [Protesto contra a Copa reúne mais policiais do que manifestantes]. Resource
document. Zero Hora. Retrieved from http://zh.clicrbs.com.br/rs/porto-alegre/noticia/2014/
06/protesto-contra-a-copa-reune-mais-policiais-do-que-manifestantes-4533861.html.
Verdú, C. P., & Ferraz, A. T. R. (2015). The protest in Spain and Brazil: Economic crisis and
political crisis [La protesta en Espa~na y Brasil: Crisis económica y crisis polı́tica]. OBETS,
10(2), 369–395. doi:10.14198/OBETS2015.10.2.04.
The Wall Street Journal. (2013). Brazil government drops plan for political-reform referendum in
2013. Resource document. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/
article/BT-CO-20130704-705050.html. Accessed 15 June 2016.
Warner, M. (2002). Publics and counterpublics. Public Culture, 14(1), 49–90. doi:10.1215/
08992363-14-1-49.
Watts, J. (2016). More than a million Brazilians protest against ‘horror’ government. Resource
document. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/13/
brazil-anti-government-protests-dilma-rousseff-rio-de-janeiro. Accessed 19 July 2016.
World Bank. (2016). The World Bank data. Brazil. Retrieved from http://data.worldbank.org/
country/brazil. Accessed 5 August 2016.
World Value Survey. (2016). Data and documentation. Online analysis. Retrieved from http://
www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSOnline.jsp. Accessed 5 August 2016.
The Multitudes of the Invisibles
and the Revitalization of the Indian
Democratic Space
Sanjay K. Rajhans
1 Introduction
The foreword of the Indian Constitution’s preamble has three important words “we
the people” that underline the concept of a community of equal citizens. It is a shift
from the past: in a country that lived in the institutionalized inequality of the caste
system, the idea of equality by making the caste system illegal thus bringing all the
communities equal and where the community of the subjects had taken for granted
their conditions of life shaped by the feudal system of governance, the institution-
alization of the parliamentary democracy based on the popular sovereignty was
another departure from the past.
While there is this increasing demand and the new pressures generated from the
diverse social communities to match up on the deliverables of the democracy both
on the intent as well as in the content. One might agree that by observing almost
seven decades of Indian democratic journey (minus a brief hiccup of an emergency
period in the mid-1970s) one can acknowledge the salient achievements which have
worked for the fattening up of the privileged class, expansion of the middle class
with a varying level of the middle condition and some trickle-down to the poor. One
may further argue about the significant achievements in the socioeconomic and
sociopolitical spheres and maintaining the juggernaut of democratic exercise with a
relatively free and competitive platform in India has itself been a good indicator of
the health of the democratic space. It is also to be taken into account the diversity
of the social and economic groups with variegated conditions and interests. Yet
there have been massive feelings of betrayal in the masses about the democratic
S.K. Rajhans (*)

e-mail: srajhans@hse.ru

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_5
66 S.K. Rajhans
institutions. As G. Palanadurai argues “It has come to the stage of declaring that we
are incapable of working out democratic institutions. As proof, they point to the
growing criminalization of politics, the venality of the political class and the
anarchy marking our legislatures” (Palanithurai 2007, p. 5).
In this paper, we try to observe the buildup and convergence of the varying
categories of the social organizations with very diverse agendas that lock-stepped
their logistics and energy to work for the meta-narrative for the fight against
corruption the nationwide mass protest that started in the beginning of 2011 and
remained active until April 2013. The paper further analyzes the constituent of the
collective expression of the outrage and the vigil of the common citizens in India.
This paper wants to examine the two significant happenings in the past quarter of a
century that has generated a constituency with necessary rage and assertive capacity
against the state that has selectively retreated in her obligation. By the twin
development of the decentralization of the polity and governance most notably
through Panchayat Raj (local self-governance 73rd and 74th amendment of the
constitution) thus politically empowering the citizenry yet at the same time with the
gale of neoliberal economic policy and the selective retreat of the state, a new urban
space has been created that has a curious mix of the migrated landless farmers and
artisans rubbing their shoulders with the new rich middle class that is cosmopolitan,
rich and articulate yet politically indifferent. It is this new mix of social muscles
that has stirred the political space.
This paper discusses with empirical showcasing of the emergence of the new
repertoire of the social movement in India that has galvanized the middle class that
has remained more of an affluent consumer class into demanding and monitoring
citizens. With the formation of the government of the political party that took birth
out of this movement in Delhi, and the higher level of voter turnout in the
subsequent elections, this paper argues that the cycle of revitalization of the
democratic governance in India has been met with mixed success. It can be seen
that contemporary Indian social movements have witnessed a shift of the repertoire
and witnessed the formation of a new agitated class of Indian society with the
emergence of anticorruption protests in 2011 and took complete formulations with
the outbreak of the anti-rape protests in late 2012 and early 2013. This paper
intends to examine that, although, with the unstoppable juggernaut of liberaliza-
tion and neo-liberal policy of the state for the past two decades, where the large
scale organized and unionized movements have dwindled, yet the non-unionized
mass movement that stirred India for more than 2 years starting from the early
2011 and reaching its zenith in 2013 with two distinct but interrelated tidal waves
of Indian citizens thronging the public space and creating the pan Indian circularity
of engagement have succeeded on three distinctive preconditions which are den-
sity of the active civil society, the citizen’s mobilization and participation cutting
across the ethnic and social base and finally and most importantly the power of the
subordinate classes.
The Multitudes of the Invisibles and the Revitalization of the Indian. . . 67
2 The Flattening of the Uneven Indian Socioeconomic

Space and the Rooting for Participatory Democracy
The traces of the participatory democracy in India can be seen in Mahatma Gandhi’s
concept of Swaraj and Swadeshi (self-government and the community’s control over
the resources). Hence after the independence of India, the wish of Mahatma Gandhi for
the deepening of democracy beyond the representative format was articulated by
Article 40(C) of the Indian constitution which clearly stated “the state should take
steps to organize village Panchayats and endow them with such power and authority as
may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government” (Srivastava
2010). It took more than four decades of long struggle to finally get this directive of the
Indian constitution to become a law in the form of the Panchayat Raj bill in the early
1990s. The understanding for the consolidation of the participatory democracy is to
generate the environment for the direct democratic mechanism that allows the citizens
to remain active in the policy cycle of governance that directly affects their day to day
lives. This necessitates the deepening of the democratic space through decentralization
of power. As J. Manor has argued “The transfer of resources and power (and often of
tasks) to lower-level authorities which are largely or wholly independent of higher
levels of government and which are ‘democratic’ in some way and to some degree”
(Manor 1997, pp. 6–7).
Yet the first comprehensive and politically effective proposal on participatory
democracy came from the popular socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan. The issue
of deepening the democracy was central to the agenda, without which he believed;
only the elites will perpetuate in the name of democracy. He believed in a democracy
where both economic and political power is primarily held and exercised directly by
the people from the base of the polity J.P.’s vision of democracy found a powerful
political expression in a massive mass movement, known as J.P. movement, in the
early 1970s against the authoritarian trends in Indian politics.
A gram Sabha (Village assembly) that constituted everyone who are registered as
the voters transformed the dynamic and the agenda setting as the polity and policy
designing became one of increasing circularity with multiplicity of stakeholders from
the planning to the implementation stage. While the planning process was no more
managed by the supply driven activities which is basically the top down approach but
more of a demand driven activities with large horizontal planning process and then
bottom up polity recommendations and demands. Whenever this participatory aspect
in the democratic governance is to be observed in the Indian context, it shall be noted
that it is the possibility of the participation of the marginalized, the Dalits and the
women, the larger group of the Indian demography that has been disenfranchised for
millennium in the polity process as only through expanding the empowerment space
of those meek and weak millions, can the participatory democracy have even half a
chance.
68 S.K. Rajhans
Yet the process is not without its inherent fault as the disenfranchisement of
the hundreds of years of the majority of Indians1 with the dynamic façade of the
representative democratic governance has created the power elites with strongly
entrenched political interests. It is further emphasized by Rueschemeyer et al. (1992,
p. 60) that ‘any class that is dominant both economically and politically will not be
eager to dilute its political power by democratization’ (Huber and Stephens 1999).
The political changes introduced in the Indian polity have been a continuing theme
in the subaltern critique. Social scientists like Sudipto Kaviraj have discussed the
“inescapable externality” of the liberal democratic institutions in India that is intro-
duced often by using the degree of force (Kaviraj and Khilnani 2001). The argument is
that the neoliberal model places disproportionate importance on the inclusion of people
in the market where the direct interaction between state and individuals cast as
consumer of services and taxpayers. On the other side, Partha Chatterjee discussed
the term “Political Society” referring to that particular section of the society from the
institutionalized representative politics and the formal economy but has the capacity to
generate the increasing circularity for the democratic initiatives.
This political society through the process of assimilation of people as citizens
enjoying equal civil and political rights as the state has not been able to deliver on the
promises of providing equal political and social justice to its members and the gap
between the privileged and the excluded is only widening. Partha Chatterjee argues
that this political society provides a social location to these various communities
who have been left neglected in the liberal democratic socio economic platform
through the representative democratic method and recommends to “. . . include
processes outside the formal sphere of state politics and to open up spaces in state
and civil society for the subaltern There is a need to redefine politics he maintains to
include processes outside the formal sphere of state politics and to open up spaces in
state and civil society for the subaltern (Chatterjee 2001). As a very caste and
community dominated society that India has been for millennium, the moral order
that was led by these groupings still have the precedence over state institutions and
the social and political order was not based on the contractual relations and rights
between the individual and the state but was highly lumped into the respective
communities as the social archipelago that is pluralistic and decentralized yet
functional for the socio economic needs. Hence in such condition the grafting of
the Western civil society model had a limited penetration with a very limited social
impact mostly in the urban and urbane, anglicized and increasingly Westernized
social sphere. The famous Indian scholar Damodar Dharmanand Koshambi has so
aptly remarked regarding the island condition of the communities with this witty but
sharp observation “Modern India produced an outstanding figure of world literature
in Tagore. Within easy reach of Tagore’s final residence may be found Santhals and
other illiterate primitive people still unaware of Tagore’s existence. Some of them
are hardly out of the food gathering stage” (Kosambi 1956, p. 55).
1
“A Sanskrit word for majority now used for the disenfranchised and oppressed lower caste
majority of Indians bahujans”.
It is in this context that it is important to find the Indian niche in the democratic
theory that is so well dependent on the community relations and is the essential part
of the Indian social life. These communities have always been a part of India and the
caste and religious community with their collective identity remain the catalysis for
the grass–root collective participation and mobilization of their democratic rights.
As Chatterjee says “community mobilization is more familiar and easier for
non-westernized Indians and that communities are now claiming welfare from the
State as a collective ‘right’ even though their mode of struggle may be in violation
of the law. Their success will depend on how successfully they can network with
other groups and political parties to exert pressure on the State” (Chatterjee 2001,
p. 177).
As understood by these communities that they don’t limit political participation to
voting but goes ahead with all form of political mobilization as well as the effective
translation of their community members’ demands into the political process via insti-
tutional channels. These three clusters of power in India have a fluid dynamic and work
through coalescing via the coalition build up exercise. Hence the very beginning of the
Westminster modeled representative democracy had to make way for the community
based pluralistic, fragmented, multi layered social reality of Indian social space in order
to address the feeble capacity of the state to deliver.
Besides, the dwindling capacity of the political parties to represent the interest of
the different groups of the subalterns coupled with the weaker accountability to
their constituencies has resulted in the furtherance of the longevity of the commu-
nity centric participatory and coalitional democratic practices at the grass root level.
It is in this context one can see the conception and birth of the policy alternatives
that allow the formal and representative democracy to become more participatory
and vital with its own Indian peculiarities that cohabitate and infuse to the formal
and representative democracy.
With all its fallacy it is to be noted that what Mahatma Gandhi wanted to achieve
through Panchayats by the participation of the people might have been achieved by
utilizing the new opportunity created through the 73rd Amendment to the Consti-
tution of India, provided the Gandhian scholars and activists contextually concep-
tualize the Gandhian framework of governance If the Village Swaraj by M. K.
Gandhi is reworked in the current context, the 73rd Amendment will fit into the
framework of Gandhi (1962).
3 The Selective Retreat of the State and the Emergence

of the New Mobilizing Groups
Mass pan-nation movements, which have been rolling over the globe for the last
several years, are demonstrating that forms of citizens’ self-organization have not
been exhausted. When conventional forms are not effective, new sections of the
demography take charge that had thus far remained in the periphery, whose major
70 S.K. Rajhans
resources and transformative powers lie in their discursive practices. There are
theoretical frames created by social science scholars to analyze various forms of
public participation. As Ravi Kumar says “Social mobilization over a sustained
period of time with a collectivity having consensus to struggle (in terms of ideas as
well as of action) to achieve certain goals can be defined as movement” (Kumar
2008, p. 79). This generates three points; continuity, consensus and the concise
demand for the goal. In the heyday of the mass political movement of the late 1970s
in India against the restriction of the civil rights by the Indira Gandhi government,
there emerged a passionate discourse regarding the cohabitation of the journey
between the reforming and anti-systemic movements.
P. N. Mukherjee further states “any collective mobilization for actions directed
explicitly towards an alteration or transformation of the structure of the system,
or against the explicit threat to an alteration and transformation of a system”
(Mukherjee 1977, p. 38). On the other hand, Melucci voices the need for the new
social movement because the established paradigm has become redundant in exp-
laining the new phenomena. “Unlike their nineteenth-century counterparts, con-
temporary forms of collective actions are not preoccupied with struggles over the
productions and distribution of material goods. They challenge the administrative
rationality of systems based on information primarily on symbolic grounds, the way
in which information based society generates meaning and communication for its
members” (Melucci 1995, p. 110). Ravi Kumar further elaborates about the new
movements with a “post” phenomenon, a struggle for a “post bourgeois, post-
patriarchal” and democratic civil society. Heterogeneity is being raised as a signif-
icant standard bearer of such movements with the plurality of pursuits and purposes,
and plurality of their social bases (Kumar 2008, p. 80).
As its forms are rapidly evolving, analytical instruments should also evolve
in order to keep up with social practice. The participatory democratic movement
allows us to explain their social origin not on the basis of demographic data or
belonging to a particular social group, like students, workers or the middle class,
and not binding diverse participants by one common interest, but, rather, disclose
its formation on the basis of shared discourse and common ethical demands towards
the power structures.
The new social movement that started in India at the end of 2010 and reached its
pinnacle in the mid-April of 2013 had two tidal waves as a set of factors, both of
which need to be analyzed. There are a few interrelated changes to be noted. First
there has been an immense increase in the degree of inequality of assets and
incomes compared to which the inequality before independence of India seemed
modest. The dispossession of the petty producers (small farmers, artisans, and small
flea vendors) owing to the income compression imposed by the free flow of finance
has made even simple reproduction difficult for them. Crisis with the farmers in
India is just the visible sore thumb in point that has claimed more than 200,000 lives
in the past two decades by the suicide owing to bad loans and credit system in the
Indian banking system and the apathy of the state to help out farmers. It has further
resulted in their mass migration to the cities where they became unsettled workers
and were condemned to live in the slums. The retreat of the state has been so ghastly
and unprecedented as regime has turned deaf ears upon the people for the sake of
carrying forward the agenda in the interest of free flow of finance despite being
brought on the popular mandate. As Professor Bhambhari commented on the
haphazard and unbalanced growth of the Indian economy, “the informal sector
of the Indian economy is not an insignificant social reality as shown by the National
Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) 2004–2005. First, the labor force numbers
459 million, and 433 million of this 459 million, or about 94 per cent, is in the
unorganized sector. The bourgeois state has enacted a toothless law like the
Unorganized Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008, which is either half-heartedly
implemented by the ‘employers’ or simply ignored” (Bhambhri 2013, p. 76).
Though there is this massive growth in Indian economy in the aggregate terms
the largest growth has been in the unorganized service sector where a vast chunk of
the informal sector workers are those who are intrinsically difficult to organize.
This vast dismantling of the organized work sector that is predominantly substituted
by uprooted casual, part time and temporary employment and has multiplied in the
past quarter of a century. As in the lack of any outlet of their grievances and lack
of possibility to unionize the due check and balance in the economic cycle went
missing with the primitive acceleration and no brakes.
The large scale social and political movement of the 1970s and the 1980s
became obsolete and flattened out. This process of unabashed and unhindered
loot has further increased the disillusionment among the citizenry of different social
bases, most notably among the intellectuals and professionals who found them-
selves at the receiving end of the rapacious clique of the successive regimes in the
past two decades. Though their social and economic capacity has kept their social
life easier and comfortable, their political influence have remained marginal com-
pared to their economic and intellectual clout. This both ways built political
marginalization had run its course and with the arrival of the social media their
mediated space on the issue politic or social has become again alive where through
the arm chair agitation they could shake off their political dormancy.
As the established political institutions, both social democrats, the right to the
center BJP and most ironically the left party failed to take up these issues, the new
social actor emerged with the potent method of Satyagraha of Mahatma Gandhi and
JP. The emergence of the new actor was because of the fact that the traditional
opposition space of both political and social had been co-opted by the system or
became docile in the past two decades of the aggressive “reform narrative”. Mainly
this urban Indian middle class through its diligence, entrepreneurship and the
incidental benefits accruing because of the financial deregulation has gained more
economic and social capacity in the neoliberal free market India. They are edu-
cated, articulate, urban, cosmopolitan and sophisticated with their profession tied
up with the mid or end layer of the high tech industries and are naturally cynical
against the state institutions and political participation.
72 S.K. Rajhans
4 A Shift of Actors and Repertoire
In their seminal works, Tilly (1978) and later Tarrow (1998) argued that opportu-
nities for repertoire transitions in social movements take place when the following
conditions develop simultaneously in societies: economic and political structuring,
increased urbanization and importance of the urban centers as a space for collective
action, increase in the literacy among the population accompanied by an increasing
media presence and the persistence of tactics adopted by various collective actions.
The anti-corruption movement marks a significant shift from the rural base of social
movements to an urban one. The movements began in the national capital, Delhi,
where the Parliament, political elite, and national media are located. However, it
soon spread to other metropoles, smaller cities and towns, and generated some
interest in parts of rural India. The sites of the sit-in and fast were familiar dissent
spaces.
One of the demographic advantages that twenty-first century’s India has is that
more than 70% of its population is under the age of 25. A new generation also
generates a new sense of identity and perception. Compared to some of the other
social movements of the Arab countries that has witnessed a complete change of the
governance mechanism and the uncontrollable wind of change, the Indian move-
ment for participatory democracy has been demanding the accountability, better
governance and higher standards of state capacity such as law and order, transpar-
ency and rule of law. This middle-class-dominated pan-Indian social movement has
not been decisively controlled by the urban rich.
It has the necessary significant presence of politically conscious citizenry that
is a vast collage of urban poor with provincial segments, dispossessed migrant
farmers, public intellectuals, life style gurus and their die-hard followers, the
nationalists entrepreneurs, the upward mobile white collared young citizens with
their global career aspiration, the cross section of the women who are the direct
victims of this shrinkage of the state capacity and a range of professional social
workers and civil society representatives that articulate the varied angst and aspi-
rations of this vast spectrum of humanity. Together, they expanded the agenda,
created the sustained critical mass of support, and remained articulate and mostly
nonviolent with their mobilization thus engaging much larger span of social base,
which is interested not in alteration by substitution of the system but demanding the
strengthening of the capacity of the state and raising through the collective demand
the accountability of the system demanding that shall function with transparent
policies and mechanisms.
Thus new social movement had the various hues of a very large spectrum
including, marginalized section of the urban India, the lower middle class that is
outraged with the corrupt and unaccountable economic policies, the landless poor
hoping for their betterment, slum dwellers frustrated by their dislocation, persons
asserting their cultural and ethnic communities that are not heard enough, middle
class organizations that have their own human rights issues, youth protesters who
are exasperated with the state policies that affect them. Unless the mini narratives of
different protests are located within the larger contexts and movements are building
as vehicles of collective actions, what one gets is debilitated outbursts of certain
current issues, that are very soon forgotten.
5 The Decline of the Political and the Movement

of the Nonpolitics
A dominant trend in India has taken place in the new form of citizen activism and
has been described as the “politics of anti-politics”—citizens’ activism that defines
itself as apolitical or anti-political and yet steps into the public/political/cyberspace
to engage with power. As Maiba states, “globalization has not only created socio-
economic conditions that lend themselves to a common recognition of the inter-
connectedness of political struggle, but is has also provided the technical means—
as an unintentional dialectic of this structural transformation—that enables the
resistance struggles in different parts of the world to communicate with one another
as well as to coordinate their activities (Maiba 2003).
Hellman among others has been critical of the great halo around Internet-based
movements (Hellman 2000). In a country like India the understanding of the
mediated space has to be seen in the context of the modernization, urbanization
and Westernization process with the massive socioeconomic shift along with the
increasingly growing migrant low end workers living side by side with an individ-
ualized service industry engaged middle class that had remained for two decades
highly cynical and indifferent to the political process in India.
The popular uprising against corruption in India began in October 2010 with a
slow steam. The UPA government had won the election handsomely the previous
year but within a year of taking office, three UPA ministers were facing the
grievous charges of kickbacks and financial impropriety. There were three major
cases of major financial irregularity that overwhelmed the entire mediated space for
around the year including the increasingly powerful social media. They were the
Commonwealth game scam, the corporative Housing Scam and finally the 2G
spectrum scam that had sunk the reputation of the UPA government at its nadir.
The CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) reported that Public exche-
quer lost to the tune of $39 billion in the shoddy deals. By the beginning of the
2011, the regime was all mucked.
According to Partha Chatterjee, “Anna Hazare movement is a populist move-
ment but unlike most others of its kind, it is explicitly anti-political and in this
respect quite novel in India” (Chatterjee 2012). If politics has a closer cousin in the
name of social forecasting, it was nowhere to be seen as the regime was totally
unprepared for such a large scale swelling of support for the movement. In the
1-year time before the movement alone, India had been rocked by three major
scams. The nation was angry with the lack of response on these issues and the way
74 S.K. Rajhans
the government acted. The idea of a strong Jan LokPal2 that could investigate
ministers and the other big wigs had caught the fancy of the nation that had seen the
big and the powerful being let off the hook each time with impunity.
It is said that protest always takes its birth through anarchic shrill, inspiring
actors who are indifferent or fence sitters. No one in the mainstream media and the
social pundits at the very beginning thought of an old non photogenic person with a
motley of adherents creating such a ripple of social wave across the country. These
diverse peoples, who came from the most varied socio-cultural background with
very different capacity of their wallets, with different hues of their linguistic and
communicative skills, huddled together for weeks and months longing for a better
India. The unhindered general loot and exploitation by the ruling elites of the state
revenues and resources have made both the emerging middle class and the mar-
ginalized in the towns and the cities very disillusioned. This massive political
movement that had been led by an old Gandhian, namely, Anna Hazare, and was
strengthened and cooperated by a motley of the diverse social activists had kept
India agitated and on an emotional fence for a year and half.
Basic facts about the Jan LokPal Bill: It was proposed that there shall be an
institution with tiers one at the central level named Jan LokPal and Jan Lokayukta3
at the state level who cover the act of corruption of the government officials at the
central and the state levels respectively. It shall be entirely free from the executive
and the judiciary branches of the government and shall have complete financial and
personnel resources at its disposal. The Jan LokPal and Jan Lokayukta will ensure
punishment for corruption by recovery of loss caused to government during inves-
tigation and they shall ban transfer of assets of the accused, at the time of the
conviction, the court shall assess the loss caused to the government and the entire
loss shall be recovered from the assets of the accused. Each bureaucrat, politician
and judge would be required to submit their statement of assets (movable and
immovable) every year. After each election, assets declared by each candidate to be
verified if assets are found undeclared, a case shall be registered.
Each complaint shall be heard and not a single complaint can be rejected without
giving a hearing to the complainant. If any case is closed like this, all records
relating to it will be made public. All records of all works shall be made public
except for those that affect national security, endanger the whistle blower, and
impede the process of ongoing investigation. The Jan LokPal shall publish every
month on its website cases received and cases disposed with the number of the cases
pending. The proposed punishment for corruption varied from 1 year of rigorous
imprisonment to life term imprisonment differing from the present 6 months to
7 years of imprisonment. The other feature proposed was that the higher the rank/
position of the public servant, the higher the level of punishment. At present there
are multiple levels of anti-corruption agencies in India is namely CBI and CVC
(Central Beauro of Investigation, Central Vigilance Commission), and state
2
Public Ombudsman.
3
Public Commissioner.
vigilance department. All of them are controlled by the corrupt officials and the
politicians that are ineffective while at the proposed level of Jan LokPal bill all the
central and the state level internal vigilance wings shall be merged into the Jan
LokPal and shall do away with the multiplicity of the anticorruption agencies.
6 Chronology of the Event
On the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi 30th of January 2011, there were
marches in more than 60 cities of India to demand the Jan LokPal Bill. Swami
Agnivesh, Prashant Bhushan, Kiran Bedi participate the Delhi rally under the
leadership of Anna Hazare. On February 26, Anna Hazare announced his hunger
strike from April 5 unless the government accepted the demand of the civil society
for the Jan LokPal bill. On April 5, Hazare started his fast at Jantar Mantar, a place
of daily protest for all civil society organizations from all over India protesting for
their grievances. On the 8th of April, Anna broke his fast after the government
agreed to form a ten-member forum consisting of civil society members and union
ministers to draft a stringent anti-corruption law. On April 9, Hazare ended the
strike. On April 16 the joint committee met and both sides exchanged the drafts. On
the 30th of May, the differences appeared on the inclusion of the Prime Minister,
judiciary and the MP’s conduct inside the parliament to be under the preview of the
Jan LokPal. On June 6 civil society boycotted the meeting with the government’s
representative followed by the crackdown on the Baba Ramdev’s rally in Ramlila
ground. The joint draft committee met for the last time on the 21st of June, but no
consensus was reached. Anna declared his intention to fast once again from the 16th
of August, a day after the Indian Independence Day celebration.
Hazare was arrested on the 16th of August 2011 and sent for 7 days of judicial
custody, there was a groundswell of support all over India, and at night government
wanted him to be released. He refused until he was given the venue of his choice to
organize his mass movement that is Ramlila Ground. Next day there was a massive
crowd that gathered outside Tihar Jail. He continued his fast inside the jail on the
17th and 18th of August. On the 19th he came out of the jail and continued his fast
at Ramlila Ground. On the 23rd of August, the government convened the Team
Anna for the discussion. On the 24th of August there was a second round of talks
convened with all political party meeting but no outcome was reached. After
meeting the team Anna on the 25th of August, the government agreed to debate
all versions of the Jan LokPal bill at the parliament. On the 27th of August, both the
houses of parliament debated the bill and agreed to the three demands of Anna
Hazare to send it to the standing committee of the parliament. On the 28th of
August 2011, Anna broke his fast onto death.
76 S.K. Rajhans
7 The Repertoire of the Mobilization of the Communities:

Structure, Strength and Strategy
The anglicized and sophisticated media, along with the public intellectuals even
sniggered in the very beginning about this strange mix of civil society activists
supported by some religious and spiritual leaders. Some dismissed it as it looked
naı̈ve, or unsustainable as it seemed to lack cadres, manifestos or ideologies.
For many other social critics, the dialects and the rituals of protest were disturbing
as a strange proximity of religious leaders and social activists. Yet these religious
and spiritual leaders, who have millions of followers, provided the critical mass base
for the movement. In particular, the spiritual masters Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi
Shankar had the nationwide recognition and following and in their respective
discourse spaces had been providing the revival of the normative nature of Politics.
It is this moral message that underpinned the populism of the movement. This
movement ran the discourse about corruption like never before in the Indian political
space. While the first one has the urban and cosmopolitan New age Hindu middle
class as the core of its adherents, Baba Ramdev’s core constituency of adherents
were the more nationally oriented social groups for their consumption habits,
especially those whose generic consumption constitutes of MNC (multi-national
corporations) substitution as a necessary social practice. With the throwing of their
lot behind the protest, they influenced also the dialect and demand of the movement
and the lead was processed more by congregation, rather than by the cadre for
organizational and logistical needs.
The strong and repeated argument seeped through the agitated citizenry that the
answer to corruption is not law but the morality and the eligibility for being the Jan
LokPal is the impeccable integrity and those who are held in the highest esteem by
the public. That simply annuls the category of both the politicians and the policy
implementers (bureaucrats) whose credibility was in the trash bin among the
masses. The only remedy for the political malaise is the non-political institutions
of persons with acknowledged moral probity with the vested power to investigate
and prosecute all government officials be it elected or appointed. In this circum-
stance, where the formal distinction between government and the politics becomes
blurred, it is the political that is identified as the enemy of the people.
Besides this power of moral/normative halo, the congregation provided the
logistics and basis for constant recruitment of the protesters. Through their active
and open participation, they invigorated even those white collar professionals to
join shoulder to shoulder with those who are highly disillusioned with the present
affairs of the Indian polity. They saw in Anna Hazare an icon who is capable of
surgically treating the political gangrene of corruption, dilution of the state capacity
and crony capitalism. The skeptics criticized that the unilateral demand of the
movement to create an extra constitutional body in the form of Jan LokPal is a
challenge to representative democracy as the power to legislate is the prerogative of
the legislature that cannot be coerced for enacting one against its will. The reply
from the movement to the regime was to refer the constitution more carefully where
the phrase in the preamble of the constitution speaks very clearly as “we the people”
as the true source of sovereignty not the dysfunctional and discredited legislature.
When the regime arrested Anna Hazare to preempt his proposed agitation, he
continued his fast inside the jail and when after the nationwide condemnation and
criticism the government agreed to set him free, he refused to come out of the jail
thus generating a groundswell of support for remaining victimized one. His visit to
RajGhat to meditate evoked the imagery of the revival of a new freedom struggle.
Sitting behind the giant image of Mahatma Gandhi an old and frail 74-year-old man
fasting unto death to appeal the lawmakers of the land to make his country a corruption
free place evoked a very poignant message. He was a multifaceted icon representing
many things to many people. He was a person with impeccable integrity, a man who
has invested his life to help and work in rural India, a man with the symbolic link to the
history of Gandhi with his Gandhian spirit and way of life. The very diverse social base
saw in him clarity of purpose and unshakable belief for the betterment of the marginal,
his courage and integrity. Even when he broke his fast, he drank the water from the
hands of a Dalit and a Muslim girl thus further consolidating the width and depth of the
imagery of the movement that is egalitarian, diverse, pro-downtrodden and secular.
Crowds create their own mediated space and coupled with the integrated com-
munication space of the Internet urban class soaking in the social media generated a
massive craze for Anna Hazare’s movement “India Against Corruption” not only
within the confines of the Indian state but in the larger Indian diasporas all over the
world. Each social movement has its symbols and the India against corruption had
this Gandhi Topi as something that was taken as revival of the anti-graft stance of
the society. Hazard demanded the Camilla Ground for the sheer size of the audience
that it can cover and as the crowed started to submerge there with the clear message
and the Gandhi topi on their head, they already got unionized at the symbolic level
with thousands of the topi4 peened with the letter (I am Anna) thus merging their
personal identity with the larger identity of the movement.
In the early days, the faces of the protests were mostly those of the vociferous
middle class in megacities professional executives, the upwardly mobile, students,
young men, and relatively fewer women in the 15–35 age group. As the protests
spread from Jantar Mantar to Ramlila Grounds, to the street outside Tihar Jail,
Chatrasal Stadium, and into residential neighborhoods, it grew into a movement
and became, simultaneously, more amorphous. While retaining its middle class
character, it came to be peopled by schoolchildren, migrant workers, teachers, auto-
rickshaw drivers, college students, RSS cadres, film actors, farmers from neighbor-
ing states of Delhi. In Mumbai, the dabbawalas5 broke their 120-year-old-tradition
of never going on a strike, as 1200 dabbawalas struck work for the first time to
march from Churchgate station to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in solidarity
with the Anna and the anti-corruption movement. However, the participants of the
anti-corruption movement represented a new social demography that has grown
4
Topi: An Indian white coned cap wore during the Indian independence movement.
5
Lunch box carriers.
78 S.K. Rajhans
alongside the emergence of the new, liberalized, and globally more assertive India.
Politically, it is a generation that has grown up without much concern about the
Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, or the ideologies that went with it.
The campaign made a very savvy use of the information and communication
space including the informal mediated space. With the symbolism of fast and
meditation to social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram), and news
media (print, electronic and web) everything was organized with much care At
another, the use of the media, Internet, mobile technology, and social networking
platforms dispersed and spread the movement. Significant for the movement was
the use of anti-corruption as a generic plank, which was both vague in the sense that
it did not address any particular constituency, class, or identity group and at the
same time also worked as a catch-all, for the issue of corruption touched everyone.
Anna soon became a brand name for the young, consumer middle class in cities, and
fashion clothing companies used it to advertise their products. However, the pro-
tests on the ground were being through the way in which images with commentaries
were projected by the media. Between what was happening on the street, television,
and social networking sites, complex forms of mediation were shaping the public
gathering, setting the scene and constructing a different kind of an emotional/public
space—connecting diverse individuals with little common bonds or interest.
The poetic message “I m Anna Hazare” instead of I am for Anna Hazare erupted
an epidemic consolidation among the message. It had more of the participatory
character with the capacity to internalize the positioning with the main protagonist
of the movement and the be on the same imaginary horizontal platform Besides,
once “I am Anna” is pronounced there were left no much space for half measures of
commitment among the participant in the movement.
8 The Collective Shriek of Rage: The Protest Against Delhi

Rape Case
The chronology of the event: The horrific gang rape of a student in December 2012
sparked a remarkable movement against rape and sexual violence against women in
India. In the late evening of December 16, 2012, in New Delhi the capital of India a
young woman was brutally raped by six men in the running bus for more than an
hour. The young woman and her boyfriend were massively assaulted while on
board and the woman in particular, was mutilated by an iron rod. After the heinous
act was done, the raped woman along with her wounded boyfriend was thrown
naked from the running bus in the freezing Delhi midnight. The patrolling police
later found them and despite specialized medical care both in India and later in
Singapore the girl succumbed to her injuries on the 29th of December 2012.
The rape report was first reported in the media on the evening news on December
17, 2012 and within days the candlelight vigil started followed by the demons-
tration in the capital in particular at the Delhi’s Chief Minister’s residence. By
December 21 the demonstrations were joined by other political parties, other groups
and by ordinary citizens. In an unprecedented manner, the question of the gender
justice was not left for the woman organizations and gained national prominence
gaining the support of all sections of Indians. This public outcry spilled out onto the
world stage, predominantly igniting calls for change in how violence against
women is dealt with. Within India, the incident became almost personal, as the
victim came to be referred to in the media and in popular discourse as Amanat,
Damini, Braveheart, or “India’s daughter”.
The anti-rape protests also attracted people from different walks of life, though
predominantly middle class. Students from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi
University, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Tata Institute of Social
Science, (SNDT) Women’s University, Mumbai University, and from colleges in
Bangalore gathered at different junctions blocking roads and forming human chains.
Other political student organizations that participated in and played key roles in
mobilizing the protest were the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA).
Many others from varied backgrounds also joined the protest: members of the
recently-formed Aam Aadmi Party, other personalities such as yoga guru Baba
Ramdev and his followers, retired Army Chief Gen. V. K. Singh, Swami Agnivesh,
academicians, members of the fashion and entertainment industry, FDCI president
Sunil Sethi, designers Rohit Bal, Nida Mahmood, Ravi Bajaj, Rajesh Pratap Singh,
film actor and social activist Shabana Azmi, and other members of the film
indoctrinate-rape protests did not have a centralized leadership. A leader-driven
protest like the Anna/anti-corruption movement was clear about from where
authority was driven, but with the anti-rape protests it is difficult to give credit to
only a few people.
In terms of the movement’s methodology, political groups used speeches and
slogans, human chains and prostrated on the street in protest, distributed pamphlets,
submitted memos and petitions to police officials and government functionaries,
and articulated their views through articles in newspapers, websites, etc. There were
panel discussions, signature campaigns, and skit competitions held in different
universities of Mumbai. The primary demands that were asserted through these
protests were harsher punishment, better patrolling, and fast track courts.
The All India Students Association (AISA), which led many anti-rape protests in
Delhi, demanded a special session of Parliament to enact laws against rape and
sexual violence; implement gender sensitization programmers at all police stations;
set up a separate ward for care for rape victims; and make gender equality a part of
the school curriculum. Information came from old media (print and electronic)
putting out messages from one source to many readers, viewers, and consumers;
new media (social media) simultaneously connected multiple sources with multiple
others. If new media (Twitter, Facebook) brought the crowds onto the streets, old
media drew from them. At one point, old media borrowed liberally from new media
in terms of its treatment of content, and immersed itself in the crowds. In this
protest, the power of social media has been crucial. In this movement without
leaders, any organized structure, or any predetermined plan, mobilization happened
via new media, specifically social media. Young, overwhelmingly middle class
80 S.K. Rajhans
people—who are often dismissed as apolitical—took on the state and mounted an

onslaught against the rampant criminality getting thickened in the Indian social
fabric. The protests showed two factors that generated two levels of anxiety. The
spectacle of a spontaneous, unstructured, unavoidably vague movement born out
of genuine rage has unsettled the establishment. The second is a critique that the
movement is misdirected: it is blaming the government for what is, in fact, a deep
societal problem. But this protest is also about more than rape. It is now an open,
generalized, and largely justified expression of contempt for the state.
9 Mobilization for the Dignity and Assertions

of the Invisibles
The protests are bound to be different because they are an assertion of the assorted
community and not a political group or party. The state reaction was knee-jerk
initially and it was mostly poor, to say the least. First, because of the widespread
nature of the protest and the constant media reporting that had created an agitated
movement on the issue of corruption and the apathy and indifference of the state on
the subject of economic crime and corruption, it had already generated an active
citizenship among the mediated urban class. The barbaric rape to the student in the
capital city had further exposed the shrinkage of the state’s capacity. Where is the
state that can’t protect its law abiding citizens? The slogans such as Bekhauf Azadi
or freedom without fear were used to push forward the need to promote safer streets
for woman. The spontaneity of the rape protests was from the very start with groups
and individuals often organizing and discussing the pressure tactics on the spot “. . .
hundreds of thousands of Indian woman—and some man—poured into the streets
across the country holding candlelight vigils” (Naqvi 2013). Where previous pro-
tests were led by the specific group or organizations, rape protest was not led by any
specific group. It was structurally horizontal a leaderless movement of ordinary
citizens unlike the preceding movement against corruption that had the leadership
of Anna Hazard. Second there was no core interest group that had developed the
strategies and worked towards the goal. In such a case it was not an assortment of
the different sections of the organized civil society but an assemblage of the civil
citizens cutting across their social identity, that during the course of its nationwide
protest did generate a horizontal core group for coordination whose tactics and goal
was conveyed through the united message to fight against the violence against
woman. It shall be mentioned that the groundwork for the rape protest had been
made by the previous nationwide movement against corruption and had created a
vigilant and agitated citizenry to monitor the lapses of the state, the rape protest got
its act together despite being unstructured and spontaneous in the large part of its
existence.
The anger and frustration of the protesters caught both the Delhi police and the
government by surprise and the result was a very aggressive response to the
protests. The non-violent protesters were beaten with sticks, and water cannons
were unleashed on them. What was a major issue for the society was summarily
dismissed as a law and order question. The aggressive responses by the citizens to
the police (in many cases the protesters jostled with the Police personnel) were
viewed by many as the last straw and was accompanied by a subsequent venting of
growing frustrations of this assorted and activated citizenry that had risen to the
previous anti-corruption movement in 2011.
Yet as a response to the mass protest all over India, the state woke up from its
slumber and on December 22, 2012, a judicial committee headed by J. S. Verma, a
former Chief Justice of India, was appointed by the central government to submit a
report, within 30 days, to suggest amendments to criminal law to sternly deal with
sexual assault cases. On February 3, 2013, President of India Pranab Mukherjee
promulgated the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013, which provides
for the amendment of the Indian Penal Code, Indian Evidence Act, and Code of
Criminal Procedure, 1973 on laws related to sexual offences.
The representation in both the India against corruption movement (IAC) move-
ment and the Nirbhaya movement (Delhi rape case, Zakaria 2013) illustrates the
Pan-Indian nature, where at the core of the movement was educated youth and they
were cosmopolitan as well as provincial, the women of all possible socioeconomic
dispensations and most crucially the political divisiveness that was simply annulled
by the convergence for the much larger issue that covers and diffused the sharp
identity.
The outcome of the India Against Corruption protest was massive: a very new
space and language of communication between the state and the society was created
because of this movement. The capacity of the state was audaciously challenged by
the larger section of Indian population not to create/rewrite the constitution but
to invoke the proper promulgation and implementation of the laws. The marathon
run for the fight against corruption was of course initiated by the Indian educated
middle class, university students and Information-Communication-Technology
(ICT) empowered youth, yet the final run was led by the urban poor and disadvan-
taged that made the movement a very classless affair, provided the critical mass
base and provided the necessary combativeness without which it might have been
difficult to create the tidal wave of assemblage in a sustained manner. On the one
hand, during 5 years from the heydays of the struggle of the millions, when the
legitimacy of the rest of the state institutions looked pale in the glowing moral hue
of the social movement led by Anna Hazare for the Jan LokPal Bill, till today, the
citizens failed to secure the participation in governance. Yet, this movement has
given birth to a political party with the name of Aaam Admi Party (roughly
translated as a common man’s party of India with the liberal left politics) that has
come to power in the state assembly with an unprecedented landslide to power in
the capital city state of India 2 years back. As for the rape protest (Nirbhaya case)
the far more stringent law has been passed in record time by the Parliament. It has
further given the outlet and the sense of zero tolerance against the perpetrators of
such crimes.
82 S.K. Rajhans
10 Conclusion
It is ‘India’ against corruption; where everyone is Anna or where daughters of India

are protesting against rape. The focus in this domain of politics is an individual
‘citizen’—who is stepping out into the streets, protesting, making placards in S/he
home on the back of used calendars or notebooks. S/he is not affiliated with any
political party or stepping out under any specific banner and does not have any
specific plan or identity (other than Indians, or Mumbaikar, or daughters of India).
They have been speaking in different voices with amorphous demands for ‘justice’
to end corruption or for different versions of the LokPal Bill. The ideological
affiliations of the protesters have ranged the spectrum from Left to Right but the
predominant trend has been of ‘no ideology’. The ‘bonding’ has been loose, often
ephemeral—forged through cyber ‘groups’ on social media. The appeal here is to an
individual sense of morality, of what is felt to be right, rather than to ideology.
One of the direct outcomes of this endeavor is the consolidation of the partic-
ipatory spirit of the democratic space in India where the earlier passive benefi-
ciaries of the representative democracies through decentralization and
deregulation have emerged as the participant in the governance. It has resulted
in the gradual transformation of governance from top down project implementa-
tion to the bottom up participatory policy implementation. It shall not be needless
to obviate that while acknowledging the safety valve inherent in any functional
democracy and its renewal capacity though including the vital segments of new
constituents thus both enlarging the democratic space and imbibing the participa-
tory spirit in the democratic space. It is important to acknowledge the empower-
ment through decentralization and the affirmative action that creates the level
playing field for the marginal and subalterns in the society. A country that has the
1000-year history of institutionalized social discrimination and hierarchy and the
normative validation, even the half-hearted implementation of the polity decen-
tralization through the affirmative action (specially for the Dalit women in the
very first layer of the pyramid of power sharing) has unleashed the caged spirit of
the citizenship. The India Against Corruption movement had shown the coalesc-
ing of the different social sections around a common fight against the social evil of
corruption. The rape protest was the tightening of the monitoring noose by the
governed and it showed the rage of the empowered, informed, and engaged Indian
citizenry that challenges the cynicism of the party politics but raises both the
possibility and profile for the agent-based and participatory capacity in the new
democratic space.
Note
The chapter was prepared within the framework of the Academic Fund Program at
the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2016-2017
(grant № 17-05-0018) and by the Russian Academic Excellence Project “5-100”.
I am thankful to Dr. Nina Belyaeva and Dr. Shota S. Kakabadze for their invaluable
suggestions and encouragement.
References
Bhambhri, C. P. (2013). The Indian transition. Social Scientist, 41(1/2), 69–85.

Chatterjee, P. (2001). On civil and political society in post-colonial democracy. In S. Kaviraj &
S. Khilnani (Eds.), Civil Society—history and possibilities (pp. 165–178). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Chatterjee, P. (2012). The movement against politics. Cultural Critique, 81(1), 117–122.
Gandhi, M. K. (1962). Village Swaraj. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing.
Hellman, J. A. (2000). Real and virtual Chiapas: Magic realism and the left. Socialist Register, 36,
161–186.
Huber, E., & Stephens, J. D. (1999). The bourgeois democracy: Historical and contemporary
perspective. International Quarterly of the Social Sciences, 66(3), 759–788.
Kaviraj, S., & Khilnani, S. (2001). Civil society: History and possibilities. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Kosambi, D. D. (1956). Introduction to the study of Indian history. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan.
Kumar, R. (2008). Globalization and changing patterns of social mobilization in urban India.
Social Movement Studies, 7(1), 77–96.
Maiba, H. (2003). Social movements in the age of globalization. GSC Quarterly, 8.
Manor, J. (1997). The Political economy of democratic decentralization. Washington, DC:
World Bank.
Melucci, A. (1995). The new social movements revisited: reflections on a sociological misunder-
standing. In L. Mahey (Ed.), Social movements and social classes: The future of collective
action (pp. 107–119). London: SAGE.
Mukherjee, P. N. (1977). Social movement and social change: Towards a conceptual clarification
and theoretical framework. Sociological Bulletin, 26(1), 38–59.
Naqvi, M. (2013). Indian woman hope brutal rape will spark change. Resource document.
Associated Press. Retrieved from http://www.newshub.co.nz/world/indian-women-hope-bru
tal-rape-will-spark-change-2013010814. Accessed 24 August 2016.
Palanithurai, G. (2007). Participatory democracy in Indian political system. Indian Journal of
Political Science, 68(1), 9–20.
Rueschemeyer, D., Stephens, E. H., & Stephens, J. D. (1992). Capitalist development and
democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Srivastava, D. (2010). The polity. In D. Srivastava (Ed.), India 2010: A reference annual (pp. 26–61).
New Delhi: Government of India Publications Division. Retrieved from http://publicati
onsdivision.nic.in/others/India_2010.pdf. Accessed 25 Jan 2017.
Tarrow, S. (1998). Power in movement: Social movement and the contentious politics. New York:
Tilly, C. (1978). From mobilization to revolution. New York: McGraw-Hill College.
Zakaria, F. (2013). Fareed Zakaria: A new India has political demands. Resource document. The
Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-
a-new-india-has-political-demands/2013/01/17/27fec888-600d-11e2-b05a-605528f6b712_
story.html?utm_term¼.ec51702a944f. Accessed 23 August 2016.
Queering Gezi and Maidan:
Instrumentalization and Negotiation
of Sexuality Within the Protest Movement
Maryna Shevtsova
1 Introduction
The wave of protest emerging during the last two decades in Europe and across the
continents has already captured some attention from the scholars of political
science and social movements. Existing studies have widely addressed issues of
international and domestic dynamics of the protests to enhance our understanding
of the trajectories of these new protest activities. Nevertheless, until now very few
of them focused on the potential evolving protests have for political action of the
so-called new social movements (NSM)1 in the countries where civil society
several years ago still seemed to be too weak for the contestation of existing
discourses.
The present chapter is a comparative case study. It is focused on the role the
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and intersex (LGBTI)2 community played in the
Turkish Gezi protest in 2013–2014 and in the Ukrainian Maidan protest during
nearly the same time period. In both cases, the environment in the country could be
characterized as highly problematic: homophobic and aggressive towards LGBTI
1
By saying “new social movements” I refer to newly mobilized in the twentieth century collec-
tivities reacting to “new grievances of postindustrial society” (Habermas 1984) such as LGBTI
movement, animal rights movement, occupy movement, feminist movement, etc.
2
Throughout the chapter, the term LGBTI will be used to refer to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transgender, Intersex, or otherwise queer. This option is chosen as identical to the version used
in the documents of the European Union, and opts for the shorter acronym to represent the larger
community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, pansexual, or otherwise queer/
questioning individuals (Rohrich 2015).
M. Shevtsova (*)
Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany
e-mail: maryna.shevtsova@hu-berlin.de

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_6
86 M. Shevtsova
people.3 It is also worth noting that this decade is a time period when LGBTI rights
became a political issue in Turkey as well as in Ukraine. Even brief examination,
however, displays big differences in the modes of interaction the representatives of
LGBTI community in the protest camps had both with other protesters and the outer
environment. The chapter analyzes these interaction modes and seeks to explain the
variations between them. As the results of the further research are revealed, there
are several important factors that influenced the choice of the strategy made by the
LGBTI community during the protest events. Among those are specific domestic
conditions such as spatiality, relations of affect, particular characteristics of civil
society development, and different uses of social media resources. Moreover, the
presence of LGBTI rights discussion in the political discourse and the instru-
mentalization of the topic in relation to European integration prospects are very
important. My argument is, therefore, twofold. On the one hand, I argue that all the
listed factors shaped the choices of LGBTI community of (in)visible presence
during the protest action. On the other hand, these choices were made in pursuit
of the same goal: achievement of future public visibility and strengthening of the
movement’s capacities for political action.
I have picked the Gezi protest in Turkey and the Maidan events in Ukraine for
the comparative study as good examples of the protests that emerged chaotically
and spontaneously as a response to governmental violence and were organized with
great input from the Internet and social media networks. As a result of the protest
movement, protest camps were organized, bringing together and making co-exist
people from different parts of the population with different political affiliations,
gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. In both cases, in spite of the highly
homophobic situation in the country, LGBTI community took very active part in
the protest events. In the case of Turkey, the presence of the community was very
visible and explicit about their sexuality. The conscious decision of Ukrainian
LGBTI community was to be at Maidan just as Ukrainian citizens without disclos-
ing other parts of their identities.
The analysis I offer in this chapter is based on the results of in-depth semi-
structured interviews with protest participants within and outside of the LGBTI
community, as well as with the experts, employees of NGOs, Turkish politicians,
and local human rights organizations. The interviews took place in Istanbul in April
2014, in Kiev in August 2014, and in Ankara in September–October 2014 and
January 2015.4
The chapter is structured as follows: First, I review the existing literature
addressing strategizing within the protest movements, conceptualization of the
objective of new social movements, and creating the collective identity during
3
Such evaluation is made based on ILGA Europe annual reports on Turkey and Ukraine, available
online: http://www.ilga-europe.org/sites/default/files/Attachments/annual_review_2016-for_web.
pdf.
4
Due to confidentiality reasons the names of the interviewees have been changed. However, with
their agreement I provide the real name of the organization they represented (if any).
Queering Gezi and Maidan: Instrumentalization and Negotiation of Sexuality. . . 87
the protests. In the subsequent sections, I briefly touch upon the history of the
development of the LGBTI community as part of a civil society in two countries.
Then, I analyze the role the communities of Istanbul and Kiev played during the
protests. I conclude with reflections on the factors shaping the choices made by
LGBTI communities and discuss the political and theoretical implications of my
findings.
2 Defining the Strategy and Negotiating Collective Identity

in the Time of the Protest
The question of strategizing political mobilization and activity by new social move-
ments received increasing attention in the scholarly literature during the last
decades. My choice to make LGBTI movements’ strategies a core of the present
paper draws on the substantial body of social movement literature, presenting
strategies as a way to better understand actors and their intentions (Rossi 2016,
p. 15) and to grasp the interactions among the intentions of a “variety of deliberate
actors” (Jasper 2012, p. 30). While social movement scholars pay a great deal of
attention to studies of movements’ strategies and tactics (e.g., della Porta and Diani
2006; Smithey 2009; Tarrow 1994; Taylor and Van Dyke 2004), until now no
conceptual agreement concerning the ultimate distinction between “strategy” and
“tactic” was reached. A tactic is defined as a “repertoire of action” that is “finite”
and “constrained in both time and space” (della Porta and Diani 2006, p. 181) or as
“the means and plan to win a single campaign” (Nepstad and Vinthagen 2012,
p. 282). At the same time strategy is described as “many types of decisions made in
the interest of a social movement” (Smithey 2009, p. 660) or as the way in which a
social movement is reaching its goals (Rossi 2016, p. 15). Furthermore, the choice
of a strategy is found to have a strong impact on a group’s persistence (Edwards and
McCarthy 2004) and on a movement’s identity (Polletta and Jasper 2001), as the
strategy remains a “fundamental dimension of protest alongside physical resources,
culture, and biography” (Jasper 2004, p. 4). Willing to avoid conceptual confusion,
I refer here to the strategies as to the “the conscious decisions and actions activists
take to pursue their objectives, including tactical choices” (Smithey 2009, p. 658,
italics mine). In the discussion about strategies, the new social movements chose,
the most common argument is that strategic decisions are inextricably tied to the
movement’s objectives (Bernstein 2003).
The rise of the LGBTI movement in Europe, in particular, provoked a growth of
interest towards the ways in which LGBTI community faces social conflicts. NSM
scholars started to examine how rejected claims for recognition and equality and the
processes of globalization and transnationalization influence LGBTI movements.
It is of particular interest how NSM strategize their communication with other
political actors and the broader public (e.g., Ayoub 2013; Calvo 2010; Holzhacker
2012; Martsenyuk 2012). Holzhacker (2012), for example, discusses three possible
88 M. Shevtsova
modes of interaction of LGBTI organizations with the political environment: morality

politics, incremental change, and high-profile politics. Based on these modes, he refers
to differences in the strategies of LGBTI organizations, including public visibility,
coalitions forming, government interaction, and transnational activities (2012, p. 8).
Holzhacker, therefore, defines public (in) visibility of the LGBTI community as a
political strategy that can be employed in the form of a protest, small-scale events, or
celebratory public events depending on the mode of interaction of the community with
the government and prevailing public opinion on the LGBTI rights regime (2012,
p. 87). Following Holzhacker, the goal of the social movement should be to move from
morality politics towards high-profile politics and to enjoy full public visibility and
acceptance. I argue, however, that the multidimensional framework to examine social
movements offered by Bernstein (2003) is more applicable for broader evaluation
of LGBTI movements’ goals. She claims that activists’ thinking is often informed
by three types of movement impact: political outcomes, mobilization outcomes, and
cultural outcomes. Bernstein suggests that when the political environment is unfavor-
able for the public visibility of LGBTI community but their interests coincide with
those of political elites or other forces, it is likely for the activists to cede the political
terrain and seize on other political issues for the sake of building alliances and creating
future political opportunities (Bernstein 2003, p. 369). The connection between the
strategies and objectives might not be that obvious to the outsider, as the understanding
of what constitutes success for the social movement in a given political and cultural
environment constantly varies and is defined in multiple ways by the activists them-
selves (Bernstein 2003; Naples 2002). At the same time, some authors suggest treating
collective identity as both an alternative to movements’ interests in understanding
strategic choices the activists make and in assessing movements’ impact (Polletta and
Jasper 2001).
More recent studies on social movements reestablish the centrality of collective
identity concept for understanding or deconstructing of the movement’s choice of
strategy (e.g., Flesher-Fominaya 2010; Della Porta 2014). Nevertheless, before
applying this approach to the analysis of dynamics of strategic changes in the
political activity of the LGBTI movement, several clarifications are in order. I
consider here collective identity as an emerging, ongoing process, which includes
(a) cognitive definitions concerning the ends, means, and field of action; (b) refers
to a network of active relationships between the actors; and (c) contains a certain
part of an emotional investment (Melucci 1995). Seeing collective identities as a
process also means to understand that identities are not fixed but change both as a
movement evolves and as it is reshaped through the interaction with other actors
(Taylor 2013, p. 43). Fast-paced emergence in the late twentieth to the early twenty-
first century of new social movements with overlapping social categories, culture
and values led to the shift from a unitary to more complex, multiple identities,
which della Porta (2005) defines as “tolerant and plural”. It is often that what a
group is considering a good strategy is based on what groups are symbolically
associated with (Polletta and Jasper 2001, p. 299). Correspondingly a group may
promote a new, transformed identity in order to achieve its strategic or tactical
goals. In other words, the collective identity is not an end in itself as used to be
argued (Cohen 1985), but rather something that can be “deployed strategically for
different audiences” (Bernstein 1997).
Reflecting on the issue of identities in the globalized protest movements, many
authors talk about the increasing diversity of cooperating political actors with rather
strong ideological differences, which in the past would have prevented them from
working together (della Porta 2008; Kavada 2010). As Kavada (2010) argues, the task
of a current social movement is to accommodate “the fluid, flexible and fragmented
identities of their participants, providing a fertile ground for pursuing one’s journey of
self-exploration” (2010, p. 297). For new social movements, the issue of collective
identity has a special dimension when they become involved in the protest action. On
the one hand, as Rucht (1984) once pointed out, it is the creation of a self-determined
identity that is one of the important goals of the movement itself, as the activism
provides to the participants a new identity sense. On the other hand, when the LGBTI
movement is involved in a protest with other political actors and activists whose goals
are not related to the issue of LGBTI rights, the issue of creating a new collective
identity emerges.
The present research, therefore, is aimed at bridging two bodies of literature,
focusing on the social movements’ strategies and on the connection the choice of
the strategy has with the production of the collective identity and its negotiation
within an ongoing protest activity. I demonstrate that while these two processes
seem to be closely interrelated, the forms they take and the outcomes they produce
are shaped by the transformations of the goals the activists choose and the ways in
which they conceptualize their success.
3 The Case of Istanbul: Disrupting Heteronormativity by

Reclaiming Urban Space
A friend of mine who happens to be a lesbian went to Gezi Park to join the protest. At those
days if you were alone you could, actually, join safely any group. The atmosphere at
Taksim was very friendly and people were trying to support each other. So when she saw a
group of Çarşı [supporter group of BJK (Beşiktaş Gymnastics Club, notably including the
Beşiktaş football club], she asked them whether she could walk together with them, and
they said ‘of course, abla’ [word for ‘older sister’ in Turkish]. On the way the guys started
shouting curses against Erdo gan calling him ‘ibne’ [‘queer, gay’ in Turkish]. My friend
touched one of the guys’ shoulder and asked him to stop by saying that she is ‘ibne’ herself
and it is offensive for her to hear these words. Surprisingly, the guy apologized and told his
friends to stop as they had queer people fighting next to them against same enemy and
therefore deserved respect and could not be insulted.5 Özge, LGBTI and feminist activist
(personal communication, Istanbul, Turkey, 02.04.2014)
5
I heard this story in a slightly varying interpretation from different interviewees and also came
across it on the Internet. It seems that it acquired symbolic importance for some participants of
stressing the tolerant attitudes and acceptance among protesters.
90 M. Shevtsova
The words “Gezi park protest” are used to refer to a wave of mass demon-
strations and civil unrest in Istanbul and other cities across Turkey starting in May
2013. Public outrage was triggered by the excessive use of the police force on the
participants of a peaceful sit-in protest initiated by a civil group against replacing
Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park by a shopping mall. Then-Prime Minister Recep Tayip
Erdogan defended the ongoing police efforts to stop the growing number of pro-
testers by using tear gas and water cannons. As a result, the unrest spread to more
than 40 Turkish cities where hundreds of thousands of people stood up against the
actions of the government. The protest was especially remarkable because of the
diversity of participants involved in the occupation of Gezi Park. While the polls
showed that the majority of the protesters were not affiliated with any party or
association, there were quite visible civil society groups, including LGBTI and
feminist communities.6
Active participation of LGBTI groups and them being among the frontline acti-
vists of the protest is worth attention. Turkey has never before been a place where
LGBTI persons could freely enjoy visibility in the public sphere. When the country
acquired the status of candidate from the European Union in 2004, the issue of
LGBTI rights started to appear in the European Commission progress reports.
Indeed, certain developments have taken place because of the joined efforts of
local activists and external EU action. Nevertheless, even the brief scheming of
ILGA-Europe (International Lesbian and Gay Association) reports on the situation
with LGBTI rights in Turkey reveals open and systematic harassment, discrimi-
nation in most spheres of life, bias-motivated speech, and violence. As İlaslaner
(2014) observes, in spite of numerous suggestions by international organizations,
government, and judicial systems still ignore cases of murders on the basis of
persons’ sexual orientation, while prevailing social discourse remains unchanged
towards LGBTI individuals (2014, p. 25).
In spite of the high level of condemnation and rejection of homosexual and trans-
individuals by Turkish society, during the Gezi protests the LGBTI community
turned out to be one of the most active blocks among the activists. What can explain
the public visibility and high level of activity of LGBTI activists in the protest
events? I argue that there are two key factors that made open presence and involve-
ment of LGBTI groups possible. First, it was spatiality of the protest and the rela-
tions of affect; second, the importance of modernization and Westernization
discourse for anti-governmental circles in Turkey.
Talking about the spatiality of Gezi protests, one has to take into consideration
the historical and social importance of the conflicted area for the LGBTI commu-
nity. The Gezi Park is right next to the Taksim Square in Beyoglu district situated
on the European side of Istanbul. This area has been the center of almost all major
gay venues and events for decades. It is also the main gay cruising area in Istanbul
and the location of many both traditional and modern gay clubs, bars, and saunas as
well as clubs for transvestites and transsexuals. Offices of several lesbian and gay
6
Konda Gezi Report “Public perception of the ‘Gezi protests’. Who were the people at Gezi Park?”
June 5, 2014, retrieved from www.konda.com.tr.
organizations (Lambda Istanbul, SPOD, Istanbul LGBTT, LISTAG) and NGOs

(Heinrich Boell Foundation, Raoul Walenberg Institute for Human Rights, and
others) are also situated here. Not surprisingly, therefore, Istanbul’s annual LGBTI
pride parade takes place at Istiklal Street starting at Taksim square. In contrast to the
other districts of Istanbul, Beyoglu is the neighborhood where the LGBTI community
and trans people in particular may experience relative visibility, which explains the
symbolic importance of Taksim and Gezi for the LGBTI community as a safe city
space. As one of my interviewees (a lawyer and human rights defender) commented,
Taksim is the only place in the city where LGBTI people can “survive and be them-
selves, so if the conservative party, AKP, had stopped the entertainment and freedom
there, it would have changed the everyday lives of all of them. This made gay people
brave; it encouraged them to become part of Gezi protest more than other people”
Yasemin Öz (personal communication, Istanbul, Turkey, 05.04.2014).
One of the activists, who participated in the protest from the first till the last day
observes:
The thing is, in Gezi Park the other groups, like the Kemalists, like the Kurds, like the
Beşiktaş supporters, they did not know that LGBT people were so much on the streets, they
did not know how to fight against the police. You know, who knows how to fight against the
police? Transpeople who are doing sex-work on the streets they are experienced a lot to
fight against the police because they are doing this in their everyday life, every day being
beaten up and persecuted by the police, so it is not a surprising thing for us to see a trans-
person at the top of the barrier waving a rainbow flag against them ‘Hit me! Hit me!’ And
they were shouting to the people who wanted to run from the police, like ‘Don’t be afraid,
come with me!’ The other people were surprised, we [LGBT community—M.S.] were not
surprised. Metehan, member of LISTAG LGBTI organization (personal communication,
Istanbul, Turkey, 04.04.2014)
The Gezi protest events were followed by a number of positive developments for
the LGBTI community in Turkey that can be considered a slow change of attitudes
toward sexual minorities’ issues among the population. The LGBTI pride that took
place right after the protest in June 2013 and the next one in June 2014 in Istanbul
gathered more than 100,000 participants (Kaos 2013).7
Another positive development for the LGBTI community was support shown by
several major Turkish opposition parties. In particular, HDP (The People’s Demo-
cracy Party, Halkların Demokratik Partisi) and CHP (Republican People’s Party,
Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) appeared together with representatives of LGBTI organi-
zations at the Pride. Later, these parties not only came up with promoting LGBTI
rights as an important part of their political program but also presented openly
LGBTI candidates on the local elections in March 2014. As the interviews
7
It is important to note that after this chapter had been written, the years 2015 and 2016 were
marked in Turkey by a serious backlash against LGBTI community, as the Pride marches in those
years were dissolved with the usage of police force and violence. While this chapter does not cover
this period, the backlash against sexual minorities, which is highly likely to be related to the active
participation of LGBTI people in anti-government campaigns, is to be further explored and
discussed.
92 M. Shevtsova
I conducted with non-LGBTI participants on the protests and politician-members of

CH Party showed, the support the party itself and its followers provided for LGBTI
is very much related to the pro-EU integration position of the party. In order to
explain this, I have to introduce briefly the notion of Kemalism and the role of
Westernization discourse in the EU-Turkey relations.
The name “Kemalism” was originally attributed to the movement against the
occupation of some parts of the territory of the Ottoman Empire established prior
to the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1922) and was named after Mustafa
Kemal, one of the leaders of the movement.8 Kemalism became institutionalized as
a political ideology together with the emergence of People’s Party (1922) later
turned into the Republican People’s Party (RPP, or CHP in Turkish. Current CH
Party claims to be the direct successor of the party of Mustafa Kemal). Until now,
Mustafa Kemal and his ideas remain deeply embedded into the Turkish politics and
are extremely important for Turkish people.9 The original political program of the
CHP contained principles lying in the foundations of the coming social and political
reforms in the country and the goals of the newly emerged state. Based on these
principles, Kemalism is widely seen as the development path reflecting Mustafa
Kemal’s vision for the future of Turkey, including the foreign policy strategy
as well (Bagdonas 2008, p. 109). In the core of domestic and foreign policy of
Kemalism lies the “civilizational” or “Westernization” approach.10 The integration
to the European Union has for a long time been considered by the Kemalists as a
logical continuation of the Westernization path. Since the EU recognized LGBTI
rights as an integral part of human rights and included them in acquis, adoption of
the legislation protecting life conditions of LGBTI people became one of the
conditions of EU membership. In other words, the EU made the LGBTI issue
political. The ruling Justice and Development Party has never welcomed the idea
of providing special legal protection for sexual minorities.11 Yet the CH Party
embraced an LGBTI-friendly agenda. It comes in line, obviously, with their pro-EU
position. At the same time, one can argue about a positive relation between active
and open anti-governmental stand the LGBTI community took during Gezi, inclu-
sion of LGBTI rights into the EU agenda, resonance the Gezi protest had in Western
media, and the CH Party’s increasingly positive attitude towards sexual minorities.
I do not argue here either that the role LGBTI activists played during the Gezi
protest was the main factor causing the shift in strategies of Turkish parties
presenting political opposition. In July 2013 the CH Party initiated the drafting of
8
Most often referred to as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, or Atatürk (Father of Turks).
9
The mentioning Atatürk comes already in the Preamble to the Constitution of Turkey where he is
referred to as “the immortal leader and the unrivalled hero”.
10
Due to the word count restriction, I will limit myself here by quoting Ataturk’s words: “Can one
name a single nation that has not turned to the West in its quest for civilization?” from a statement
to French writer Maurice Pernot, October 29, 1923 as quoted in Mango, Andrew. 2002. “Ataturk:
The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey” Overlook Books (August 26, 2002), p. 539.
11
See, for instance, Hurriyet Daily news “Protection for gay rights vetoed” as of September
14th 2012.
sexual minorities’ rights report and together with HDP and BDP brought forward
openly LGBTI candidates in their parties’ lists. To say that these steps were related
only to anti-governmental position of Turkish LGBTI activists would deliberately
devalue the significant efforts human rights activists inside and outside CHP had
been making during the years before. I would still argue, however, that the clear
anti-government position expressed by Turkish LGBTI community and the political
support they gained from the EU institutions allowed increased visibility of LGBTI
protesters and influenced positive changes in societal attitude during Gezi events. It
also made political opposition consider this group as a potential strong ally. Changing
parties’ programs and making them more inclusive towards sexual minorities, the
opposition parties could count on benefiting from this new alliance by gaining addi-
tional votes as well as by turning their images into more libertarian and open-minded
asserting their pro-European position.
4 Ukraine: Faking “Gay Pride for European Integration”
The dynamics of the protest events in Ukraine in November–December 2013 partially

resembled the Turkish case. It started as a small peaceful protest, mainly constituted
by student activists. When the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, announced
the withdrawal of the state’s application for the Association Agreement with the EU
that was to be signed on November 21, 2013, a couple 100 people spontaneously
organized a protest camp at the central square of Kiev, Maidan Nezalezhnosti, calling
themselves “Euromaidan.”12 On the night of November 30th the security forces
violently attacked the protesters, beating them with batons and feet. As a reaction to
these illegal actions of the authorities, the next day thousands of people flooded
Maidan Nezalezhnosti. A new, bigger protest camp was set up to demonstrate people’s
commitment to stay until those responsible for the violent actions of the November
30th were brought to justice. As the events escalated, the protest camp remained at
Maidan for 8 months, during which the Yanukovych regime fell and the former
president had to flee the country while a civil war started in the eastern part of the
country.
From the first day of Euromaidan, Ukrainian members of LGBTI and the
feminist movement were among the protesters. As well as in the case of the Gezi
protest and similar protests across the world, the mobilization of the protesters was
12
The word “Maidan” is used to refer to the territory of Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti)
in the center of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. It used to be named after the October Revolution since
1977 and got its current name after the fall of the Soviet Union together with the independence of the
state of Ukraine. Since then, the space has been used for political collective action (for example,
“Ukraine without Kuchma” in 2000–2001). However, it was only in 2004 that Maidan emerged as a
symbol of unity of Ukrainian people in the course of realization of popular will. After the success of
the Orange Revolution “Maidan” became a concept used by politicians, sometimes as an argument or
a threat, in power competition.
94 M. Shevtsova
taking place on social media networks. Following the news on Facebook, Twitter
and in other on-line sources, the members of the community almost immediately
made the decision to join the protest at Maidan. Later, many of them remained in
the protest camp for many months, taking active part in all Maidan activities. The
vast majority of LGBTI activists at Maidan, however, stayed and acted there as
individuals without declaring their affiliation to LGBTI community/movement and
in most cases without making their sexuality an open issue. Such a decision was
collectively and almost unanimously taken by members of the community after the
discussion they had in the very beginning on Internet forums brought together the
members of all major Ukrainian LGBTI organizations as well as LGBTI indi-
viduals not affiliated with the formal groups.13
To understand the factors that led to the disclosure of their sexuality by LGBTI
protesters, it makes sense from the very beginning to turn to the politicization of the
LGBTI rights issue and its relation to EU accession in Ukrainian political discourse.
The requirement of the EU to adopt anti-discrimination legislation protecting,
among other, LGBTI people was widely discussed the months before the Associ-
ation Agreement had to be signed. One could clearly observe how anti-EU inte-
gration (and, correspondingly, pro-Russian) discourse was being produced. So, the
clearly pro-Russian movement ““Ukrainskiy vybor” (Ukrainian choice)” headed by
Viktor Medvedchuk developed a large campaign in summer–fall 2013. It was
aimed to inform the population of Ukraine about the negative consequences of
the Association with the European Union. In particular, the campaign instrumental-
ized the conservative homophobic position of a certain part of the population. It
spread the myth that according to the demands of the Association agreement,
Ukraine was obliged to recognize same-sex marriages and “propagate homo-
sexuality and LGBT-values” (Ukrainskiy vybor 2013). The organization paid for
installing light-boxes in Russian and Ukrainian languages in some of the biggest
Ukrainian cities (including, for example, the main street of Kiev, Khreschatyk). The
lightboxes contained the claim: “Ukrainian choice warns: Association agreement
means same-sex marriages” and schematically showed two men holding hands. The
homophobic argument, in fact, was mentioned by the opponents of integration quite
regularly after the threat of economic crisis and unemployment risk that were to
follow the association with the EU. It is worth noting that social media networks
were actively used not only by the supporters of Maidan but also by its opponents.14
This campaign and the discourse it created was one of the key factors explaining
the strategy chosen by Ukrainian LGBTI persons during Maidan protests. LGBTI
13
Of course, in the conditions of heavy winter, living among barricades and expecting police to
attack any night, it was not the case that anyone in the camp would care about the sexual
orientation of the people fighting for the same reasons next to her or him. Nevertheless, it makes
sense to discuss the reasons that made LGBTI people stay in the shadow and not display rainbow
flags or any other LGBTI symbols.
14
For example, Internet memes, pictures, and articles in various ways bringing together homo-
sexuality and European aspirations of Ukraine and Maidan were quite popular among some
Internet users. Such publications often employed disdainful reference to Europe as to “Gayrope.”
organizations came up at the official webpage of the All-Ukrainian Public Organi-

zation “Gay Alliance Ukraine” with the official statement supporting signing of the
Association Agreement by Ukraine. However, they clearly specified that they are
not “fighting for specific rights for LGBT” but for better life for them and their
beloved ones in accordance with the highest European standards (Gay Alliance
Ukraine 2013). In addition, as certain political groups were speculating on and
instrumentalizing the LGBTI issue, the community repeatedly announced that they
were not planning any action or event covering problems of sexual minorities
exactly because that could be abused (Gay Alliance Ukraine 2014).
The concerns of the LGBTI community proved to be true. During the time when
the protest camp was settled in Kiev, several public actions took place. These actions
were later referred to by LGBTI activists as prepared by the “Ukrainskiy vybor” to
provoke the aggressive reaction of the right-wing participants of Maidan. So, in
January 2014 the group of 30–40 people wearing bright color clothes and makeup
and carrying rainbow flags together with the flags of the EU and of Ukraine arrived in
the center of Kiev and tried to pitch their own tent at Maidan. According to the claims
of interviewed LGBTI activists, these people were recruited through social media
networks and online forums for fixed payment. The aim was to make more conserva-
tive groups at Maidan flare up and split the protesters.15 The “Council of LGBT
Organizations of Ukraine” took preventive measures and informed the security and the
headquarters of the Maidan protest camp about the possible “provocations.” The
participants of the camp, therefore, were duly prepared: there was no aggression
shown during the performance, even from the side of the most radical right-wing
groups.
At the same time, the need for permanent armed defense inside the camp, which
was not as acute in the case of Gezi, and the conditions of constant alert gave more
opportunity for conservative groups to reproduce gender stereotypes and homo-
phobic discourse in the camp. The situation required the creation of a new structure
inside the camp which would be in charge of the camp’s defense. Special detach-
ments were organized, and following the experience of Cossacks they were named
“sotnya.”16 The camp, correspondingly, often compared to the Zaporizhian Sich,
where the men were traditionally presented as extremely masculine and women, if
15
LGBTI activists supported this statement by the copies of screen-shots of social media networks
posts.
16
This was the name of Cossack’s detachments containing 80–150 warriors at Sich. The word
“Sich” has no literal translation and comes from the times of The Zaporizhian Sich, existing in
sixteenth to eighteenth-century fortresses and settlements of Cossacks, free people on the territory
of modern Ukraine and Russia, who were members of self-governed military communities. Having
played an important role in the historical and cultural development of Ukraine, they became
symbols of freedom and independence. It is difficult now to define after which point exactly the
residents of the camp started to compare it to Sich, yet at later stages of the camp’s existence both
in the interviews that I conducted and in the official interviews and articles in Ukrainian media the
comparison with the old Sich and Cossack’s practices came up more and more often.
96 M. Shevtsova
allowed, had to play the roles of mothers, nurses, cooks, and care-takers17 (see, for
instance, Onuch and Martsenyuk 2014). Such perception left no space for homo-
sexuals. Even though it was not the prevalent opinion in the camp, the existence of
such discourse also prevented LGBTI persons to come out and be more visible as
well as for feminist, leftists and anarchists participants of the protest.
One may draw at least two conclusions from the single case described above.
First and foremost, there was an unspoken presence and active participation of
LGBTI community during the events of Maidan. Even though this presence was
much less visible than in the case of the Gezi protests, it was acknowledged by the
leaders of the protest camp and did not lead to incidents of bullying, violence, and
hate speech among the participants. Second, even though the actions of “Ukrainian
choice” and other opponents of European vector in Ukrainian foreign politics made
LGBTI persons’ disclosure and speaking up for their rights at Maidan almost
impossible, it also attracted additional attention of the political actors and wider
population to the problems of sexual minorities in the country. At the same time,
growing institutionalization of the LGBTI movement in Ukraine and rapid develop-
ment of online social media activism provided the Ukrainian LGBTI community
with alternative political opportunities for expression of their political stand, mobil-
ization, and coordinated action strategy.
5 Discussion
As described in the previous sections, LGBTI participants of the protests chose

different strategies to cope with the way they negotiated their sexuality in the time
of the protest events in Gezi park and at Maidan square. I argue here, however, that
the ultimate goal behind the strategies was quite similar, and this was to increase the
presence of the community in the political sphere and to get access to political
opportunities, which would allow the community to pursue their political objec-
tives, such as equal rights and non-discrimination, with more effect. The reference
to these goals was explicitly made in online statements by the LGBTI communities
as well as in the interviews that I conducted. Therefore, I argue that the observed
variation was caused not by the difference of the current political goals or attitudes,
but rather by different external factors. The following factors let the LGBTI
community in Turkey come out and get extremely visible while preventing activists
in Ukraine from doing the same: spatiality and the effect of the protest, political
instrumentalization of homosexuality, and effective use of (counter-) discourse on
17
I would like, at the same time, to refer to the research of Onuch and Martsenyuk (2014). The
authors argue that even though the perception of many participants and observers portrayed
women in a traditionally more passive, ‘feminine’ way, it was far from the reality. They bring
up numerous cases of women’s active participation in the camp’s defense, political action,
decision-making, etc.
European integration. Interestingly enough, these factors had both positive and
negative consequences for LGBTI community in Turkish and Ukrainian contexts.
Frenzel et al. (2013a, b) suggests using spatiality and affect as clusters of the
matrix for analysis and comparison of protest camps as unique forms of social
movement. They claim that interaction of type of the space with the relations of
affect, autonomy and infrastructure of the protest creates a unique particular protest
camp configuration. I applied similar analytical framework to compare the configu-
ration of the protest in Turkey and Ukraine. Using the terminology of Frenzel et al.
(2013a, b), one may agree that the Gezi Park was a contested urban space which has
an important symbolic meaning for a particular community—LGBTI people, for
whom it used to be a home space as well. The fact that this space already was,
though informally, recognized as theirs, allowed them to claim openly their rights
and fight for it. It also provided them with an opportunity to take a political stand
and, through reclaiming the space, to break heteronormative framing of the protest.
Ukrainian Maidan, at the same time, was rather a representative space, a space
that once emerged as a symbol of unity of Ukrainian people in the course of realization
of popular will and as a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism. For right-wing groups active
(and sometimes aggressive) in the protest camp, this space could not come together
with such things as feminism, leftist anarchism, and homosexuality. For example, in
November 2014 one of the right-wing activists of Maidan posted on his Facebook
page: “It’s ridiculous yet not funny. An LGBT activist wearing vyshyvanka [Ukrainian
national clothing]. Do I have now to be happy because of this ‘revolution dignity’ that
made patriots out of everyone?” This was posted as a reaction to the appearance of one
of the activists of Ukrainian LGBTI community on TV discussing, among others, his
participation in the protest at Maidan 1 year earlier. The atmosphere of the “tradi-
tional” gender roles partially reproduced in Maidan camp under the threat of armed
attack made the “coming out” of LGBTI protesters and their open acceptance by other
protestants more challenging. This would be less problematic, probably, without the
presence of the counter-movement created by the opponents of Maidan and using the
issue of homophobia in order to picture negative consequences of European integra-
tion for Ukraine.
The prospect of European integration and EU accession was used with different
purposes and with different outcomes in Kiev and Istanbul. In Ukraine, the EU’s stand
on the protection of sexual minorities’ rights was portrayed as threatening traditional
national and family values. Since Maidan initially emerged in support of the Associ-
ation Agreement with the EU, for LGBTI people to act openly in the camp would have
meant to contribute to established connections between the Europeanization and
homosexuality. At the same time in Turkey the support the EU grants to LGBTI
people, together with the active role of the community in the protest, brought new
political alliances with pro-EU parties, which did not happen in Ukraine. Even those
Ukrainian parties who actively supported EU accession could not take a risk of
siding with LGBTI people.
It would be a mistake, however, to claim, comparing Gezi and Maidan, the
success of the LGBTI community in Turkey over the failure of Ukrainian activists
to be a visible part of the protest. Indeed, the participation of LGBTI groups in Gezi
98 M. Shevtsova
was followed by the changes in political actors’ behavior and by the even bigger
increase of the visibility of LGBTI community and their integration into the poli-
tical system of Turkey as opposition party members. However, the civil society’s
roots in Turkey go back to 1980s and while the visibility of the LGBTI community
at Gezi events did trigger new social and political developments, such an active
presence of LGBTI activists would not have been possible without years of prepar-
atory, though less obvious, work. In the case of Ukraine, the civil society itself is
much younger and, like the LGBTI movement, it has borrowed models and stra-
tegies of action from Western European “colleagues.” It also suffers from limited
capacities to act individually. However, the role Ukrainian LGBTI citizens played
in Maidan protests also has its implications for opening new political opportunities
for the community. First, even though working without disclosing their sexuality,
the members of the community proved their ability for collective action, nego-
tiation, and bargaining with the leaders of the protest and producing common
strategy in the time of action. Second, participation in the protest supporting the
EU integration with the opposition forces using strong homophobic claims attracted
the attention of NGOs and the LGBTI community in the EU and provided new
options for international support and networking. Finally, though hidden, partici-
pation in the protest against the former government and pro-EU positions will allow
the community to later lobby their interests in front of the new government and
use the EU as a supportive argument.
To summarize, different domestic conditions, such as spatiality, relations of
affect and interaction with anti-governmental forces led to correspondingly differ-
ent opportunities for LGBTI community for the open action at the time of anti-
governmental processes. One should, however, be careful evaluating the success of
the movement based only on the visible part of interaction mode of movement with
the government. The multi-dimensional analysis of the movement’s strategy, con-
sidering ultimate objectives of the LGBTI groups and their relation to the interests
of political elites shows that in spite of the differences, in both cases LGBTI groups
made certain political progress both with domestic political actors and within their
own community.
References
Ayoub, P. M. (2013). Cooperative transnationalism in contemporary Europe: Europeanization and

political opportunities for LGBT mobilization in the European Union. European Political Science
Review, 5, 279–310.
Bagdonas, Ö. (2008). The Clash of Kemalisms? Reflections on the past and present politics of
Kemalism in Turkish political discourse. Turkish Studies, 9(1), 99–114.
Bernstein, M. (1997). Celebration and Suppression: The strategic uses of identity by the
Lesbian and Gay Movement. American Journal of Sociology, 103, 531–565.
Bernstein, M. (2003). Nothing ventured, nothing gained? Conceptualizing social movement
“success” in the lesbian and gay movement. Sociological Perspectives, 46(3), 353–379.
Calvo, K. (2010). Reconocimiento, Ciudadanı́a y Polı́ticas Públicas hacia las Uniones Homosexuales
en Europa. Revista Espa~ nola de Investigaciones Sociologicas, 129, 37–59.
Cohen, J. L. (1985). Strategy or identity: New theoretical paradigms and contemporary social move-
ments. Social Research: An International Quarterly, 53(1), 663–716.
Della Porta, D. (2005). Multiple belongings, tolerant identities, and the construction of ‘another
politics’: Between the European Social Forum and the Local Social Fora. In D. della Porta &
S. Tarrow (Eds.), Transnational protest and global activism (pp. 175–202). Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield.
Della Porta, D. (2008). The emergence of European movements? Civil Society and the EU.
European Journal of Legal Studies, 2008, 1–37.
Della Porta, D. (2014). Mobilizing for democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Della Porta, D., & Diani, M. (2006). Social movements. An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Edwards, B., & McCarthy, J. D. (2004). Strategy matters: The contingent value of social capital in
the survival of local social movement organizations. Social Forces, 83(2), 621–651.
Flesher-Fominaya, C. (2010). Collective identity in social movements: Central concepts and
debates. Sociology Compass, 4(6), 393–404.
Frenzel, F., Feigenbaum, A., & McCurdy, P. (2013a). Protest camps: An emerging field of
social movement research. Sociological Review, 62(3), 457–474.
Frenzel, F., Feigenbaum, A., & McCurdy, P. (2013b). Protest camps. London and New York:
Zed Books.
Gay Alliance Ukraine. (2013). Evrorevolutsia v Ukraine. Rol’ I uchastie LGBT [Eurorevolution in
Ukraine. LGBT role and participation]. Resource document. Gay-alliance Ukraine. Retrieved
from http://upogau.org/ru/ourview/ourview_590.html
Gay Alliance Ukraine. (2014). Zayavlenie v svyazy s ocherednoi popytkoi ispolzovania LGBT
dlya diskreditacii Evromaidana [Statement in connection with the use of LGBT in another
attempt to discredit Euromaidan]. Resource document. Gay Alliance Ukraine. Retrieved from
http://upogau.org/ru/inform/uanews/uanews_638.html
Habermas, J. (1984). Reason and the rationalization of society: Vol. 1. Theory of communicative
action [T. McCarthy, trans.]. Boston, MA: Beacon Press (originally published in German in 1981).
Holzhacker, R. (2012). National and transnational strategies of LGBT civil society organizations
in different political environments: Modes of interaction in Western and Eastern Europe for
equality. Comparative European Politics, 10(1), 23–47.
İlaslaner, S. (2014). LGBT movement in Turkey: Genealogy, particularity and embeddedness into a
broader universe (Vol. 3(4), pp. 25–42). London: Centre for Policy Analysis and Research on
Turkey (ResearchTurkey), Research Turkey Retrieved from http://researchturkey.org/?p¼5899.
Jasper, J. (2004). A strategic approach to collective action: Looking for agency in social movement
choices. Mobilization, 9(1), 1–16.
Jasper, J. (2012). From macro opportunities to micro mechanisms. In J. Goodwin & J. M. Jasper
(Eds.), Contention in context. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Kaos, G. L. (2013). Gay pride in Istanbul: Why it matters? Resource document. Kaos GL.
Retrieved from http://www.kaosgl.com/page.php?id¼16963. Accessed 16 July 2016.
Kavada, A. (2010). Between individuality and collectiveness: Email lists and face-to-face contact
in the global justice movement. International Journal of E-Politics, 1(1), 41–56.
Martsenyuk, Т. (2012). The state of the LGBT community and homophobia in Ukraine.
Problems of Post Communism, 59(2), 51–62.
Melucci, A. (1995). The process of collective identity. In H. Johnston & B. Klandermans (Eds.),
Social movements and culture (pp. 41–63). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Naples, N. (2002). Changing the terms: Community activism, globalization, and the dilemmas of
transnational feminist praxis. In N. A. Naples & M. Desai (Eds.), Women’s activism and global-
ization: Linking local struggles and transnational politics (pp. 3–14). New York: Routledge.
Nepstad, S. E., & Vinthagen, S. (2012). Strategic choices in cross-national movements: A compar-
ison of the Swedish and British plowshares movement. In G. Maney, R. Kutz-Flamenbaum,
100 M. Shevtsova
D. Rohlinger, & J. Goodwin (Eds.), Strategies for social change. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
Onuch, O., & Martsenyuk, T. (2014). Mothers and daughters of the Maidan: Gender, repertoires of
violence, and the division of labour in Ukrainian protests. Social, Health, and Communication
Studies Journal Contemporary Ukraine: A case of Euromaidan, 1(1), 80-101.
Polletta, F., & Jasper, J. M. (2001). Collective identity and social movements. Annual Review in
Sociology, 27, 283–305.
Rohrich, K. (2015). Human rights diplomacy amidst “World War LGBT”: Re-examining western
promotion of LGBT rights in light of the “Traditional Values” discourse. In A. Chase (Ed.),
Transatlantic perspectives on diplomacy and diversity. New York: Humanity in Action Press.
Rossi, F. M. (2016). Conceptualizing strategy making in a historical and collective perspective.
In F. M. Rossi & M. von Blow (Eds.), Social movements dynamics, new perspectives on
theory and research from Latin America (pp. 15–42). London and New York: Routledge.
Rucht, D. (1984). Zur Organisation der neuen sozialen Bewegungen. In J. Falter et al. (Eds.),
Politische Willensbildung und Interessenvermittlung. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Smithey, L. A. (2009). Social movement strategy, tactics, and collective identity. Sociology Compass,
3(4), 658–671.
Tarrow, S. (1994). Power in movement. Social movements and contentious politics. Cambridge:
Taylor, V. (2013). Social movement participation in global society: Identity, networks and emo-
tions. In J. van Stekelenburg, C. Roggeband, & B. Klandermans (Eds.), The future of
social movement research. Dynamics, mechanisms, and processes (pp. 37–58). Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Taylor, V., & Van Dyke, N. (2004). “Get up, Stand up”: Tactical repertoires of social movements.
In D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule, & H. Kriesi (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to social movement.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Ukrainskiy vybor. (2013). “Ukrainsky vybor” piketiroval Predstavitelstvo ES v Ukraine [“Ukrainian
choice” picketed the EU delegation in Ukraine]. Resource document. Ukrainian Choice. Retrieved
from http://vybor.ua/news/ukrainskiy_vybor_piketiroval_predstavitelstvo_es_v_ukraine.html
From the Social Forums Period to the June
Resistance: Tension Between Mass
Mobilization and Political Strategy in Turkey
Mutlucan Şahan
1 Introduction
The last quarter of the twentieth century was marked by a retreat of social oppo-
sition forces in the face of capitalist restructuring and neoliberal globalization. At a
historical point where this all-encompassing climate seemed the new norm and ‘the
end of history’ was announced, a new wave of opposition emerged that placed
social movements to its core. This wave, which materialized globally around social
forums and created unique forms of thinking, organization, and movement reper-
tories, began to recede in the mid-2000s.
In this chapter, I analyze the impact of this wave within the Turkish setting and
its outcomes. I argue that the approach that emerged in this era, which prioritized
the social before the political and a decentralized network before a central organi-
zation, narrowed the strategic perspective of political and societal opposition
forces in Turkey, and had important ramifications for the resistance movement in
June 2013.
The first section of this article summarizes the main characteristics of the
social forums and their internal debates during their rise and decline phases. The
second section introduces the main tendencies and actors in Turkey during this
period. The third section discusses the reasons why the issue of strategy lost ground
in the social opposition’s agenda. The fourth section analyzes the results of the
lack of political strategy based on the example of the June Resistance.
M. Şahan (*)
Galatasaray University, Istanbul, Turkey
e-mail: mutlucansahan@gmail.com

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_7
102 M. Şahan
2 The Social Forums Period
Around the globe, the process between the end of the 1970s and the beginning of
1990s was a period of neoliberalization and de-radicalization. The capitalist
restructuring lead by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the decline of
real socialism which caused a huge transformation on both national and inter-
national levels were the main turning points of that period. Neoliberal globalization,
when the social rights and public services were decreased, every part of the life was
commoditized and capital could easily move anywhere around the planet, did not
face any opposition until the mid-1990s. The Intercontinental Encounter for
Humanity and Against Neoliberalism, organized in 1996 by Zapatistas, can be
considered as an important turn marking the end of that period. The encounter
did not have direct results; but its scope, its quality, and especially its call to build
“the international of the hope against the international of terror represented by
neoliberalism” were the outlines of this new period (L€owy 2003).
The wave of social struggle that began in different corners of the world reached
a new height in Seattle with the demonstrations in 1999 during the reunion of
the World Trade Organization (WTO), one of the leading institutions of neoliberal
globalization. The protests known as “the Battle of Seattle” that surprised the
people and garnered a lot of attention would not be a singular event. The demon-
strations against the summit, uniting protesters from different countries, succeeded
one another. On the other hand, various social movements organized on an inter-
national scale were spreading rapidly. The new wave of struggle, initially named as
anti-globalization, alter-globalization, or global justice, obtained an organizational
structure after serial forums organized on national, regional, and continental scales
by the World Social Forum (WSF) held in Porto Allegre in 2001 as an alternative to
the World Economic Forum.
The first article of the charter of principles written at the end of the first WSF
described the social forums as an “open meeting place for reflective thinking,
democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences
and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that
are opposed to neo-liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any
form of imperialism.”1 By its principles, the social forums were obviously bring-
ing the social movements instead of political organizations to the foreground. It
was even proposed that the political parties should not participate in the forums.
The social movements were definitely the main actors of the period. In tandem,
restructuring efforts also emerged among the radical left over the years.
It should be pointed out that although they were treated as “outcasts”, the
political cadres of the radical left have played an important role in the construction
of main social movements and social forums of the period. Being in an organic
1
World Social Forum Charter of Principles, approved and adopted in S~ao Paulo, on April 9, 2001,
by the organizations that make up the World Social Forum Organizing Committee, approved with
modifications by the World Social Forum International Council on June 10, 2001.
From the Social Forums Period to the June Resistance: Tension Between Mass. . . 103
relationship with the social movements in Latin America, the left gained momen-
tum and came to power in many countries. In Europe, new kinds of united anti-
capitalist parties appeared like the Rifondazione Comunista (Communist
Refoundation) in Italy, Synaspismos (Coalition of the Left) in Greece, Enheds-
listen—De Rød-Grønne (Red-Green Alliance) in Denmark, and Bloco de Esquerda
(Left Bloc) in Portugal. These parties formed on the critique of the traditional left
claimed to constitute a political platform for the social movements instead of
leading them. They claimed to avoid sectarianism in their relations with other
social and political forces and to ensure pluralism among themselves. At the
beginning of the 2000s, these parties in Europe developed common platforms on
a continental scale, parallel to social forums. Therefore, not only social movements
and social forums, but also the new political structures became important actors of
that period.
As planned, the social forums constructed an action line in an international scale
against neoliberalism and preserved some popularity among the masses. The global
movement, which was at the beginning mostly a movement against the summit,
was able to preserve that popularity on the basis of an anti-war principle after the
military intervention in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. However, the move-
ment’s retreat began in the mid-2000s.
Thatcher’s favorite slogan, “there is no alternative” was the motto of neoliberal
reforms. As a response, the WSF had its own slogan: “another world is possible”.
This formulation was appreciated by the global movement and there was a consen-
sus about not only its possibility, but also its necessity. However, the social forums
as the public sphere of the global movement were unable to take the lead to create
an alternative and to offer a common action program. To overcome this roadblock,
it was tried to enrich the themes and to expand into new geographies, especially in
Asia. These attempts failed under the circumstances of the movement’s retreat. The
Arab Revolutions, the movements of Indignados, and Occupy Wall Street protests
that appeared after the beginning of the global economic crisis in 2008 clearly
showed that a new era had begun.
Right after the first signs of retreat were observed, there was another suggestion
regarding the transition of social forums: politicizing the social forums and
founding a new international. The principle hindering the participation of political
organizations was extensively discussed; however, it was not altered. On the other
hand, it was just a formal obstacle for political activists who did not have any
difficulties in joining the forums via public struggles they already partook. In 2003,
the presidents of Brazil and Venezuela, Luı́z Inácio Lula da Silva and Hugo Chavez
officially attended the WSF, signaling the emergence of a certain level of flexibility.
The more the forums extended to territories with social movements, the more flexi-
ble the forums became. Despite all, this “movementist” principle was maintained,
even if it had no practical value. The core trouble was the mentality behind it, that is
to say the impotency of social movements in expressing themselves politically
(Kürkçügil 2006).
Michael L€ owy, one of the persons who came up with the idea of a new inter-
national, proposed that a new and positive alternative inspired by I. International
104 M. Şahan
can be constructed, as the social forums failed to bring together radical left and
libertarian wings. He pointed out that the worldwide extension of a new organi-
zation—such as The Conference of the European Anti-Capitalist Left—and the
formation of a “New International” may provide “an alternative project inside the
Movement, going beyond capitalism, and the perspective of a new society” (L€owy
2003). In 2009, this time, Chavez called for the transition of WSF into a Fifth
International which would consist of both social movements and political organi-
zations, and would have a common strategy. Nevertheless, these attempts did not
succeed, as the ones who would like to keep WSF as an open space for civil society
did not consent and the ones who considered building a separate network did not
manage to organize it (Ojeda 2010).
On the eve of the foundation of social forums, Stephen Gill asserts that global
movement has a “postmodern prince” potential by reminding the term of “modern
prince” which is used by Gramsci for a political party which creates the collective
will: “A new ‘postmodern Prince’ may prove to be the most effective political form
for giving coherence to an open-ended, plural, inclusive, and flexible form of
politics and thus create alternatives to neoliberal globalization.” (Gill 2000). As
we mention above, despite arising out of a global movement as an organism that can
create a collective will, social forums couldn’t perform this strategic task. More
precisely, they avoided doing this. In 2009, Owen Worth and Karen Buckley
continued the discussion which started by Gill and raised an even harsher critique
against the WSF (Worth and Buckley 2009). According to them, the WSF “has
suffered from being a directionless series of events, whereby the working formula
of ‘open space’ has led to the creation of nothing more than a ‘talking shop’, rather
than any valid construction of counter-hegemony. [. . .] As a result, far from being a
postmodern prince, the WSF and its regional counterparts have emerged to resem-
ble a type of court jester—one that may have a colorful appearance, but only serves
to entertain—rather than realize—the potential of transformation”.
3 The Turkish Case
In the post-coup period, the rise of protests against neoliberal globalization in the
world, especially in Latin America and Europe, coincided with dynamism in
Turkey on the union struggle of public employees, youth movements, and the
restructuring of the radical left. These events led to increased expectations about
the resurgence of a new wave of resistance in the Turkish left. The ‘Turkish social
forums period’, which bore close similarities to the global trends of social move-
ments, made some remarkable advances; but it failed to form a stable and effective
opposition. It proved unable to form a unity and continuity among campaigns that
were organized around singular struggles and narrow demands. Reflecting the
antidemocratic atmosphere of the country, the influential movements of the era
formed around the frame of rights struggle and advocacy.
During the period of military junta and in the ensuing war with the armed
Kurdish political movement, human rights violations were committed, including
extrajudicial executions by the legal or illegal state structures, people disappearing
under custody, torture, evacuation of villages, and forced immigrations. The human
rights movement, composed of associations, platforms, and civil initiatives, devel-
oped against these violations. It also became an intersection point between the
Kurdish movement2 and the social struggles; its importance was linked to that
situation and it created a model for the struggles of the period. Feminist, ecological,
and LGBTI movements that appeared after 1980 as an autonomous social struggle
arena made huge progress in setting the human rights agenda and creating social
awareness.
Parallel to this, however, a process of ‘NGOization’ was also taking place. Apart
from their participation in broad-based protests, the street presence of feminists and
the LGBTI movement are limited to the March 8th demonstrations and the Gay
Pride march, respectively. On the other hand, the LGBTI movement had, as an
exception for its period, a very regular and permanent activity, resulting in a
gradually increasing mass participation in Gay Pride walks since the mid-2000s.
Ecological movements began in the 1990s, and they gained wide currency in the
2000s with their stance against governmental policies like opening the natural
sources to the exploitation of capital. Despite some platform attempts, however,
there is no integration within these movements yet. As this condition, it’s a very
significant possibility that these struggles remain a NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard)
opposition.
In fact, during this period there were two loci that could coordinate social oppo-
sition. The first locus was the labor and professional organizations. These organi-
zations, although they were losing blood since the mid-1990s, established a
legitimate center where the opposition gathered around in case of necessity. On
the other hand, the civil servants who had not been entitled to organize a trade union
started a de facto struggle for a trade union by benefitting from a loophole in the
Constitution. After a radical mass struggle pushing the limits of the existing legal
framework and sometimes clashing with police, civil servants gained the right to
establish their Confederation of Public Workers Trade Unions (KESK) in 1995.
However, although it was relatively the most vibrant vein of the social struggle of
its period, public workers’ struggle started to lose its radicalism and popularity
immediately after its institutionalization. The Confederation of Revolutionary
Workers Union (DISK), which had been the most prominent organization of the
workers’ movement in the 1970s and was banned after the military coup, resumed
its activities in 1992. Although the DISK maintained a certain weight as it repre-
sented a historical legacy in terms of workers’ struggle, it could not be a stepping
stone in the trade union struggle against the increasing attacks on workers, and it
was remarkably powerless compared to its power in the 1970s. The professional
2
The history and situation of the Kurdish movement in Turkey obviously deserves a separate and
detailed analysis, which is beyond the scope of this paper.
106 M. Şahan
organizations which had lost their efficacy after the coup, like the Union of
Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, the Turkish Medical Association,
and the Turkish Pharmacists’ Association, started to become active again in the
beginning of the 1990s. The fundamental problem of these organizations was the
disconnection between their leaderships and members. These organizations had
been a part of public opposition both with their leaderships and ordinary members
during the radicalization of the 1970s. Although that tradition continued in the
leadership level, they could not mobilize their members.
The other platform at the “political” wing was the Freedom and Solidarity Party
(ÖDP) that emerged as the unity and restructuring project of the left. The primary
difference of the ÖDP was its emergence resulting from the debate on restructuring
among the radical left and the aim to gather the social movements in a highly frag-
mented landscape of struggles. It was carrying the underlying characteristics and
tensions of the newly emerged anti-capitalist parties and social forums3. In
this sense, it was somewhat similar to the Rifonadazione Comunista (Communist
Refoundation) in Italy that called itself ‘the movement of movements’, like social
forums. The ÖDP was established in 1996 as a result of activities carried out in
several channels by the cadres who spent the 1980s either in prison or in exile. The
first activities and the first congress that was designed as a media campaign by a
publicist founder of the party were welcomed by the public.
In this two-focus nebula, the labor and professional organizations acted primar-
ily as an overarching platform. Very diverse movements and opposition groups
could profit from the technical and financial opportunities offered by these organi-
zations. In times of a common agenda, they were perceived as the umbrella under
which all colors of opposition could unite. In this era, all the big and central
demonstrations were organized under the legitimate leadership and mobilization
opportunities provided by these organizations. On the other hand, ÖDP was active
within both social movements and labor organizations. Many ÖDP members and
sympathizers were at the same time participants of diverse social opposition circles.
Besides this physical presence, the formation stage also garnered sympathy and
support from various social movements. ÖDP gained an important influence within
the ruling cadres of the labor and professional organizations. The party had initially
aimed to cover the different parts of the social struggle, and for this purpose, it had
adopted the founding principles such as “being the platform of social struggles”, an
“anti-party party”, and “politicizing the social while socializing the political”.
However, this potential uniting power was eventually not realized because the
party failed to establish a balanced and consistent relationship with existing social
movements.
One of the points reiterated by ÖDP was the independence and autonomy of
social movements from politics, and hence from the pragmatic and manipulative
interventions of political organizations. However, this valid point was taken so far
3
See also “Kapitalist Küreselleşme ve Direniş” (Capitalist globalisation and resistance), ÖDP
gençlik egitim broşürü (educational pamphlet of youth education, ÖDP), 2004.
over time, such that efforts of offering any form of political direction were imme-
diately frowned upon. Sectarianism, which saw social movements not as auto-
nomous entities but as mere opportunities to forward the party’s agenda, was
countered by ‘movementism’ that lacked a political strategy and a coherent per-
spective. ÖDP started to refrain even from determining policies, to avoid the risk of
appearing interventionist. Leaving the authority to the women in the women’s
movements, to the youth in youth movements, to the ecologists in environmental
movements, to the unions in labor movements, to the grassroots initiatives in local
movements, the party soon lost its grounds to influence the agenda or formulate
policies. Even within the movements where it was really strong, it became gradu-
ally invisible because of its lack of a distinctive identity and agenda. ÖDP, which
could not create mutual channels with the social struggles, which even blocked the
actual channels, reduced its capacity of construction and intervention. Hence, not
only did the once-promising and inspiring party for the opposition lose power,
but an important opportunity of coordinating social movements together under a
common direction was missed.
4 Eclipse of Strategic Reason
The strategy that puts social movements above politics and political organizations
is rooted in the disappointment in the traditional left of the twentieth century. The
legitimate negative view of the real socialism with the collective political activity,
which aimed at the total emancipation of humanity, was expanded first to the
experience of the October Revolution, then to the goal of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, and finally to the principle of democratic centralism. The 70-year-long
socialist experience inevitably ended in disappointment, since the problem is
structural. The end result of a group of revolutionaries that substitute themselves
with working classes or try to lead masses can only be tyranny. John Holloway, an
activist in the course of social forums and a strong critique of these social struggle
tactics for their fetishism of power, summarizes the experience in the following
words: “Russian Revolution was to give power to the working class, but what if the
working class did not want what the party felt it should want? The answer given by
the Bolsheviks was that the party decided what was in the interests of the working
class—the dictatorship of the proletariat became the dictatorship of the party and
those who were not in agreement were denounced as bourgeois reactionaries.”
(Holloway 2005).
The retreat of left politics is also coupled with the suspicion against the idea that
labor classes have a central historical role in human emancipation. In the period of
global economic growth beginning from the end of WWII until the mid-1970s, it’s
true that established workers parties and trade unions had transformed into bureau-
cratic apparatus. The traditional industrial working class also lost its potential of
opposition during the period of bureaucratic institutionalization and within relative
prosperity. Beginning in the 1960s, a transformation is seen in the nature of
108 M. Şahan
proletarian classes and in the composition of these classes according to the needs of
capitalism. In the same period, new opposition areas or groups, which are also
called social movements, gained some dynamism. This new picture deeply
impacted the idea of the emancipatory social struggle, which was articulated around
the working class. The radical democracy introduced by Ernesto Laclau and
Chantal Mouffe was a significant objection from the heart of the left to the
privileged position of the working class and suggested “a chain of equivalence
among the various democratic struggles against different forms of subordination”
instead of the function of articulation (Laclau and Mouffe 1985).
A more recent approach on the plurality of social struggles is found in Empire,
which gained a wide popularity and was even called “the Communist Manifesto for
the twenty-first century” (Zizek 2001). Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt suggested
a new metaphor against the metaphor of mole proposed by Marx that describes the
continuous and complete social struggle of the working class: “Well, we suspect
that Marx’s old mole has finally died. It seems to us, in fact, that in the contempo-
rary passage to Empire, the structured tunnels of the mole have been replaced by the
infinite undulations of the snake.” (Hardt and Negri 2000). According to Negri and
Hardt, there is no longer an underground to retreat to recover, and all struggles take
place in the enemy zone, on the surface, in the imperial soil. Besides, singular
struggles are not interconnected horizontally such as mole’s tunnels; they can be
reached directly as they move on the surface of the Empire. However, this does not
show their weakness, but instead their strength. They can only be efficient locally
and in singularity, and not all together. “Simply by focusing their own powers,
concentrating their energies in a tense and compact coil, these serpentine struggles
strike directly at the highest articulations of imperial order.” (Hardt and Negri
2000).
Daniel Bensaı̈d claims that the social movements are stuck in a utopian moment
with an idea of their priority above political organizations and cannot proceed to a
strategic phase because of “eclipse of the strategic reason” (Bensaı̈d 2006) origi-
nated by the defeat of liberation struggles of the twentieth century. This defeat,
which had global consequences, was experienced in Turkey in a harder and more
traumatizing manner. Looking at the history of social struggles in Turkey, the first
thing that stands out is the September 12, 1980 coup d’état. Between 1960 and
1980, the country witnessed the rise of the left, a vibrant period of social struggles,
and a conflictual political climate. With the coup d’état, these struggles were
suppressed and the neoliberal reforms were quickly put into practice. Even after
35 years, the destruction caused by the coup d’état is still the main factor explaining
the weakness of the social struggle. Hence, it is obvious that the horrors of the
military coup and the following collapse of real socialism played a large role in the
Turkish left’s questioning of class-based politics.
Another set of reasons relates to the period of 1989–1991. During the collapse of
the Eastern Bloc, social struggles in Turkey started first with the student mobil-
ization, but more fundamentally with workers mobilization called Spring Actions/
Demonstrations in the spring of 1989. Due to the stalemate of collective bargaining
carried out with the government, public workers from many different sectors and
regions started a spontaneous and unexpected demonstration without official union

leadership. This mobilization, which was one of the most aggregated, widespread,
and colorful in terms of action repertoire, lasted for three months. Beyond the
victory won by the workers, the mobilization was perceived by the vast majority of
people as a precursor of spring after a long winter of the military coup (Koç 1998).
Within this hopeful atmosphere, people went out for the 1989 May Day demon-
strations that were banned with the military coup throughout the 1980s. Many
protesters were wounded, and an 18-year-old worker was killed after being shot
in the head by police (Milliyet 1989). Under these conditions, the radical left started
a debate on the unity of the left, and that of the public opposition in general. Parti-
cularly women’s and youth struggles became more vibrant. However, the workers’
movement still continued to be the backbone of the social struggle.
At the end of the same year, 25,000 metal workers organized a 6-month strike.
Although the density of worker strikes and actions fluctuated, they continued for
two years. The march of mine workers in Zonguldak to Ankara after a 35-day strike
marked the first days of 1991 (Karakaş 1992). Almost 100,000 people, consisting of
workers and their families, were stopped by the police on the fifth day of the march.
Because the union leadership failed to take a firm stand and contend with the
compromises of the government, the workers were returned probably from a
historical threshold. From then until the TEKEL (Tobacco, Tobacco Products,
Salt and Alcohol Enterprises Incorporation) Workers Struggle in 2010 there
was no mass mobilization of workers. Similarly, social protests remained dormant
until the June Resistance in 2013. Still, the political crisis caused the government
that came into power just after the junta and harshly applied neoliberal policies to
lose power.
At this point, we should also mention two important and related factors pertain-
ing to the Turkish left. The first one of these factors is the intellectual baggage
shaped by two seemingly contradictory ideas: the “National Democratic Revolu-
tion” thesis and the center-periphery paradigm. The “National Democratic Revolu-
tion” thesis made its mark on the Turkish left after becoming popular from the
1960s onward. The thesis, which can be described as an adaptation of the Stalinist
gradual revolution concept, created a tendency among the Turkish left towards an
interclass struggle for democracy, which is exempt from class struggle.4 On the
other hand, the center-periphery paradigm that was put forward in the 1970s and
gained ground within the Turkish left in the 1980s claims that, because of the strong
state tradition and the unique modernization trajectory of Turkey, the main contra-
diction lies between the center and the periphery rather than between capital and
labor.5 Hence, first and foremost a struggle for democracy against the oppressive
4
For the effects of this thesis on the Turkish left see Ergun Aydıno
glu, Türkiye Solu (1960–1980),
Versus Kitap, İstanbul, 2007, pp. 167–187.
5
For an analysis of the centre-periphery paradigm from different angles see “Dosya: Hangi
Merkez, Hangi Çevre?” (Dossier: Which Centre, Which Periphery?), Toplum ve Bilim 2006,
no. 105.
110 M. Şahan
state, disregarding class differences and encompassing all segments of the society,
is needed.
The second important factor was the rise of the Kurdish movement and Islamist
politics while the left was experiencing a great failure. Hence, adding empirical
observations to its intellectual baggage, the Turkish left was implicitly convinced
about the victory of identity-based social and democratic struggles against class-
based political and economic struggles.
The workers’ mass mobilization that emerged during the fall of the Berlin Wall
and in a coup-torn setting had the characteristics of the pre-coup era rather than the
era of social forums. But the radical left and the social struggles shifted to a whole
new paradigm in the wake of this rise, riding the wave it heaved. This was because
the political atmosphere of the period was more influential than the excitement
created by this movement. Hence, while politics lost reputation in the face of social
movements representing a pluralist and diversified set of actors, the political per-
spective of the left accordingly narrowed in Turkey and elsewhere around the
world. The point that slips through the cracks is that Islamist and Kurdish move-
ments have a project of society, a central social subject, and a strong political
insight that merges the struggles. In short: strategic elements, unlike the radical left.
5 In Search of Lost Strategy
Except for the TEKEL workers’ struggle organized by the workers of a government
company whose contracts were terminated because of privatization, the urban and
ecological movements increasing in number but limited to one locality, and the
routine 1st of May rallies, in the decade leading to June 2013 there was no effective
social struggle in Turkey. The enthusiasm and the debates in the left created by the
social forums and movements gradually waned in the mid-2000s and disappeared
completely after 2010 when the AKP government began to openly forward its own
political agenda. The most spectacular mass polarization in the country’s history
took place in this political atmosphere, with no influential social or political actors,
in a totally unexpected way. Even according to the figures of the Ministry of
Internal Affairs, which is generally inclined to downplay participation in social move-
ments, 2.5 million people in 79 out of 81 Turkish cities directly took place in protests
that were at most times marked by violent clashes.
The transformation project of a park in the most central point of Istanbul initially
met with reactions from an urban defense initiative. The expected reaction from
the increasingly autocratic government came soon in the form of police brutality
against demonstrators; but instead of dispersing the protests, it triggered a massive
explosion of rage nationwide. In the face of blind violence, thousands of protesters
flooded Taksim area and clashed with the police all night on May 31. The next
morning, the center of the city, the Gezi Park, and the surrounding Taksim Square
were fully occupied by hundreds of thousands of protesters. The demonstrations
and clashes quickly spread all around the country, and Turkey entered a climate of
revolt that would last incessantly for a month and continue with bursts and intervals
until March 2014.
The Taksim Solidarity platform, which ignited the June resistance and later
became its legitimate representative, was a formation deeply inspired by the social
forums period, comprising of professional and labor organizations, political parties,
and various social movements. However, it would be flawed to interpret this mass
mobilization effort as merely an urban defense initiative given its large scope,
participants, conjuncture, and causes. The uprising was a manifestation of the
stemming reaction against the AKP’s 11-year rule that had grown especially
heavy-handed over the last 3 years. Hence, the protests were multidimensional in
nature, parallel to different government policies.
In some ways, the Gezi Park reconstruction project that lies in the center of the
events was highly symbolic. In-line with their neoliberal policy based on construc-
tion and energy sectors, and hence on the devastation of urban and natural
resources, the AKP targeted a green area that is a historic and inseparable part of
the urban landscape. As customary, the undertaking construction firm for the
project was one that had a strong clientele relationship with the government
based on the usurpation of public funds. The park was in Taksim, the heart of the
urban, modern, secular, bohemian, leftist lifestyles that the government openly
despised and opposed as a separate Kulturkampf. In lieu of the park, the project
aimed to build yet another one of the shopping malls that proliferated during the
AKP era as sanctuaries of the consumption culture and the demand-based economy
supported by debt. Moreover, this facility would be realized as a recreation of an
Ottoman military post at its previous location and this military post has a historic
and symbolic meaning, as it was a base for the counter-revolution that was
developed as a reaction to the constitutional movement of those times by the
followers of a sultan who reigned during the last period of the empire and who is
mystified by AKP.
The timing of the movement’s eruption was also crucial. Having consolidated
power, the government was becoming increasingly authoritarian and ignoring
political traditions, and even laws, when it suited its interests. While the democratic
credentials of the country deteriorated, the AKP pushed a conservative, oppressive
rhetoric and laws on controversial issues like abortion, reproduction, and alcohol
consumption. The 2013 May 1st demonstrations in the Taksim Square had been
banned, leading to big clashes between the police and protesters. In the field of
foreign policy, an Islamist, even sectarian approach was becoming apparent espe-
cially regarding the ongoing civil war in Syria. These concerns, especially prevalent
among the Alevite minority in Turkey, were exacerbated by the terrorist bombing in
Reyhanli in May 2013. Finally, at the end of May, only two days before the protests,
began the construction of the third Bosphorus bridge which would largely destroy
the northern forests of the city. The bridge was announced to be named after Sultan
Selim I, a historical figure infamous for his Alevite massacres in the sixteenth
century and widely despised by the Alevite community.
Under these circumstances, many different segments of the society joined the
revolt. People who had not been once involved in a protest before went out on
112 M. Şahan
the streets. The coalition of such a wide array of wildly different and sometimes
opposing participants, groups, organizations, flags, and banners that came side-
by-side would be unimaginable to any close observer of the country prior to the
Gezi protests. The resulting picture was an organization of all the grievances, all
the colors of opposition united, just like it was aimed during the social forums
period. However, unlike its expectations, this unification did not happen around
separate movements slowly building up their separate agendas into a conducive
setting for the opposition. On the contrary, the protests developed very swiftly
against a political opponent and around political issues, in an atmosphere that
lacked any strong movements.
Contrary to expectations and certain claims, the participation of political organi-
zations in the resistance did not create a problem for the demonstrators. In fact, the
existence of politically motivated and seasoned activists who had prior experience
with the riot police proved to be an important motivating factor, especially in the
critical first night of the clashes. The Taksim Solidarity, united by the socially and
politically organized activists, received recognition by both demonstrators and the
public in general. These activists also played a key role in the swift and creative
handling of practical on-site issues such as food distribution and medical help for
the injured.
However, these skills in practical issues were not matched in the much-needed
political and strategic arena. The most popular slogans of the protests were “This is
just the beginning, continue the struggle!” and “Everywhere Taksim, everywhere
resistance”. Masses that took to the streets and radicalized in action were indeed
determined to maintain the resistance and to spread it as much as possible. They did
not leave the streets for 1 month and kept on taking to the streets in every occasion
for a while afterward. However, mobilization was not so sustainable, especially
against extremely severe measures of the government. People looked for ways to
continue the struggle and turned themselves towards organized structures—notably
Taksim Solidarity—for any suggestions, but could not find a legitimate actor that
could provide a strategic perspective. Local committees that appeared in some
localities after the regression of protests could not coordinate themselves and
develop a common tendency. One of the most-discussed topics in those committees
was the possibility of a political outcome, and it was even seriously discussed to
transform the resistance into a political party. However, unable to coordinate and
create their own tendency, those committees naturally lacked the common sense,
tools, and mechanism that could canalize the enormous emerging energy into a
permanent social and political channel. Thus, even though the riot left its mark and
big hopes in people’s minds, it died away without creating a remarkable transfor-
mation in the political and social scenes of Turkey.
6 Conclusion
In this article, we discussed an era where, after a big defeat and global regression, a
social movement raised once again with high hopes at the turn of the millennium.
Social movements and social forums that were designed as an open platform where
these movements come together in order to exchange information and ideas left
their mark on this era. However, this direct democracy initiative disregarded
political strategy and did not have the capacity to provide a common direction
and goal for social movements besides giving them the opportunity to discuss.
Therefore, social forums ended without being able to realize their claims such as
creating the globalization of people and the oppressed against capitalist global-
ization. This period took place with its own specific actors and features, but in a
similar way in Turkey. Even though there were certain suitable actors and mech-
anisms that could politicize what is social, socialize what is political, or, in other
terms, create a healthy and reciprocal link between those two areas, this could not
be done because of the exaggerated sensibility for the autonomy of social move-
ments. Believing that the main issue was the rise of social movements and that
opposition would find its way in its own flow once this happened, the line between
social and political blurred to the detriment of the latter.
I argued in this chapter that politicizing the social and socializing the political
does not necessarily mean to blur the distinction between these two fields that are in
close relation. Although a back-and-forth translation is ever needed, distinctions
and idiosyncrasies of these two fields, which both possess the spontaneous and the
voluntary at different levels, should be kept intact. They are neither a reflection nor
an extension of each other. Politics is not a movement of movements but an act of
merging movements around a central issue and orienting them. A political strategy
is needed to merge the structured and improvised, the spontaneous and the volun-
tary, the subjective and the objective, but ultimately the daily struggles and the
vision of an alternative project of society.
Hence, the Turkish social forums era ended without seeing a remarkable rise in
social movements, leaving behind political actors that have lost most of their
power, their link with social movements and their strategic perspective and some
fragmentary struggles that appear and disappear or keep existing with a low volume
individually. When the mass movement, public opposition, and collective action
capacity of society rose suddenly and unpredictably in June 2013, known actors of
social and political struggle were caught off guard. Contrary to popular belief, the
rising movement could not determine its orientation by itself, and, on the contrary,
it needed a political and strategic guidance. As an actor with such a capacity,
prepared for such a situation did not exist, the mass movement lost ground without
creating a concrete difference. During the most popular days of the riot, it was
written “It feels like revolution winked at us” on a banner in Gezi Park. This
intuitively very strong statement actually summarized the situation. Such historic
moments suddenly appear like a wink and disappear with the same speed. Political
114 M. Şahan
strategy means in some ways being prepared to capture those moments and
keeping on looking at the right spot.
Acknowledgments I would like to thank Reyhan Tuncay for her assistance.
References
Bensaı̈d, D. (2006). Sur le retour de la question politico-stratégique. Resource document.

Critique communiste. Retrieved from http://www.marxau21.fr/index.php?option¼com_content&
view¼article&id¼42:sur-le-retour-de-la-question-politico-strategique&catid¼60:marx-en-
politiques&Itemid¼83
Gill, S. (2000). Toward a postmodern prince? The battle in seattle as a moment in the new politics of
globalisation. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 29(1), 131–140.
Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Holloway, J. (2005). Change the world without taking power. London: Pluto Press.
Karakaş, S. N. (1992). Eylem G€ ugu€ (Diary of protestation). İstanbul: Metis.
unl€
Koç, Y. (1998). 100 Soruda T€ _ Sınıfı ve Sendikacılık Hareketi (Working class and the
urkiye’de Işçi
labour movement in Turkey in 100 questions). İstanbul: Gerçek.
Kürkçügil, M. (2006). Sosyal Forumlar ve Siyaset [Social forums and politics]. Yeniyol No. 22.
Istanbul: Yazın.
Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical democratic
politics (2nd ed.). London: Verso.
L€
owy, M. (2003). Towards a new international? International Viewpoint, No. 348. In J. Sen et al.
(Eds.), The world social forum: Challening empires. New Delhi: The Viveka Foundation.
Milliyet. (1989). (Turkish daily newspaper), May 2 and 3, 1989.
Ojeda, I. (2010). Beyond the World Social Forum. . .the Fifth International (Interview with
Eric Toussaint). Brasil de Fato (Brazilian weekly paper).
Worth, O., & Buckley, K. (2009). The World Social Forum: Postmodern prince or court jester?
Third World Quarterly, 30(4), 649–661.
Zizek, S. (2001). Have Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri rewritten the Communist Manifesto for
the twenty-first century? Rethinking Marxism, 3(4), 190–198.
Citizen Plenums in Bosnia Protests: Creating
a Post-Ethnic Identity
Nina Belyaeva
1 Introduction
It has been more than 2 years now since the mass protests in Bosnia. The protests started
with peaceful workers demonstration on February 5, 2014, in the industrial city of
Tuzla, and in 2 days spread all over the country. They manifested themselves in street
protests, clashes with police, setting government buildings on fire, as well as in the
emergence of peaceful and constructive citizen Plenums. The latter provided those
people in streets with an opportunity to voice their grievances, formulate their demands
and address the government of all levels. Such plenums were held in more than 15 cities
and towns of a small multi-ethnic country.
In early 2014, during the unprecedented mass street protests in the majority of the
sizable cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the news on clashes between protesters and
police was on the front pages of the global media, together with the dramatic pictures of
government buildings set on fire, including the Presidential residence. Some bloggers
took courage and called it the “Bosnian Uprising” (Shraibman 2014). Which of those
“revolutionary events” still matter today at the country level, and what theoretical
implications does this case have to offer in terms of the global protest movements and
practices of participatory democracy? What can we say about the unique features of the
“Bosnian Spring—Bosanko Project” and its possible lasting effects on a country’s
very rigid political regime, established by a controversial Dayton Agreement?
It had been widely recognized that some sort of a “Dayton Agreement” was
needed to put an immediate end to the devastating civil war. However, its rigidity
turned out to be counter-productive and locked the country into an everlasting
N. Belyaeva (*)
e-mail: nina.belyaeva@gmail.com

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_8
116 N. Belyaeva
ethno-national contestation. The new political institutions perform their functions

based on ethno-nationalistic suspicions, prejudices, and manipulations.
Ethnicity—both as a fact and its perception—still plays a crucial role in social life
and policy process. This develops mutual expectations that political and adminis-
trative structures, as well as citizens and their voluntary organizations, would act
according to their ethnic identity. This makes those groups and social initiatives
deeply divided, weak, and unable to build strong social coalitions for the common
goals.
Different social groups held pickets and engaged in other protest activities regularly
since 2009 after non-transparent and corrupt privatization of industrial enterprises
robbed many workers of their jobs. The picture changed considerably in 2014, when
other disadvantaged social groups, including students, jobless graduates, pensioners
and war veterans joined these regular workers’ protests out of solidarity. The crowd
became bigger and more diverse, both socially and ethnically.
These “solidarity rallies” in Tuzla and other cities that raised many painful demands
scared authorities so that they ordered security police to respond to demonstrators with
tear gas, arrests, and rubber bullets. Such a cruel response only exacerbated anger
among demonstrators and brought twice as many people to the streets, who hardened
their slogans and demanded government resignations. These protests did not die out on
the street but gave birth to a unique form of civil self-organization—plenums—that
started functioning as institutions of direct participatory democracy.
Judging by actions performed by Plenums and the documents that guide their
functioning, plenums’ role in protest events was not the same across different cities
and different parts of the country. Some plenums simply articulated citizens’ demands
to authorities, while others addressed their texts to the fellow-citizens, coordinating
their activities.
For example, one of the first Declarations of Sarajevo Plenum, issued on
February 9, condemned the street violence, calling on protesters to stop damages
with the words: “We ask our fellow citizens and fellow sufferers not to allow these
unpleasant scenes to cloud the fact that this kind of government and those in power
have cost us immeasurably more” (Bosnia Herzegovina Protest Files 2014a, b, c).
The Manifesto of the Plenum of the Citizens of Tuzla Canton, after the resignation
of Canton Government, addressed their demands to the Assembly of Tuzla Canton
to keep “their constitutional responsibilities to ensure the safety of all participants
engaged in protests.” (Bosnia Herzegovina Protest Files 2014a).
On the second week of protests, Plenums—in certain big cities such as Tuzla and
Sarajevo—started to function as alternative executive bodies, creating multiple
Working Committees on economic, social, cultural, and security issues. Those
working groups basically created and implemented their own decisions, e.g., restor-
ing damages caused by violent clashes, or providing legal aid for those protest
participants who were arrested. In this way, plenums presented themselves as new,
citizen-based, bottom-up authoritative bodies whose legitimacy was ensured by
their opened character and citizen support.
In late 2016, we do not see the “system of Plenums” functioning throughout
Bosnia and Herzegovina. In fact, the latest document, which is available to us
Citizen Plenums in Bosnia Protests: Creating a Post-Ethnic Identity 117
through the website that collects all Plenum materials from different cities, is dated
May 19, 2014. The document mostly dealt with the issue of a dramatic flood which
was reported to be the worst in the last 120 years, where 40,000 people had to be
evacuated from the flood zone. Plenum participants in Sarajevo and Tuzla were
very effective in the immediate collection of humanitarian aid and provided vol-
unteers to those who had to leave their homes. Plenum participants criticized both
local and central governments for their inefficiency in both prevention and post-
flood measures, demanding to transfer huge salaries of authorities to those suffered
by floods, and devoted all their volunteer participants to collect humanitarian aid
and provide direct help in restoring flood damages, which resulted in the cessation
of their activity. There is not much evidence of Plenum activities since then, even
after the elections in October 2014, which reproduced an ethnic-based party system.
Does this mean that all the protests and Plenum activities in 2014 have vanished?
Has there been any impact that Plenum exerted on its participants, citizens in general,
and the political process in BiH and its institutions? In this chapter we will answer
these questions by exploring major features of public self-organization during two
different waves of protest activities, allegorically referred to as “Baby Revolution” and
“Hunger Revolution”. We will analyze protest activities, forms, mottos, and strategies
they used, including rhetorical re-organization of protest spaces into a constructive
debate and a search for solutions. We will create a portrait of protest participants and
reveal their motives. We will devote considerable attention to Plenums. Our major
hypothesis is that Plenums represented an important grass-root volunteer political
institution which was instrumental to create supra-ethnic citizenship identity of their
participants, which is hard to overestimate given the tragic traces of ethno-national
cleavages, and created a legitimate “secure space” for participatory democracy.
2 Diverse Opinions on Plenum Results and Main Argument
The Constitution of BiH and its electoral rule, since Dayton Accords, were established
around power-sharing principles of consociation democracy. The constitution cate-
gorically describes three constituent national identities, based on three constituent
nations—Bosnian, Croat and Serb—along with “others”, which is an ambiguous and
excluded category with much less representation. The existing political environment is
also dominated by ethno-nationalist political parties that mobilize their members along
ethno-nationalist lines, which helps to sustain the divided society. The people are
exposed to ethno-political tensions and fragmentation, in which other identities,
minority groups, and even “citizens” are excluded from the polity and partially from
civil society.
On the other side, during the last 2 years, protesters attempted to replace this
imaginary ethno-territorial antagonism, which polarized the society in hostility and
kept the individuals disassociated from the political sphere because of the hege-
mony of ethnic representation. After 15 years of pacification and fragmentation,
especially in big cities, people took to the streets in large numbers and burned the
118 N. Belyaeva
fire of uprising in BiH. The two waves of recent protests in 2013 and especially
the 2014 February protests and the following Plenum experiences undoubtedly
influenced the political environment.
Because the Plenums were quite a unique phenomenon of protesters’ self-
organization, happening simultaneously in more than a dozen cities Sarajevo, Tuzla,
Zenica, Bugoino, Mostar, Travnik, Brcko, Gorazde, Konjic, Kazin, Donji Vakuf,
Fojnica, Orasje (Shraibman 2014), and several others, they garnered a lot of attention
from media, public intellectuals, and academic scholars, whose attitudes are quite
diverse—it makes it worth it to provide a brief review of the major attitude and analysis
existing on this matter.
At the rise of the second wave of protests there was a considerable difference
between the voice of International Media—both English speaking and Russian
speaking—that reacted to both protests and emerging Plenums with explicit enthu-
siasm, which is obvious from their publication titles—from “Protest assemblies
plant seeds for a Bosnian Spring”(Nazar 2014) to “Bosniyskaya Vesna” (“Bosnian
Spring”), which clearly establishes parallels with “Arab Spring” mass protests that
had enough energy to transform political systems in their countries (Kuge 2014), in
an even more explicit “Bosnia: Vsia Vlast Plenumam?” (“Bosnia: All Power to
Plenums?” in Russian), which is hinting at a very well-known slogan from Russian
October Bolshevic Revolution “All power to Soviets!” (Shraibman 2014), when
protesting worker’s assemblies did, in fact, provide the model of the future
governing structure of Soviet Republics and were functioning till the collapse of
the USSR. Such enthusiasm was powered by the broadening of Plenum activities in
February and March when more plenums emerged, particularly in the Federation of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and their demands became more structured and more
decisive.
While the attitude of scholars was more cautious and even skeptical, like the one
of long-term scholar of the region Florian Bieber, who is referring to another
scholar of the region, Heleen Toquet, and her thorough study of citizen attempts
to build collectivity beyond ethno-national divisions (Bieber 2013, p. 38), Bieber
explains his skepticism by the fact that those post-ethnic groups “have largely
failed, because they have been unable to build a genuine cross-ethnic constituency,
or the country agenda, that would make it difficult for existing elites to dismiss
or ignore them” (Bieber 2013, p. 38). Bieber also points out another obstacle to
making protest movement effective: “how to translate” citizen assemblies into
“political option”. Scholar believes, that citizen movements are able to create an
agenda, but “change has to come from Political system (unless it is overthrown in a
revolution” (Bieber 2013, p. 38).
Other scholars who analyzed BiH protests 1 year later, like Chiara Milan, who
made a comprehensive overview of protest reasons, their social composition and
various organizational formats, also make a special focus on Plenums, which she
describes as “self-organized platforms for the articulation of citizens’ demands”
(Milan 2015, p. 1).
In her conclusions she suggested “an overview of results” (Milan 2015, p. 7) where
she lists both important accomplishments of protests as well as their “limitations”, that
had caused low participation in “commemoration of events”, on February 5, 2015,

and factors, contributing to what she calls “failure of the movement to maintain its
momentum” (Milan 2015, p. 8).
Among the reasons for its failure, she considers “Spontaneity”, “Lack of mean-
ingful sustained grassroots activism”, “Unclear strategy” of the Plenums and the
lack of coordination between them regarding the “role they should play” (Milan
2015, p. 8). Milan further explains that at the beginning Plenums “represented a
form of legitimate counter-power”, but they “proved unable to transform into a
real alternative, remaining mainly a place for the expression of dissatisfaction.”
Milan is referring here to the text of Goran Marcovic (Milan 2015, p. 8).
It is hard to disagree with obvious facts, that elections in 2015 did not bring the
change many were hoping for, and BiH is still ruled by the same political elites.
Therefore some participants consider the results of the Plenums as “a failure”, but,
others see them as a very important beginning of the societal transformation, including
discovery of the power of cross-ethnic mobilization and building new post-ethnic
identity.
Asim Mujkic, professor at the University of Sarajevo, is one of the academic
authors who had endorsed and promoted Plenums as soon as they convened in
Sarajevo, and he ducks the very different optic while looking at the protests and
Plenums—from the position of “new social class”, multitude, and social class
crystallization.
Mujkic (2014) argues that Dayton-era BiH should be “better viewed as consisting
not of the three constituent ethnic peoples but of the two constituent classes: the class
of agents of ethno-political entrepreneurship and the class of objects of these
entrepreneurs appropriation”. Elaborating further, the scholar argues, that protesters
were able to create “rebellious multitude”, consisting of “various groups of citizens
from the margins of social life, the grass roots of civil society, established horizontal
assemblies—the plenums—as an assembly of networks of solidarity and a form of
directly democratic political participation.” (Mujkic 2014, p. 631) Multitude in this
context “can act ‘as one’, but preserves the differences and autonomy of its segments
and their plurality of singularities. And when they ‘coordinate their desires . . . a
political subject emerges’” (Douzinas 2013, p. 123). In other words, a genuine demo
is born (Mujkic 2014, p. 633).
Scholar elaborates further, that diverse BiH protesters “managed to widen existing,
and very narrow, field of the political, transcending thereby the hegemonic line of
confrontation from ethnicity to class, but throughout and after the protests, what has
been crystallized is the hegemonic position of a united ethno-political entrepreneurs’
class who share the same interests and indeed cooperate in most regards”. Following
his analysis, Mujkic has a direct suggestion for BiH political transformation: “What
remains as the clear task ahead is to crystallize the oppressed position of the frag-
mented, mutually conflicted and disunited citizens, held in subjection through domi-
nation by the resulting wars of identity” (Mujkic 2014, p. 635).
While the debate on new social class formation is beyond the scope of this
chapter, we want to deeply agree on the other statement—about the fact that ruling
elite in BiH use the ethnic identity politics for regular manipulation of the oppressed
120 N. Belyaeva
and marginalized, and that unique contribution of Plenums was to reject “wars
of identity” by providing a space for citizen identity formation instead—and
together—with ethnic one, which provides for the optimistic view of possible future
developments.
Another example of optimistic vision is provided in a solid research work by
Ismet Seifija and Danica Fink-Hafner, which was published in 2016 after more than
2 years of Bosnian Spring events, but observing no change in the current governing
system in BiH. But still, in assessing the roles of protests and Plenums for the future
of BiH, they deliberately avoid the word “failure”, stressing their positive and long-
term impact—both on BiH society and on scholarly understanding, how the very
model of consociation democracy can work and which limitations it has in Eastern
European countries. Ismet Sejfija and Danica Fink-Hafner see Bosnian protests as a
strong argument against the functioning of consociational systems, where they are
not regularly monitored and pressured by citizens and different forms of citizen
organization. In their conclusions, they stress that “political elites need to be res-
ponsive and earn their legitimacy in macro policy matters, as well as on policy
issues, which matter to citizens at the local level” (Sejfija and Fink-Hafner 2016,
p. 198). They also make a warning that during European economic crisis, new
political crisis may emerge in BiH, which will “determine the timing and scope of
new protests against non-functional elites, as well determine the emergence of
alternative forms of political engagement” (Sejfija and Fink-Hafner 2016, p. 198).
Speaking of the key international actors during such crisis, they did not find the
reasons why the international community should continue subsidizing ineffective
and self-serving elites, and point out that “external pressure to liberalize the eco-
nomy as well as to fund the petrified political elites through international loans,
must be rethought” (Sejfija and Fink-Hafner 2016, p. 198).
The last study to be mentioned is the one by Cera Murtagh from Edinburgh
University, which focuses on civic mobilizations—in plural—in divided societies,
and explores, how they “navigate their ethnopolitical frameworks and assess their
capacity to effect civic political change” (Murtagh 2016, p. 149) The author considers
“protests” and “plenums” together, as a certain form of mobilization, calling it “Plenum
Movement”, and argues that this movement was rather successful because it proved to
be able to “adapt” to ethnically divided political environment. According to the author,
it was possible “by adopting an approach of limited political engagement and that,
rather than trying to effect short-term political change, it chose to pursue a long-term
shift in civic consciousness.”
The last argument—on deliberately avoiding political engagement—is particularly
remarkable compared to previously cited opinions, that it was a lack of providing a
clear political alternative, which was one of the “reasons of failure”. Describing the
outcomes of the Plenum Movement in 2014, Murtagh summarized both short-term
results and long-lasting effects (Murtagh 2016, p. 149).
Bosnia’s 2014 mobilization can be observed to have effected direct change. On
the level of policy change, as outlined, four cantonal governments resigned in the
wake of the protests and some agreed to end certain benefits for representatives. In
terms of networks, an informal activist network, the Movement for Social Justice,
was established in late 2014. Furthermore, a new independent trade union Sindikat
Solidarnosti (Union of Solidarity), aimed at bringing together workers of different
ethnic identities, formed out of the mobilization in Tuzla. Moreover, the incarnation
of the plenum as an instrument of direct democracy—reportedly still active in some
areas at the time of writing—could serve as an infrastructure that is returned to in
the future, and some activists have predicted a second wave.
Rather, the core purpose articulated in interviews was a fundamental shift in
political discourse and civic consciousness. The most powerful development occurred
in the minds of the citizens, many argued, as they reclaimed their political agency and
started to believe change to be possible.
The plenum thus represented the positive creation of an alternative forum for political
engagement (Gordy 2014, p. 112), the “plenums rescued politics itself . . . returned into
the public domain as a common concern” (Arsenijevic 2014, p. 7). The view was
articulated in interviews that this embryonic movement must be allowed to develop in
this vein before it could be catalyzed into a political category to engage in the system.
Any attempt to do so in the current ethnopolitical environment would inevitably divide
and destroy it. Mujkic captures this view: “Just because it is the demos, the Plenum must
remain out of the ethnically dominated system; otherwise, it will end up as ethnos”
(Mujkic 2014, p. 22).
Plenums—open discussion spaces organized by protesters in many cities, where
everyone was treated equal and was welcome to participate with others in develop-
ing joint statements and demands toward power structures—made a significant
impact on the political environment in B & H. In our opinion, it is Plenum experience
that made protests in this country so special and worth deeper analysis. It is various
Plenum activities, which in some cities took place regularly for several months,
which proved that the society, conventionally viewed and described for years as
apolitical, with deep apathy and mistrust to political institutions during elections, has
demonstrated its ability to self-organize expeditiously for a joint political action and
beyond the framework of ethno-political parties.
Many Plenums, gathering hundreds of concerned citizens, can also serve as
proof that there is no gap between apathy and organized collective political action.
If citizens voice their demands and the existing governing structures do not provide
effective channels of representation, citizens are able to invent new forms of a more
direct or participatory democracy.
3 First Wave of Protests: “Baby Revolution”— Creating

Supra-National Identity
The very expression “wave of protests” implies that (a) events take place in cycles, with
a low start, active rise, uncontrolled escalation, culmination, and gradual decline
of intensity of activities, and (b) the transformation process is long and complex,
122 N. Belyaeva
protesting activities may have changing targets, and prime actors and drivers of such
transformation are changing as well.
In this chapter, we choose to cover only two waves of recent protests in BiH,
which were able to involve massive participation and are connected to each other, at
least through timing. However, our main research goal—to identify steps that BiH
society is going through for creating a new supra-ethnic identity, built on the
notions of citizen and citizenship—requires that we also briefly cover pre-courser
of the first wave, a number of citizen protests in Sarajevo in 2009.
What is known as the first wave of the protests in BiH began in Sarajevo in
spring 2013. The protests were for the most part non-political, but social, demand-
ing that authorities fulfill their direct duties, such as formally registering newborns
and providing their parents with all necessary documents. This is why the protest
was nicknamed the “Baby Revolution” or “Bebylucija” in the native language. It is
not surprising that protecting kids against bureaucratic machinery generated a broad
social base for those protests. People of both subjects of Federation, Bosnia and
Herzegovina and Republica Srpska, were remarkably united in their demands.
Regardless of an administrative region, ethnicity or religion, people came out to
the streets to demonstrate their anger and a deep mistrust of government, which
proved unable to provide basic public goods.
The triggering event was the case of a 3-month-old baby, one of more than 3000
newborns in BiH who lacked access to public and most importantly medical services
because of a political crisis regarding ID numbers. One may be surprised: how is it
possible that registering babies could become political and cause a stalemate in
governance? But in BiH, where political and administrative structure is very com-
plex and ethnically divided, each amendment to the Federal Legislation has to be
approved by formal representatives of three constitutive nations—Bosniak, Serbs,
and Croats.
In this case, the prior regulation of assigning individual ID numbers expired on
February 12, but the new one was still under debate. While Bosnian and Serb
representatives demanded that the new ID numbers should mention two subjects
of the Federation—Bosniak-Croat Federation and Republica Srpska—Bosniak and
Croat representatives disagreed, and both parties refused to compromise. All the
babies born after February 12 were denied ID numbers.
Protests began on June 5, 2013, after the news spread through social media that
Belmina, a 3-month-old girl who needed to leave abroad for urgent medical treat-
ment, was restricted from crossing the border because of the lack of an ID number
and thus a passport. A group of concerned citizens gathered to protest in front of the
parliamentary building, but the government was dismissive and the number of
protesters grew further. “Within days, 3,000 protesters had formed a human chain
around the Parliament, refusing to allow parliamentarians, politicians, or foreign
dignitaries from leaving, until a new Law had been adopted, or until, as they said,
politicians finally did the job they were paid to do” (Gocmanac 2013).
According to Radio Free Europe, up to 10,000 people (Radio Free Europe 2016)
took part in the June 11 protest, demanding a new law on registration to be passed
without further delay. Participants were of very diverse origins—in terms of age,
religion, or ethnicity—and their demands were addressed not only to their ethnic
representatives, but to politicians of all three constituting nations, demanding that
they discuss, cooperate and search for compromises.
The protest had reached its highest level after Belmina’s death was announced
on June 17; the protest activities had risen to its highest numbers—as reported by
Edin Dedovic, there were more than 10,000 participants in this protest (Dedovic
2013) that had spread to all the major cities around the country in both entities and
several cantons.
Within a short time, protesters began addressing other issues such as corruption,
inequality and incompetence of the political elite regardless of their ethnicity or
territory they represent. The same cross-ethnic characteristics were observed among
protesters creating a very new social practice—unity of demands despite the obvious
diversity of social and ethnic groups, which gradually learn to recognize each other as
equals. This is often referred to as multiplicity (Cambridge Dictionary).
Edin Dedovic described the multiplicity in his article as: “While media coverage
across the world has focused on Taksim Square and developments in Turkey, 1000 km
away mothers with their pushchairs are joined by students, taxi drivers, the elderly—be
they Bosniak, Croat or Serb—to finally speak up against what seemed to be the blatant
indifference of politicians to the wellbeing of the most vulnerable in society” (Dedovic
2013). This, the most active part of society, taught their leadership a lesson of partici-
patory democracy, and the BiH State Government—the Council of Ministers—finally
issued a temporary decree and babies were registered. This ended the protests.
To sum up, the major features of the “baby revolution” are the following: it was
organized spontaneously, from the bottom up, by citizens themselves, without any
leadership of a political party or any particular ethnic or religious organization. This
contributed to the creation of a supra-ethnic space of human solidarity and provided
a unique atmosphere of citizen-driven activities, where neither ethnic nor religious
identity played a role or was relevant.
As Keil and Moore commented on participants, “most protesters around Parlia-
ment were Bosniak residents of Sarajevo, but demonstrators were not using
national slogans, and groups from Republica Srpska and Zagreb also come to join
the protests in Sarajevo.” (Keil and Moore 2014, p. 58).
Despite the attempts of rivaling politicians to use nationalist rhetoric and their
usual tactic of enemy-seeking, raising suspicions of one ethnic group against the
other, participants did not follow this provocation. Bebylucija protesters made their
deliberate decision not to create any new political party and to remain independent
from any existing party. Politicians did not like it and criticized citizens for being
weak, inconsistent, and short-lived. For example, Dennis Gratz—president of the
multi-ethnic party Naša Stranka—believes protesters were playing a “dangerous
game” by compounding all parties into one target, leaving their group detached,
isolated, and powerless (Toè 2013).
However, by preventing citizens from gaining access to the basic citizenship
right of a registration number, ethno-nationalist political elites “provoked an un-
expected reaction: they provided citizens with a common enemy by giving political
124 N. Belyaeva
meaning to what they strived to destroy—namely the common citizenship of all

Bosnians and Herzegovinians” (Keil and Moore 2014, p. 58).
Organizers and activists cherished hopes that the “Baby Revolution”, because
of its social and humanitarian nature, its ability to mobilize supporters around the
whole country, and its ethnical neutrality, could be considered as a starting point
of a really strong, country-wide movement for reforming ineffective governance
structures. However, some analysts were quite pessimistic about it, stating that
“chances of success for this civic movement to influence the political system, were
always questioned by those who see the institutional system designed by the
Dayton Agreement as effectively paralyzing political life on ethnic grounds.”
(Keil and Moore 2014, p. 58).
It is without a shadow of a doubt that successful socio-political transformational
and institutional building requires creating a new collective identity that would be
positive, unifying, and free from ethnic cleavages. To build such an identity is not
an easy task and it needs time and an organized effort. Were “Baby Revolution”
participants the first to create such an identity, or were there any earlier attempts?
At this point, the 2008 lasting protests after the murder of Denis Mrnjavac, a
teenage boy of Croatian origin, are worth mentioning. Helen Touquet calls such
spontaneous grassroots non-ethnic mobilization in deeply divided societies “excep-
tional” because they happen so rarely. She states that “this case provides an excellent
focus for research on how people generate new, non-ethnic political contexts in a
highly ethicized environment” (Touquet 2015, p. 389). She also believes that ethnic-
free mobilization and protest activities around Mrnjavac murder “can be regarded as
a precursor to the 2013 ‘baby revolution’, when some of the groups involved in the
2008 demonstrations (that were held from February to May 2008 in Sarajevo only)
mobilized citizens all over Bosnia” (Touquet 2015, p. 389).
Touquet believes that “mobilization began—after three teenagers had confronted
Mrnjavac on a tram in Sarajevo and one of them stabbed him with knife . . . killers
were caught within hours, but, because of the lack of correctional facilities, had to be
released” (Touquet 2015, p. 389). This case triggered thousands of Sarajevo citizens
to a spontaneous protest against the murder and inefficiency of authorities, who
failed to ensure safety in the city and its public transport. Protesters demanded
resignation of Sarajevo Mayor Semiha Borovac and Canton Prime Minister Samir
Silajdzic. Although members of two NGOs—“Dosta” (Enough) and “Grozd”
(Grape)—helped organize the protests, most participants were ordinary citizens.
Over time the mob grew into a loosely organized group that participated in meetings
and also interacted in online forums on local website Sarajevo-x.com, calling
themselves Gradjani Sarajeva (Citizens of Sarajevo). Basically, they became the
main organizer of further actions.
What is remarkable about this case is that through meetings, pickets, rallies,
messages in the traditional media and the issue of their own paper “Gradjanin”,
those activists that later changed their name to “Akcija Gradijana” (Citizen Action),
were struggling to construct a collective identity that would “resonate” with a
broader group that could join the protests. What they were able to achieve is
visually presented by Table 1.
Table 1 Protest events in Sarajevo, early 2008 (Touquet 2015, p. 391)

Attendance
according to
Event Date Particular features newspaper Organizers
Protest walk 9 February First protest Thousands Dosta and
(protesters (Nezavisne Grozd,
walked across Novine; spontaneous
the city) Dnevni Avaz)
Protest walk 13 February Violence Thousands Dosta and
(Nezavisne Grozd,
Novine) “forumasi”
Protest walk 16 February Hundreds Officially
(Nezavisne no
Novine) organizers
Protest walk 23 February Support from BH Dani 2500 Officially
(Nezavisne no
Novine) organizers
Protest walk 1 March 600 Officially
(Nezavisne no
Novine) organizers
Ironic protest: 7 March Press statement called “exter- – Officially
snowmen nal elements fall from the no
holding protest skies”—refers to cantonal organizers
banner government statement
Protest walk, 29 March Demonstrators collected Hundreds Gradjani
petition 21,000 signatures against (Nezavisne Sarajeva
Borovac and Silajdzic Novine)
Protest 6 April— Conflict with cantonal gov- Gradjani
Liberation ernment who forbade the Sarajeva
Day protest
Protest 9 May— Called a Gradjani
Day of Vic- “token pro- Sarajeva
tory over test”—low
Fascism attendance
4 Second Wave of Protest: “Hunger Revolution”—Reasons

and Triggers
The first reaction of collective political activities, including massive street protests,
especially violent actions, is usually given by mass media, in particular—global
media, who can afford to keep their news bureaus in most of the countries and write
their news columns after their observers witness the events and take in-depth
interviews. The phrases they use to describe events are immediately transferred to
other global media, and in this sense, events are already “labeled”, as the others
will, at least for some time, repeat and deepen the image using the same rhetoric.
The Newsweek Global published a text by Janine Di Giovanni under quite a
dramatic title: Bosnia’s corrupt rulers hit by an angry “Citizen Tsunami” “and
126 N. Belyaeva
asking its central question, use a very distinctive word: ‘What triggered the riots?’”
Now “riots” became a political boilerplate, regardless of whether it was actually an
accurate description. But those interviewed seem to be in agreement with such a
definition, as many citizens, observing government buildings on fire, feel really
scared because it reminded them of the 3-year siege of Sarajevo during the last war.
When asked about the reasons for unrest and violence in the streets, local respon-
dents seem to agree on the main reasons, which are unemployment, low wages,
nepotism, ineffective governance, non-transparency, criminal privatization, and
unbelievable corruption at all levels of the state apparatus. The most common
answer was: “There are so many valid reasons to protest in Bosnia!” (Giovanni
2014, p. 35). Local people are infuriated with Bosnian Federation officials, who are
overpaid, corrupt, incompetent, and self-serving. While the average wage in Sarajevo
is about 400 euro a month, government officials establish their own salaries at 10 times
that amount (Giovanni 2014, p. 35).
There are several major reasons for public range and anger in BiH that are deep
and lasting since the very adoption of Daton Agreement, which analysts, like Larisa
Kurtovic, long-term researcher of the region, see as “post-socialist economic trans-
formation” (Kurtović 2015, p. 639). In her research, Kurtovic proves that rushed
privatization brought in a new system of “redistribution” and that “Dayton-struc-
tured reforms did not just produce the unsustainable consociation model of power
sharing, but they also enabled new forms of structural violence and created new
(trans-ethnic) surplus populations, that cannot be accommodated within the existing
(and largely clientelist) regimes of redistribution” (Kurtović 2015, p. 641).
National elites of BiH are only worsening economic decline while continuing to
hold on to dysfunctional governance system and endorsing irresponsible behavior of
ethno-national ruling parties, who engaged with big business in non-transparent
privatization of the largest state enterprises, which resulted in massive loss of jobs
and dramatic fall in quality of life. The latter has to do with another reason, mass
unemployment of around 25 and 30% (Gale 2007), which is the highest in the Balkan
region. Moreover, more than 20% of the population is involved in the “shadow
economy”, and every fifth person is living below the poverty line; the average
monthly salary is around 420 euro (Worldbulletin 2013).
The exact trigger that sparked street riots in Tuzla was the massive lay-off of
workers in Tuzla, which is the third biggest city in BiH, where most industrial
factories are concentrated. On February 3–4, there were peaceful meetings of
workers demanding delayed salaries, but because no reaction either from company’s
elites, or the administration followed, starting on February 5 protesters took to the
streets of Tuzla. Other deprived social groups—from students to war veterans—
joined them, trying to storm government buildings, which caused clashes with
local police.
Given the context, such social unrest makes perfect sense. But it is profoundly
worrying. It is the protracted dire socio-economic situation (for instance, over a
quarter of the potential workforce is effectively unemployed (International Mone-
tary Fund 2014), and the unemployment rate is much higher for youth) that drove
the recent demonstrations, rather than ethnic nationalism. The destructive socio-
economic effect of government policies, along with top-down, systemic corruption

based on access to institutional resources, are determining factors of everyday life.
Citizens have given up on being able to foment social progress through represen-
tative politics; governing institutions are neither genuinely representative, nor do
they perform their institutional roles. Yet desperately-needed political alternatives
are difficult to forge in the current structural environment. This explains what seems
to be a civic confrontation with the entire Dayton establishment: political elites,
governments, and state institutions altogether.
What several witnesses observed in the streets of Sarajevo from the beginning to
mid-February looked like “leaderless social anger.” This is how an observer described
protest anticipants: “neither composed of unified groups behind a common agenda nor
generating new leaders. In Tuzla, protests assembled groups which had never aligned
before: workers from four bankrupt, former socialist companies; trade unions that
traditionally have failed to become an autonomous, socially potent actor in post-war
Bosnia because of their traditional dependency on links with the ruling party(s);
associations of unemployed that normally receive no solidarity from trade unions;
previously marginal Facebook activists; and soccer hooligans” (Bassuener and Weber
2014, p. 4).
I consider the word “hooligans” very important in creating the whole discourse
of protest description in the traditional media—both in Bosnia and from abroad, as
this allowed Bosnian Prime Minister Nermin Niksic to take this word as a “cogni-
tive frame” and relaunch it in his own address to the people, stating that protesters
are nothing more than a bunch of hooligans, and they have to be dealt with
accordingly.
For a non-involved stranger, it is hard to find clearly identifiable causes that
bring these mentioned protest groups—from students to war veterans—to join in
together, as their interests and demands are very diverse. This is why it is hard to
call the participants a “movement” or even “pseudo-movement”. Rather, they are
“protests publics”—protesters who have different reasons to protest but prefer
to join other groups to feel some “common identity” of “unsatisfied citizens”—
regardless of their age education, religion or ethnicity (Warner 2002, pp. 53, 56,
58, 76).
According to Newsweek: “One company was bought by the workers, while
another was also bought by the workers who later sold their company to another
enterprise; in both cases the companies only later went bankrupt. Consequently,
there are no unifying, clearly identifiable political demands originating from the
protesters.”1
There is, however, a remarkable absence of one distinct political theme—while
at least parts of the protesters seem to have been inspired by ongoing protests in
1
Indeed, various citizens’ proclamations have started to appear in the days following the Friday
violent clashes. Demands contained ask for governments to step down, privatization of enterprises
to be reversed, government officials to have their salaries reduced substantially, and for arrested
demonstrators to be released. See for example: Mujanovic (2014), http://www.jasminmujanovic.
com/1/post/2014/02/the-demands-of-the-people-of-tuzla-sarajevo-english.html.
128 N. Belyaeva
Ukraine,2 yet unlike demonstrators in Kiev, none of the protesters in the two dozen
cities in BiH appealed to the EU or advocated the country’s EU perspective as a
path out of their misery (Bassuener and Weber 2014, p. 4).
During in-depth interviews many young people were referring to the February
protests with different interpretations, impressions, and expectations. Protest par-
ticipants were not outer agents or disconnected representatives, but rather insiders
and participants who refer to fellow protesters as “we” and to politicians as “them”
or rivals on a political dimension, not ethnic. The response of Hana Obradoviy,3 a
young feminist activist from Mostard who was a student in Sarajevo during the
protests, to the question about her personal engagement in protests as below shows
her motivation and participation with multi-layer identities: “Having in mind limited
resources and a limited number of actively engaged citizens, an activist can be basically
anyone who does not fit into the system and strongly affiliates necessity towards a
better and more fair position. My role in the protest and plenums was firstly one of an
unsatisfied citizen, secondly a graduate student with two BA diplomas, unemployed as
many of my fellow colleagues.”
Despite the violence that was triggered by police’s cruel response, the February
protests did not aim to destroy or restructure the government or radically change the
political system. The protesters demand that necessary policy reforms should be
implemented and public goods should be provided. What scares political elites the
most, as Inela Hadzic described,4 was perhaps not only fear of physical attacks on
the institution buildings but also losing the power of hegemonic ethno-nationalist
discourse. Despite the mainstream media manipulations and efforts made on the
side of politicians, protesters succeeded at disseminating rhetoric based on ethnic
antagonism, and brought a new narrative fueled by an agonistic understanding
between citizens and political elites.
On the one side, the repertoire of strategies in the Bosnian protests is very common
around the world: from picketing and peaceful rallies to clashes with police, storming
government buildings, and setting them on fire. However, these protests have several
distinguishing features: a shift in hegemonic rhetoric (from exclusionary, ethno-political
rhetoric to solidarity-based inclusionary rhetoric); direct democracy practices through
agenda setting and participation in Plenum sessions; long-term vs short-term mobilizing
capacity of the protests; and common links with global protest movements.
One of the achievements of the protests was undoubtedly allowing the citizens to
build a pluralist multitude instead of a non-functional and discriminatory categorization
of ethno-nationalism. Mujkic had a chance to observe and participate in this process,
2
In Tuzla, one of the leaders of the protests named his Facebook group after Ukraine opposition
leader and champion boxer Vitali Klitschko’s party—Udar (“punch”).
3
There were four in-depth interviews with protest activists taken in Sarajevo in January 2015
within the research project “Minorities role in protest activities”, organized by Public Policy
department in cooperation with University of Sarajevo.
4
Interview with Inela Hadzic: “They were afraid, really afraid . . . they did not come to work for
3 months or more, because they were afraid that there would be attack to institutions from
protesters. They called the protesters ‘hooligans’. There were really massive protests.”
and described it as the following: “the protests were outstanding opportunities for
citizens in direct physical contact—in the streets, on the squares, in the plenums—to
‘recognize’ themselves in the multitude and therefore to see themselves as political
agents, to become aware of themselves as active shareholders in a collective civic
subjectivity capable of expressing its will in the midst of its internal differences”
(Mujkic 2014, pp. 226–227).
In his article in The Guardian, Slavoj Zizek also emphasized this issue: “In one
of the photos from the protests, we see the demonstrators waving three flags side by
side: Bosnian, Serb, Croat, expressing the will to ignore ethnic differences. In short,
we are dealing with a rebellion against nationalist elites: the people of Bosnia have
finally understood who their true enemy is not other ethnic groups, but their own
leaders who pretend to protect them from others. It is as if the old and much-abused
Titoist motto of the ‘brotherhood and unity’ of Yugoslav nations acquired new
actuality” (Zizek 2014).
5 Citizen Plenums: Initiating Mechanisms of Participatory

Democracy
“The joint discussions during the plenums and physically sharing the same space/
venue, despite their differences and even contentious or antagonistic positions, also
contributed the inclusive, collective citizenship formation.” As Janeković also
mentions, “the plenums have initiated the process of re-membering, of putting life
back together as a ‘collective thinking of politics’.” (Vasic-Janekovic 2014, p. 171).
Although plenums were not active for a long time (from February to May) and most
active Plenums took place in big cities such as Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zenica Bugojno.
Mostar, Travnik, Barchek, Gorazde, Konetze, Sonetse, done wakufe Portiere, and
Aurashiye (Shraibman 2014), we believe that the very emergence of such plenums is
telling.
Robert Dahl, among other scholars of democracy studies, emphasized the crucial
role of direct democracy practices as an indispensable requirement of democrat-
ization. He describes direct democracy requirements based on two criteria, i.e.,
control of the agenda and effective participation: “institutional terms, this implies
in turn the necessity of at least some of: (a) direct, face-to-face assemblies of citizens
for deliberation and decision, (b) an equivalent to face-to-face assemblies conducted
by ‘virtual’ means, or (c) referendums in which citizens record directly and deci-
sively their preferences on issue” (Dahl 1997, p. 56).
Collective thinking of politics by recognizing each other with differences is also
crucial for establishing individual subjectivities. Remembering is a social process of
building a new layer of identity, the important feature of which is self-determination
gained through direct participation and agenda-setting capability.
One of the indicators of the participatory, direct democracy practices was citi-
zens’ own capability of reframing their public interests independently of ethnic
130 N. Belyaeva
interests—or ad-hoc concerns—that were speculated by political elites. Protesters

whether they acted on their own or represented the greater community, experienced
personal involvement in the decision-making process, gasping for alternative policy
solutions and taking direct actions, debating with equals, and voting both on the
Plenum session agenda and on its resolutions.
Combining this individual influence with collective political thinking capacity, the
front banners during the protests “We are hungry in all three languages,” “Reverse
corrupt privatization” and “End nationalism” spoke clearly about re-framed interests
and new political priorities—freedom, justice, and a better life. Tatjana Sekulic, quoted
from an interview with philosopher Milorad Živanović who is from the University of
Banja Luka, which I found as a precious observation from the Republic of Srpska: “I
think that Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the Republic of Srpska, won’t be the
same anymore. The achievements of the Plenums, forums and other forms of direct
democracy are the signs that people don’t want just to watch, living their lives as a part
of crowd; they don’t want any more to be enclosed in their ethnonational core . . . They
would like to get back their dignity, if possible, to eliminate the humiliation as a
common trait of their actual condition.” (Sekulic 2014).
Another activist from Tuzla, Emina Busuladžić explains why they formed
Plenum in Tuzla following the protests: “Because it consisted of honest, decent,
educated youth, young people that I knew, those who were following us through the
struggle to save Dita, to save jobs; youth I trusted, smart, stubborn, persistent,
fearless young people. While riot police hurled their truncheons and tear gas at us,
they responded to the violence by throwing carnations at them and creating candle-
lit vigils around which people could gather. Everything carried out with human
dignity, as we, the workers, are wont to do. As we have no leader, no privileged few,
everyone has the right to vote in the Plenum, everyone hast the right to express their
problem” (Busuladzic 2014, p. 24).
The protests also contributed to building a participatory democracy of Bosnian
politics by mobilizing the youth and politicizing different minorities within small
sub-groups that preserved their connections for later joint activities.
February protests and plenums made the marginalized minority groups more
visible. The plenums functioned as a learning process for collective, joint, voluntary
action, which is a fundamental basis for civil society development as well. For
example, 1 year after the protests, between January 31 and February 2, 2015, an HR
film festival took place in Sarajevo that was organized by the Sarajevo Open Centre
as an extension of the international queer film festival Merlinka. This Festival first
took place in December 2009 in Belgrade with the aim of promoting movies about
LGBT topics to reach a wider audience and to provide a platform for creating
tolerance. It was only the second year of the Sarajevo experience, and many of the
participants, as well as some of the organizers, were mobilized within the last 2 or
3 years, although a small community of LGBT individuals gathered before that.
They were also one of the active minority groups during the protests and afterward
as well.
When asked what their interests and motivation behind participation in Plenums
are, participants and moderators have simple and clear answers in mind: “We are
willing to work for our future and we are asking our politicians to do the same”, said
Ines Tanovich, one of the Plenum moderators. “It is amazing to see so many people
to come participate in Plenums. People, who had been silent for two decades have
found a place to speak out and help build the country” (Budraitskis 2014).
What functions did Plenums perform? How did they address those issues in their
resulting documents? In order to answer these questions, we analyzed the formal
documents produced by plenums—“(. . .) resolutions, decisions, calls, memo-
randums and other types of official written documents were taken from the special
web-site (. . .) produced by volunteers, who collected these documents and provided
translation” (Bosnia Herzegovina Protest Files 2014a).
First, Plenums participants and those who prepared written documents under-
stood the need for self-legitimization, and thus explained the reasons of protests. For
example, the Declaration of Sarajevo Plenum released on February 9 states: “We
speak exclusively on behalf of those of us, whose human dignity and physical
existence has been threatened or destroyed during the transitional robbery, corrup-
tion, nepotism, privatization of public goods. We fight exclusively for order,
based on social justice.” (Abras Media 2014).
Second, providing adequate information to participants and the broader public.
Plenum-written documents have to play a role of “reporting the truth”, in the
situation when a scared government either resigned or threatened its citizens with
calling international military support to “clean the streets from hooligans”. As it
was stated in the Tuzla Plenum Manifesto of February 9: “Peaceful protests
continue in Tuzla and we issue support to all the peaceful protests in various cities
of Bosnia-Herzegovina (. . .). It is misinformation by the government, attempting to
mislead the public that resignation of Tuzla Government has created a legal
vacuum. We demand that authorities go Tuzla Canton, keeping with their consti-
tutional responsibilities, ensure the safety of all participants, engaged in protests.”
Third, function of demands articulation, providing “the voice” of protesters,
documents needed to clearly articulate their demands, make them down to earth and
very specific. For example, a Plenum in the city of Zenica-Doboj formulated the
following demands: ensuring the security of protesters and organizers; formation of
an expert team for current governing; formation of new non-partisan government;
reducing the administration and harmonizing salaries in working and admin-
istration sectors; revising privatization; organizing an audit of the assets acquired
by politicians during their term in office; establishing independent judiciary, health
care, and education systems . . . on the basis of competition and not party affiliation.
Fourth, the function of building their own identity, developing “their own
space”, and distancing from all the ruling elite including nationalist parties. Many
documents stressed the necessity to change the current political elites, many
Plenums demanded that no political party members should join them. For instance,
the protocol of the third meeting of the Plenum of the Brcko District directly states:
“Everyone is welcome, apart the members of political parties! This Plenum is our
space; you have your space in your parties” (Bosnia Herzegovina Protest Files
2014b).
132 N. Belyaeva
Finally, Plenums performed a creative function, suggesting solutions. These

documents contain a lot of practical solutions, alternatives to the current local
and central government decisions. For example, the Declaration of the second
Plenum of Bugojno city on February 13 demanded that the government involve
active Plenum members, competent experts, as well as foreign independent experts,
selected on a competitive basis, to organize an audit of the work of public enter-
prises and institutions, or “reduce the salaries of Municipality employees by 50 %
and reduce hot meal allowance to 4 km.—with the funds to be redirected to paying
the stipends, agricultural stimulus and other social benefits” (Bosnia Herzegovina
Protest Files 2014c).
What is even more important than Plenums formal documents per se, in our
view, is the attitude with which people participated in those discussions and formu-
lated their Plenum resolutions. According to Ines Tanovich, “The plenums are
important because they show that people have the courage to step onto the podium,
take the microphone or make written demands—of which there are by now over
2000 here in Sarajevo alone—and that makes them feel that their voice matters.
This is the first time that people here have somewhere to direct their demands and
that they don’t remain within four walls” (Tanovic 2014).
6 Plenums Demands and Major Strategies Used by

Protesters in BiH 2013–2014
As plenums were very different in their size, a number of people regularly attend-
ing, and activity they performed, it is very difficult to summarize all the genres and
meanings.
Because they produced many types of documents—from Proclamations with short
slogans to be distributed at the street protests, general statements of their purposes and
formats of work, appeals to fellow citizens, and lists of demands to remaining author-
ities, we believe it is important to concentrate on the lists of demands that Plenums were
raising and to distinguish some similarities, or common features, that were mentioned
by the majority of Plenum documents from around the whole BiH.
In order to present most commonly mentioned demands, though formulated in
different words, we identified demands that were mentioned most frequently in all
types of Plenum documents. We list our findings below:
– The first and most frequent demand was insuring security of protesters, keeping
the order, and providing for functional coordination with police and government.
First statement and usually first main demand of plenums resolutions was calling
for the security and addressed both the people and authorities to stop the violence
and the brutality of the police against the citizens, to release the protesters who
were kept in prison.
– Second, and universal for all regional Plenums was a Demand of Resignation of
the current Federal Government. The second common theme was the demand for
resignations of the local and the federal government.
– Next important was Demand to establish technical government. It was inter-
preted as a demand for the interim technocratic government in a transition period
that shall keep the “governing machine” working and avoid a vacuum of power,
which was considered dangerous.
– Another very frequent demand was addressed to remaining authorities—for
example, after Cantonal Governments resigned in several regions, there were
appeals and demands for remaining Legislative Assemblies to keep working and
“fulfill their constitutional obligations.”
– Investigate results of unjust privatization, organize independent audits, and if
mismanagement is proved, then to punish those guilty in privatization proce-
dures manipulations.
Another important feature of the Plenum Texts which I want to emphasize is
dealing directly with the initial question put up in the introduction: what were
rhetorical activities of protesters—both during Baby-Revolution proclamations,
and later, the Hunger-Revolution statements that were “officially voted for” in
Plenum resolutions—is their significant success in changing the political rhetoric
of blaming. As BiH Government and official state media were desperately trying to
discredit protest and its participants, calling them “hooligans” and blaming for
acting “against certain national constituencies”, Plenum documents managed to
change this rhetoric to creative and positive language of “citizens demands”, that
was completely free from ethnic prejudices and creating a new identity: like “We,
the citizens of Tuzla”, or “We are speaking on behalf of those gathered in
streets of Sarajevo”. An ethnic component was never even mentioned in any
Plenum documents.
Because the protests and especially Plenums continued for a considerable time—
and several of them are reported functioning even currently, creating a lasting effect
on citizens’ ability for self-organization, it is very hard to cover all those types of
activities, but it is possible to distinguish certain strategies used by protesters that may
help to compare them with similar movements and protest publics in other countries.
Summarizing experiences of Protest activities, we had identified several specific
strategies that protesters were using—during both first and second waves of protests.
1. One of the most important strategies was to change the public discourse, and
bring in the terminology in the public debate—both in ‘traditional’ and social
media—and within ordinary people discussing protest events, so it would be
shifting from naming protesters “just hooligans” and “calling for military sup-
port to protect BiH Government”—to real problems, that the people were
speaking about during the Plenums. This strategy happened to be successful,
as soon as protesters started negotiations with Governments and were given
space to announce their positions through at least local radio. Arrested protesters
were released, and several Canton Governors resigned.
134 N. Belyaeva
2. Plenums were providing secure space for minority groups creating broader social
protests. People from very different ethnic, religious, and territorial communities,
as well as LGBTQ groups and organizations, joined in with other social groups,
eluting stereotypes and were encouraged for further action, widen the number of
their supporters and audience for their cultural events.
3. Following the example of protesters in Tuzla, participants in all the other major
cities had organised Plenums that played multiple functions: from collective
psychotherapy, when everyone could openly ‘tell his/her own story’, listen to
others, learn from those more experienced, join a specific working group for
certain activities, but moreover—to feel that Plenums were taking the role of
Collective Social Agency that could speak on behalf of both all Plenum partic-
ipants and ‘people in the streets’. Plenums were also a very important instrument
of ‘learning participatory democracy’, while establishing and endorsing com-
mon rules and regulations, teaching tolerance and respect for each and every
participant.
4. Another important strategy was to mobilize special mini-communities on spe-
cific activities for longer-term goals, like an ecological group, education group,
cultural preservation group, etc. This long-term mobilization seems one of most
practical for developing ‘action-oriented’ groups, that are mostly needed in times
of trouble, for example, natural disasters. When the May 2014 huge flood covered a
big part of the territory of BiH, which was recognized as the worst in the last
120 years, leaving 40,000 people without homes, there were volunteer groups that
met each other in Plenums to organize citizens’ support to flood survivors.
5. The last strategy could be called internationalization, which means both learning
from the experience of other similar protest events—like the one in Gezi Park in
Turkey, Bolotnaya Square in Moscow or Protests in Bulgaria and Brazil—because
each of them had one strong same central focus—deep mistrust of citizens to their
current governments and demanding more transparent and competent governance.
All of those movements were targeting their political elites and were reclaiming
their status as citizens who have the right to demand from and be heard by their
governments.
This allows us to conclude that Bosnian protests of 2013–2014 are a part of a
continuous global process of citizen identity revival, and the message those protest
publics sent to their elites is: “Citizens—matter!”.
7 Conclusion
To conclude the analysis of two waves of Bosnian protests—in 2013 and 2014,
we need to acknowledge that both “waves” matter and the “first wave”—Baby
Revolution—was sort of a “rehearsal” of the much wider and deeper second
wave—“Hunger Revolution”—that had provided for and organized a long-lasting
format of self-organization—Opened Citizens’ Plenums—which proved to be able
to act as fully legitimate, but alternative centers of governance, setting up governing

agendas and either forcing local administrations to resign, or acting together with
them to solve urgent issues, like the safety of street protesters and re-directing the
budgets from administration premiums to social protection of the most vulnerable
groups.
In this chapter we covered deep reasons of protests, caused by citizens’ rage and
indignation, which is rooted in the very structure of BiH economic and political
system, designed by the Dayton Agreement, that combines clientelistic redistri-
bution of resources with manipulation over the issue of ethno-national differences.
We recalled the sequence of protest events in their dynamic and provided a
number of portraits of protest participants and moderators through their interviews.
This allowed us to learn about their motives, complaints, and demands, revealing
the major demand for social justice and restoring peoples’ dignity, solidarity, and
political agency.
We also analyzed a considerable amount of Plenum documents, collected and
translated by volunteers and published in social media and specially created websites.
This provided incredibly rich textual material, which we had structured in two different
ways: identifying the functions that Plenums performed throughout their activity and
summarizing most commonly mentioned demands, addressed to authorities.
Looking into wider activities of protesters, we made an attempt to formulate the
strategies that were used by protesters and to which extent they resemble other mass
citizens’ protest—and concluded that the Bosnian Spring has a lot in common with
protests in other countries while also creating a unique form of self-organization—
Plenums, that were functioning as institutions of direct democracy, but in some
cases were acting as alternative power structures.
The very nature of the Plenums and assessment of their activities by media,
public intellectuals and scholars provided a broad variety of arguments and opin-
ions. In this debate, we tend to agree more with those who see Plenums not only as a
space for open discussions and articulating grievances and complaints but a unique
collective power agency, which have a potential to be revived as soon as old reasons
re-emerge and new triggers appear.
The major function of Plenums—and what we consider their major accomplish-
ment—is their capacity to create their own public space, their own language, to
change public discourse from ethno-national confrontation to citizen solidarity,
which, in its turn, provides for the gradual formation of post-ethnic, supra-national
citizens’ identity.
For wrapping up the chapter and for the additional proof of importance of
building post-ethnic identity, we want to use the direct speech of one of the Plenum
organizers:
In Mostar where you have a divided society for so many years . . . where you have even Croats
and Bosniaks together on the protests, together on the plenums, it’s a huge thing. And, for the
first time, there is no ethno-national indoctrination of those people but a citizen mind waking
up. For the first time, it’s not ethnos, it’s demos. In this country, with this kind of political
arrangement, I think that’s a really huge step forward” (Murtagh 2016, pp. 162–165).
136 N. Belyaeva
Note
This article in an output of a research project implemented as a part of the Basic

research program of the NRU Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2016 with
support of the Russian Science Foundation (project # 14-18-03615).
References
Abras Media. (2014). Sarajevo is rising again. Police brutality has awakened the wrath again!
Resource document. Abras Media. Retrieved from http://www.abrasmedia.info/content/sara
jevo-rising-again-police-brutality-has-awakened-wrath-again
Arsenijevic, D. (2014). Unbribable Bosnia and Herzegovina. The fight for the commons. Baden-
Baden: Nomos Print.
Bassuener, K., & Weber, B. (2014). EU policies Boomerang: Bosnia and Herzegovina’s
social unrest. A report. Sarajevo and Berlin: Democratization Policy Council.
Bieber, F. (2013). Is change coming to Bosnia? Reflections on protests and their prospects.
Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe, 16(1), 37–39.
Bosnia Herzegovina Protest Files. (2014a). Tuzla’s declaration of citizens and workers (Tuzla #1).
Resource document. Bosnia Herzegovina Protest Files. Retrieved from https://bhprotestfiles.
wordpress.com/category/documents/page/6/. Accessed 22 May 2016.
Bosnia Herzegovina Protest Files. (2014b). Third meeting of the plenum of citizens of Brčko District.
Resource document. Bosnia Herzegovina Protest Files. Retrieved from https://webcache.
googleusercontent.com/search?q¼cache:TBvrKIEgiv8J:https://bhprotestfiles.wordpress.com/2014/
02/13/second-bugojno-citizens-plenum-declaration/þ&amp;amp;amp;cd¼1&
amp;amp;amp;hl¼ru&amp;amp;amp;ct¼clnk&amp;amp;amp;gl¼ru.
Accessed 22 May 2016.
Bosnia Herzegovina Protest Files. (2014c). Second Bugojno citizen’s declaration. Resource document.
Bosnia Herzegovina Protest Files. Retrieved from https://bhprotestfiles.wordpress.com/2014/02/
13/second-bugojno-citizens-plenum-declaration/þ&amp;amp;amp;cd¼1&
amp;amp;amp;hl¼ru&amp;amp;amp;ct¼clnk&amp;amp;amp;gl¼ru.
Accessed 22 May 2016.
Budraitskis, I., Matveev, I., & Napreenko, G. (2014). Ines Tanovic Ines: The alternative is always
in Russian. Open left. Available at http://openleft.ru/?p¼3269.
Busuladzic, E. (2014). Why? In D. Arsenijevic (Ed.), Unbribable Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The fight for the commons (pp. 11–27). Baden-Baden: Nomos Print.
Dahl, R. (1997). On deliberative democracy. Dissent, 44(3), 54–58.
Dedovic, E. (2013). Bosnia’s baby revolution: Is the protest movement coming of age? Resource
document. The Open Democracy. Retrieved from https://www.opendemocracy.net/edin-dedovic/
bosnia%E2%80%99s-baby-revolution-is-protest-movement-coming-of-age. Accessed 7 August
2016.
Douzinas, C. (2013). Philosophy and resistance in the crisis. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Gale, T. (2007). Worldmark Encyclopedia of nations. Resource document. Retrieved from http://
www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Bosnia_and_Herzegovina.aspx
Giovanni, J. (2014). Bosnia’s corrupt rulers hit by an angry “Citizen Tsunami”. Newsweek Global,
162(7), 35–41.
Gocmanac, T. (2013). Thousands are joining Bosnia’s babylution. Resource document. Global Voice.
Retrieved from http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/06/20/babylution/. Accessed 25 July 2016.
Gordy, E. (2014). From antipolitics to alterpolitics: Subverting ethnokleptocracy in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. In D. Arsenijevic (Ed.), Unbribable Bosnia and Herzegovina. The fight for the
commons (pp. 111–118). Baden-Baden: Nomos Print.
International Monetary Fund. (2014). Fifth review under the stand-by arrangement and request for
waivers of applicability and extension and augmentation of the arrangement. Resource docu-
ment. International Monetary Fund. Retrieved from http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/
longres.aspx?sk¼41317.0. Accessed 18 July 2016.
Keil, S., & Moore, T. (2014). Babies, parks, and citizen dissatisfaction social protests in Bosnia and
Herzegovina and Turkey and their long-term effects. Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace, 3(1),
55–64.
Kuge, A. (2014). Bosnian spring [In Russian]. Resource document. Radio Liberty. Retrieved from
http://www.svoboda.org/a/25280875.html. Accessed 9 August 2016.
Kurtović, L. (2015). ‘Who sows hunger, reaps rage’: On protest, indignation and redistributive
justice in post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 15(4),
639–659.
Milan, C. (2015). “Sow hunger, reap anger”. Grassroots protests and new collective identities in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Academic paper. In The project “The Politics of Protest. Understanding
Political Protest in Central Europe” organized by the Warsaw Office of Heinrich B€ oll Foun-
dation in partnership with Collegium Civitas University. Retrieved from https://calendar.boell.
de/sites/default/files/politics_protest_bosnia.pdf
Mujanovic, J. (2014). The demands of the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina [English]. Retrieved from
http://www.jasminmujanovic.com/blog/the-demands-of-the-people-of-tuzla-sarajevo-english
Mujkic, A. (2014). Bosnian days of reckoning: Review of the sequence of protests in Bosnia and
Herzegovina 2013-14. Southeastern Europe, 40(2), 217–242.
Murtagh, C. (2016). Civic mobilization in divided societies and the perils of political engagement:
Bosnia and nationalism and Herzegovina’s protest and plenum movement. Nationalism and
Ethnic Politics, 22, 149–171. doi:10.1080/13537113.2016.1169060.
Nazar, M. (2014). Protest assemblies plant seeds for a Bosnian spring. Resource document.
Waging Nonviolence. Retrieved from http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/bosnians-create-
democracy-ground/. Accessed 9 June 2016.
Radio Free Europe. (2016). “Baby-lution” protest continues in Sarajevo. Resource document.
Radio Free Europe. Retrieved from http://www.rferl.org/content/bosnia-protests-newborns/
25014099.html. Accessed 25 August 2016.
Sejfija, I., & Fink-Hafner, D. (2016). Citizen’s protest innovations in a consociational system:
The case of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Teorija in praksa, 53(1), 184–202.
Sekulic, T. (2014). The Indignados of Eastern Europe: New social cleavages and the menace of
violence in the shades of the EU. Resource document. Academic paper. In ECPR General
Conference. Retrieved from https://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/5d6b9f7c-410c-43b6-9e87-
7fd0f98651cd.pdf. Accessed 19 July 2016.
Shraibman. (2014). Bosnia: All power to plenums? Live Journal. Retrieved from http://shraibman.
livejournal.com/995209.html. Accessed 25 June 2016.
Tanovic, I. (2014). The alternative is always. Resource document. Open Left. Retrieved from
http://www.openleft.ru/?p¼3269. Accessed 23 May 2016.
Toè, R. (2013, July 16). Bebolujica: Spring delayed. Open Democracy. Retrieved from http://www.
balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Regionsand-countries/Bosnia-and-Herzegovina/Bebolucija-spring-delayed-
138840#.UeecAMRIvTE.twitter
Touquet, H. (2015). Non-ethnic mobilisation in deeply divided societies, the case of the Sarajevo
protests. Europe-Asia Studies, 67(3), 388–408.
Vasic-Janekovic, V. (2014). Remembering work as political sovereignty (pp. 165–171). London:
Centre of Research in Modern European Philosophy of Kingston University.Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/10358049/Remembering_Work_as_Political_Sovereingty
Warner, M. (2002). Publics and counterpublics. Public Culture, 14(1), 49–90.
138 N. Belyaeva
Online Publications
Worldbulletin. (2013). Bosnian politicians have European salaries. Worldbulletin. Retrieved from
http://www.worldbulletin.net/haber/120387/bosnian-politicians-have-european-salaries. Accessed
25 July 2016.
Zizek, S. (2014, February 10). Anger in Bosnia, but this time the people can read their leaders’
ethnic lies. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/
feb/10/anger-bosnia-ethnic-lies-protesters-bosnian-serb-croat
The Rise and Demise of the Iranian Green
Revolution: Collective Action Framing
in Social Media
David Drissel
1 Introduction
For several riveting weeks in the summer of 2009, the nascent Green Movement
(Jonbesh-esabz) posed the most serious grassroots challenge to the political status
quo of Iran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Over a million relatively youthful
protesters marched defiantly through the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities in
the immediate aftermath of the June 12, 2009 presidential election.1 Claiming that
widespread voter fraud had irreparably tainted the election results, protesters
demanded the removal from office of the disputed victor, incumbent President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Adopting the traditional Islamic color of green as a
symbol of unity, street protesters rallied in support of the top opposition presidential
candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi—a renowned artist and former prime minister
who had campaigned on a reformist agenda.
During the most intense period of overt protest in the summer of 2009, activists
associated with the Green Movement frequently utilized Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,
and other Western-based social-media networks in an apparent attempt to mobilize
supporters and coordinate movement activities, thus leading many observers to dub this
revolt “the Twitter Revolution” (Khan 2013; Honari 2013). Indeed, the burgeoning
Green Revolution was touted “as the first major world event broadcast worldwide
almost entirely via social media” (Keller 2010, p. 12), with real-time updates posted
regularly by various activists and citizen-journalists in Iran. Nonetheless, several other
observers claimed that the idea of a Twitter Revolution was simply a hyperbolic
1
Estimates of the number of marchers at the initial Green Movement rallies vary from the
“millions” to “hundreds of thousands” (Cross 2010, p. 173).
D. Drissel (*)
Iowa Central Community College, Fort Dodge, IA, USA
e-mail: Drissel@iowacentral.edu

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_9
140 D. Drissel
“irresistible meme” coined by the Western media (Esfandiari 2010). Such critics
asserted that the role of Twitter and other social media sites in organizing demonstra-
tions was relatively limited in scope (Sreberny and Khiabany 2010, p. 175). But
regardless of the impact of Twitter, most street protests and other forms of overt public
dissent associated with the Green Movement were largely stifled within a matter of
weeks by a series of severe government crackdowns and mass arrests; though relatively
isolated, infrequent protests continued for several months afterward.2
This chapter focuses on the role of social media in galvanizing support for the
Green Movement and examines how Iranian activists have framed relevant events,
ideas, issues, and symbols on Twitter, Facebook, and other websites. The political,
social, economic, and technological circumstances in Iran that triggered the Green
Revolution and eventually contributed to its apparent demise are investigated. In
particular, the chapter explores how movement activists have utilized social media
to contest the dominant frames of the regime, enunciate their demands, and mobilize
supporters—both within Iran and around the world. It also examines the counter-
demonstration tactics and discursive counter frames that were utilized by the regime
in response to the protest campaign.
This chapter postulates that green activists were seeking to mobilize support by
basing their movement on the historic and contemporary framework of Shi’a Iran,
and by adopting elements from selected political frameworks of analogous social
movements across the globe. In effect, activists sought to align their movement’s
frames with those of both indigenous (national) and global (transnational) symbols,
norms, values, and related discursive concepts. The discussion here is particularly
relevant given the fact that collective action frames have been applied by several
different authors to an analysis of social movements in Western democracies (Snow
et al. 1986), but have been rarely applied to the study of non-Western, Islamic, or
authoritarian political systems. Moreover, the utilization of framing theory in
analyzing a social movement’s revolutionary discourse in social media and related
contestations for political power is relatively unique in the social science literature,
though not unprecedented.3
2
By the end of June 2009, Green Movement protest marches and other demonstrations had begun
to diminish significantly in size and frequency. However, the first truly unsuccessful Green
demonstration took place in February 2010. As Honari (2013) explains, “The Green Movement’s
plan to hijack the official rally, which was called the ‘Trojan Horse’ tactic, did not work. They
could not reveal their signs during the pro-government mass rally because either they were
relatively few compared to pro-government participants or they were scared to expose their
green banners among a dense population of police and security agents.” (p. 159).
3
See, for instance, Drissel (2011).
The Rise and Demise of the Iranian Green Revolution: Collective Action. . . 141
2 Methodology
In preparing to write this chapter, I retrieved and analyzed 532 English-language

tweets (micro-blogs), discussion threads, status updates, videos, memes, and photos,
which had been posted on social media sites, presumably by Green Movement
activists and supporters in Iran. I have endeavored to identify tweets and other online
posts that apparently emanated directly from current Iranian residents, rather than
other (non-Iranian, international) sources. All of the tweets and other social media
commentary examined in this research project were posted originally on various
green-related Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, and other websites during the period
of June 13–30, 2012.
The subjective, symbolic meanings of the Green Movement’s online discourse
are examined qualitatively in this chapter based on particular coding frames, which
are identified and analyzed accordingly. The texts of specific thematic and narrative
collective action frames, retrieved from online materials, were carefully coded and
grouped into nominal variables based on frequently appearing keywords, names,
and concepts. Such variables were then grouped into three overarching (general)
discursive categories—indigenous (national) frames, global (transnational) frames,
and intermediate (hybrid) frames. Indigenous frames, which relate primarily to
domestic aspects of Iranian society, include the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Islamic
martyrdom/victimhood, Islamic green symbolism, traditional Persian culture,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Ayatollah Khamenei, and former
Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq. Transnational frames, which are
linked primarily to the norms and values of social justice and related (non-Iranian)
social movements, include universal human rights/civil rights, nonviolent resis-
tance/protests, Palestinian nationalism, Indian nationalism, Irish nationalism, and
the American civil rights movement. Intermediate (hybrid) frames, which have
longstanding Western origins but also relatively modern Iranian sources of reso-
nance, include votes/elections and election fraud, freedom/repression, and democ-
racy/dictatorship.4
3 Framing Social Movements in Social Media
Frames are a “schemata of interpretations” that enable individuals “to locate,

perceive, identify, and label” various events and occurrences within their own life
experiences (Buechler 2011, p. 146). In other words, a frame “simplifies and
condenses the ‘world out there’ by selectively punctuating and encoding objects,
situations, events, experiences, and sequences of action within one’s present or past
environment” (Snow and Benford 1992, p. 137). Specific social phenomena do not
normally become meaningful to individuals until they have been framed; that is to
4
For more information, see Table 1.
142 D. Drissel
Table 1 Coding frames

Specific
frequencies
General frame and numerical Number of
totals (%) Specific frame appearances (%)
Indigenous (National) Frames: Islamic green symbolism 384 (21.955)
1001 (57.232) Islamic Revolution and related 322 (18.410)
slogans
Islamic martyrdom and victimhood 93 (5.317)
Mir-Hossein Mousavi 72 (4.116)
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 67 (3.830)
Persian culture 42 (2.401)
Ayatollah Khamenei 12 (0.686)
Mohammad Mossadeq 9 (0.514)
Global (Trans-national) Frames: Social justice and universal human 96 (5.488)
204 (11.320) rights/civil rights
Nonviolent resistance/protests 72 (4.116)
Palestinian nationalism 14 (0.800)
Indian nationalism 12 (0.686)
Irish nationalism 7 (0.400)
American civil rights 3 (0.171)
Intermediate (Hybrid) Frames: Votes/elections and election fraud 418 (23.899)
544 (31.103) Freedom/repression and democracy/ 126 (7.204)
dictatorship
say, socially and cognitively organized as part of a discourse (Snow et al. 1986,
p. 211). Thus, social movement activists and other political entrepreneurs who
oppose the status quo often seek to create frames that “inspire others to protest”
(Aday et al. 2010, p. 19). Such collective action frames are devised to “mobilize
potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support, and to demobilize
antagonists” (Benford and Snow 2000, p. 614).
Over the past decade, social media websites increasingly have enabled like-
minded cohorts to connect with each other one-on-one, thereby forging expansive
social networks based on “friendly” consensus building. The relatively higher
levels of immediacy, intimacy, and communal interactivity found on social media
sites tend to enhance interpersonal contacts that largely transcend geographic
boundaries. Moreover, Twitter and other social media sites are shifting from a
“broadcaster of cultural identities” to a “translator or even author of cultural
identities” (Turner 2010, p. 3), particularly for young people. This is because of
the fact that Twitter allows users to maintain a public, asynchronous “conversation”
with their followers online. The confluence and accessibility of tweets posted by
various users are enhanced by the use of hashtags—a keyword or phrase that acts as
a searchable metadata tag for similar tweets. Twitter also enables users to “retweet”
content easily on their own page that was posted originally by another user. Thus,
Twitter and other social media enable activists to frame and circulate their ideas
with relative ease to geographically dispersed individuals who hold common
interests and concerns.
In particular, activists are increasingly utilizing specific collective action frames
on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites to recruit or mobilize social
movement participants. Activists frequently attempt to mobilize prospective sup-
porters for their cause—both online and offline—by linking particular collective
action frames with the social experiences, symbols, norms, values, beliefs, and
concerns of a sympathetic audience. Such “frame alignments” are essential com-
ponents in the micro-mobilization of social movement participants (Snow and
Benford 1988, p. 198). For frame alignments to be successful, the movement
must frame (or reframe) its ideology, activities, and goals as compatible and
complementary with conceptions widely held by particular sentiment pools in
society, or else devise another discursive means for linking the movement with
the public.5 On the other hand, regime sympathizers can also devise counter-frames
that are designed to rebut the revolutionary frames of movements, thereby effec-
tively reconciling citizens to the status quo (Aday et al. 2010, p. 19).
4 Emergence of the Green Movement
In order to understand the reasons for the emergence of the Green Movement, it is
important to briefly examine the contemporary political, economic, and social
environment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The supreme religious leader (cur-
rently Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei), the Council of Guardians, and other
clerical institutions that dominate Iran politically have managed to quell overt
dissent in large measure since the 1979 Revolution (Hashemi and Postel 2010).
However, there is also a parallel system of semi-competitive, popular elections for
the presidency and the Majles (parliament) in Iran. Thus, Iran has a dual political
system that includes semi-democratic elements within the government, which often
features behind-the-scenes factional power struggles between so-called “liberal
reformers” and “conservative hardliners.” As Sreberny and Khiabany (2010) observe,
Iran “enjoys a much wider political field of participation and expression than most
other regimes in the region.” (p. 4).
Like several other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Iran has
experienced a major decline in its national standard of living in recent decades,6
thus fueling sentiments of relative deprivation and growing popular unrest.
5
In effect, movement activists are engaging in “frame lifting,” which involves shaping collective
action “to match an institutionally embedded frame” (Morris 2000). Put simply, movement leaders
recognize that there are important symbols, narratives, and channels already in existence that can
be “lifted” from one domain to facilitate collective action in another.
6
For instance, Iran has dropped from 45th place in life expectancy to 133rd place among all UN
member-states since the 1979 Revolution.
144 D. Drissel
Moreover, numerous social problems that disproportionately affect young people

have grown worse since the Islamic Revolution, including unemployment, poverty,
depression, prostitution, domestic violence, drug addiction, divorce, and sexual
repression by authorities (Taheri 2009, p. 319). Complicating matters, a “youth
bulge” (or increase in birth rates) in Iran has magnified the severity of social
problems over the past few decades. Young people between the ages of 15–29
comprise approximately 35% of the population but account for an astounding 70%
of the unemployed (Dabashi 2010, p. 23).
After almost two decades of relative political quiescence among the masses in
Iran, numerous reform-oriented protests (especially among university students)
emerged periodically from 1997 to 2005. This was especially the case following
the election of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, who encountered resis-
tance from the more conservative establishment (Bayat 2010, pp. 47–48). But such
youthful protests had been largely quelled by the time Ahmadinejad became
president in 2005.
Nonetheless, Ahmadinejad’s conservative economic policies gradually fueled
new unrest in the country. Poverty, inflation, and unemployment rates skyrocketed
to new levels under Ahmadinejad,7 disproportionately harming middle- and lower-
income Iranians, especially young adults. In addition, gas prices quadrupled over-
night in December 2009 as a result of Ahmadinejad’s reductions in energy subsidies
(Hernandez 2013, p. 2). Ahmadinejad also advocated a massive privatization
campaign that was allegedly designed to benefit his cronies in the Iranian Revolu-
tionary Guard Corps (Alizadeh 2010, p. 5).
The groups most directly affected by these policies, including college students,
middle-class professionals, trade unionists, intellectuals, and women’s groups,
eventually provided the core of the nascent Green Movement. In fact, many
urban young people, in particular, had begun referring to themselves as the “burnt
generation” (nasle sookhteh) by the time of the June 2009 presidential election. In
turn, Ahmadinejad and his supporters drew their grassroots support mainly from
poorer, rural areas of the country, as well as the religiously pious and government
workers (Hashemi and Postel 2010). And although many veterans personally
opposed Ahmadinejad because of his “inglorious war record,” the military-security
apparatus remained largely supportive of the regime (Dabashi 2010, p. 24).
5 The Green Movement and Social Media
Typical of competitive-authoritarian regimes, the presidential election of June

12, 2009, had been ostensibly democratic; though the Council of Guardians had
first closely screened 475 potential candidates before the final four contenders were
7
There was a 13% increase in poverty during Ahmadinejad’s first term of office (Bayat 2010,
p. 50). Moreover, the unemployment and inflation rates rose to 30 and 25% respectively in the
same period (Abrahamian 2010, p. 63).
selected. In addition to Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karoubi

(a reform-oriented, former parliament speaker) and Moshen Rezaie (a conservative
former head of the Revolutionary Guard), were allowed to compete and campaign
openly for votes in the general election.
In sharp contrast to previous elections, the Internet in general and social media,
in particular, played an important political role in the months leading up to the
disputed June 12th election. Indeed, the number of Internet users and cell phone
accounts in Iran had risen dramatically over the past decade.8 Moreover, Iranians
had recently developed one of the largest blogospheres in the developing world.9 In
the months leading up to the June 12th election, the campaigns of all four presi-
dential candidates had set up their own websites and established Facebook pages
and sympathetic Twitter and YouTube accounts.
Even the supporters of Ahmadinejad had used social media extensively during
the campaign, though anti-Ahmadinejad group sites also proliferated dramatically
on Facebook during the same period.10 Social media sites were particularly advan-
tageous for the two reformist candidates given the fact that their access to the state-
owned radio and television stations was severely limited by the regime. For
Mousavi in particular, Facebook proved to be a major boon for his campaign,11
as the number of pro-Mousavi Facebook pages grew exponentially. In contrast to
Ahmadinejad’s relatively stagnant Facebook page, Mousavi’s main page became
steadily more popular during the campaign, climbing to 43,000 supporters by early
September 2009 (Sreberny and Khiabany 2010).
According to reports, the June 12th election witnessed a record-setting 85%
voter turnout, which raised expectations for a major electoral upset.12 However, the
official Iranian Ministry of Interior election results placed Ahmadinejad with 63%
of the vote, followed by Mousavi with 34%. The other two candidates, Rezaee and
Karoubi, earned 2% and less than 1% respectively (Ehsani et al. 2010, pp. 31–32).
Almost as soon as the official vote tally was announced, Ahmadinejad and his
8
In 2000, for instance, there were only 132,000 Iranians who had regular access to the Internet; but
that number swelled to an estimated 418,000 in 2001, 1,326,000 in 2002, 11 million in 2006, and
23 million in 2009. Moreover, approximately 30 million Iranians—or 44% of the population—
owned a mobile phone by 2009, which represented a dramatic increase from the recent past
(Sreberny and Khiabany 2010, pp. 11–13). Within the city of Tehran alone, there were 5.5 million
cell phone users out of a population of 7.8 million people. In particular, students and other young
adults reportedly comprised the overwhelming majority of cell phone users in Tehran and
throughout Iran (Bakhtavar 2009, p. 201).
9
By the time of the June election, there were an estimated 75,000 active bloggers in Iran. The
Iranian blogosphere likely exceeded the size of its entire Arab counterpart by June 2009; though
the Iranian Internet was heavily censored and lacked broadband access (Aday et al. 2010, p. 13).
10
Such pages included posts that called for the President’s ouster and even compared him to Hitler.
11
Mousavi’s Facebook page first appeared in April 2009 and was initially utilized as a “campaign
tool” for the upcoming election (Cross 2010, p. 171).
12
As Alizadeh (2010) notes, “The increase in turnout Iran’s elections has always benefited the
opposition and not the incumbent, because it is rational to assume that those who usually don’t
vote, i.e., the silent majority, only come out when they want to change the status quo” (p. 4).
146 D. Drissel
supporters were accused of utilizing surreptitious tactics and the machinery of the
state in order to rig the election results in their favor. Such accusations were based
on the inexplicably rapid announcement of the overall vote tally by officialdom—
within 2 hours of the polls closing—coupled with the unexpectedly large margin of
victory for Ahmadinejad. In addition, Iranian critics noted that the results did not
vary significantly by region, which raised suspicions of a hastily contrived, fraud-
ulent vote count.13
Consequently, numerous large street demonstrations were held in Tehran and
other Iranian cities, with protesters rallying in support of the top opposition presi-
dential candidate, Mousavi. Adopting the traditional Islamic color of green as a
symbol of unity, hundreds of thousands of protesters marched through the streets
brandishing green ribbons, unfurling green flags, and wearing green scarves, ban-
danas, finger-bands, headbands, and armbands. The largest rally reportedly occurred
on June 16, which included over a million protesters in Tehran (Sreberny and
Khiabany 2010, p. 172). The nonviolent uprising was soon being touted as the
Green Movement, also known as “the Green Wave,” “Green Tsunami,” “Sea of
Green,” “Green Path of Hope,” and “Persian Awakening” (Khan 2013). The labeling
of the movement as “green” was based to some extent on the recent pattern of “color
revolutions” in several Eurasian states such as Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan.
As was the case in previous color revolutions, protesters in Iran claimed that
widespread voter fraud had tainted the election count, thereby demanding that the
results be annulled and the dubious winner be removed from office immediately and
unceremoniously.
The Green Movement began as a protest campaign that was reformist in char-
acter but gradually evolved into a more revolutionary position (Hashemi and Postel
2010). In the first several days of the protest campaign, rallying cries of “Stolen
election,” “Where is my vote?” and “We are countless,” became common, and such
phrases were often seen on placards at demonstrations. But in preparation for a
violent crackdown on protesters, the regime expelled foreign journalists expedi-
tiously. As a result, social media and other information technologies quickly
became the primary nexus for disseminating information and mobilizing support
both domestically and internationally (Khan 2013).
In the weeks following the disputed election, visits to Mousavi’s Facebook page
increased dramatically, even though Facebook activity in Iran had declined overall
during the same period, due in part to renewed restrictions imposed by the regime
(Cross 2010, p. 171). Meanwhile, the number of Twitter users in Iran more than
doubled, rising from 8654 in the weeks before June 12th to 19,235 in the immediate
aftermath of the election (Bakhtavar 2009, p. 209). Thousands of Iranians soon
changed their profile picture on Twitter and Facebook into an eye-catching green
square featuring green ribbons and viral slogans such as, “Where is my vote?” In
addition, many movement supporters around the world transformed their own
13
At the time, critics also pointed to many specific “absurdities” in the election tally. For details,
see Alizadeh (2010, pp. 3–4).
profiles into an identical hue, adding the sympathetic phrase, “Where is their vote?”
Spurred on by social media, major pro-green rallies were held in at least 6 countries
and 100 cities around the world in the immediate post-election period.
Within hours of the disputed election results being announced on June 12, green
activists in Iran had launched several highly active, new Twitter pages and hash-
tags, which featured ongoing commentary posted in both English and Farsi.
Revealingly, the wording of opposition tweets changed dramatically in the after-
math of the election. In the weeks prior to the election, tweets focused mainly on the
importance of “freedom” and “voting,” but soon after the election the newer round
of tweets began to emphasize “protest” and “Tehran” (Bakhtavar 2009, p. 209).
Many such post-election tweets referred to allegations of electoral fraud, as the
following examples culled from Twitter illustrate: “Give us our votes back” and
“They have stolen our votes and they are flaunting our stolen votes!”
These tweets, authored by Iranian green activists, were not simply propaganda
posts contesting the election results, but also provided real-time updates on the
evolving situation in Tehran. Many such tweets included actual tactical information
to movement participants on the streets of Tehran and other cities in an attempt to
coordinate responses.14 Some tweets even provided recommendations on the best
ways to confuse pro-government forces that were being bused into Tehran by the
regime.15 Green activists on Twitter and other social media websites often relayed
precise instructions about upcoming protests, marches, and other events associated
with the movement.16 Moreover, many tweets disseminated updates about specific
rendezvous points for upcoming protests,17 and even provided information on
where to take wounded protesters for treatment, noting that the injured should be
brought to specific embassies rather than hospitals.18
14
For instance, one tweet observed, “Basiji are breaking into homes! Gather in large neighborhood
groups.” Offering important advice, many tweets made cautionary statements to Green Movement
protesters, such as the following: “Due to overnight Basij attack to people’s home make sure to
remove all markings from your doors.”
15
For example, one tweet encouraged protesters to “remove all street signs, so shipped-in forces
will lose orientation.”
16
Examples included, “Tomorrow 4 p.m. Green Wave march is not canceled,” and “Mousavi &
Karoubi ask supporters not to attend Friday prayers (which is being delivered by supreme leader
Ayatollah Khamenei).”
17
For instance: “Mousavi’s supporters will take part in peaceful demonstrations today at Imam
Khomeini Sq. in Tehran,” and “Please join Mousavi, Khatami and Karoubi tomorrow at
4 p.m. from Enghelab Sq. to Arzadi Sq. in Tehran for a crucial green protest.”
18
Tweets explained, for example, that the Italian embassy was not accepting wounded protesters,
in contrast to the Portuguese and Mexican embassies that were openly receiving and treating the
injured.
148 D. Drissel
6 Indigenous Frames of the Green Movement
Approximately 57% of the Green Movement collective action frames observed on

Twitter and other social media are linked symbolically to the overarching, indige-
nous narrative of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 or related discursive domains of
traditional Shi’a Islamic/Iranian/Persian history and culture. In particular, online
activists attempted to frame the Green Movement as both authentically Islamic and
Iranian, thereby describing their opponents as deviating from Islamic principles and
related Iranian norms and values.19 In addition, activists sought to portray the
movement as highly popular and growing in strength, which they described sym-
bolically as a “green wave” of support for social change that had not been seen on
the streets of Tehran since the halcyon days of the 1979 Revolution.20
Thus, the narrative mythos of the new Green Movement drew directly on the
Iranian Revolution of 1979 for inspiration, including the “Spring of Freedom” that
immediately followed the toppling of the Shah, but had been effectively quashed
within months of Ayatollah Khomeini taking power (Bayat 2010, p. 42). Indeed,
activists sought to portray the Green Revolution as the logical extension of the 1979
revolution, featuring a New Spring of Freedom. Activists claimed that Ahmadinejad
and other regime insiders had effectively betrayed the democratic-republican values of
the 1979 Revolution. In effect, activists were asserting that Iran had experienced a
Thermidor, or counterrevolution, under Ahmadinejad. As one tweet intoned, “Repres-
sion is not Islamic, fascism is fascism, no matter how you disguise it.” Activists
were even calling on the military to abandon the regime and embrace the will of the
people.21
Ironically, Ahmadinejad’s own words were appropriated by green activists and
used against him in social media. In response to the uproar in the streets, Ahmadi-
nejad had invoked a contemptuous Persian metaphor, referring to protesters as “dirt
and dust” (khas o khashak in Farsi). Comparing protesters to soccer hooligans,
Ahmadinejad told a cheering throng of supporters in Tehran on June 14: “The
nation’s huge river would not leave any opportunity for the expression of dirt and
dust.” But rather than reject the epithet, green activists decided to effectively turn it
on its head; thereby embracing and reframing it as a badge of honor and pride. Most
19
One tweet stressing the Islamic character of the Green Movement, for instance, observed,
“Today most protesters are carrying the holy Quran.” And another tweet boldly asserted, “Mousavi
has called for a general strike. Stay on the streets today. Keep your Holy Quran with you. It is a
shield.”
20
As one tweet asserted ominously, “If you don’t hear us it doesn’t mean we don’t exist, Tsunami
on the way.”
21
One tweet, for instance, queried, “Will the army move in defense of the people? There are voices
in highest ranks calling for this.”
notably, the slogan was utilized in several pro-green anthem-style music videos
posted on YouTube and linked to on various Twitter and Facebook pages.22
Furthermore, many of the tactics of the Green Movement were lifted directly
from the 1979 Revolution, including the practice of shouting the phrase Allah-u-
akbar (“God is Great”) anonymously from city rooftops at night. Notably, this
tactic was strongly encouraged by numerous posts on social media.23 As the Green
Movement grew bolder and more critical of the regime, placards at rallies and posts
on Twitter and Facebook became increasingly provocative and recalled the slogans
of the 1979 Revolution, including “Dictatorship is finished! Neither Crown nor
Turban!”24
Many tweets in June 2009 specifically emphasized the likely prospect of reli-
gious (Islamic) martyrdom by Green Movement supporters. Moreover, the tradi-
tional Shi’a “culture of victimhood,” which emphasizes the injuries incurred by
protesters at the hands of the authorities, permeated the Green Movement.25 In
particular, the agonizing death of a young female protester, Neda Agha-Soltan,
victim of a sniper attack on the streets of Tehran on June 20, became a potent
emblem. Bystanders had used their cell phones to videotape Neda as she lay dying
on the street. The video was uploaded to the web and quickly went viral on social
media, becoming “a powerful symbol of the cruelty of the Iranian government
towards unarmed protesters” (Kurzman 2010, pp. 12–13). Activists depicted Neda
as the ultimate martyr for the Green Movement, asserting that her murder was
blatantly unjust and un-Islamic. Compellingly, the Persian word neda, means
“voice” or “calling,” which was cleverly re-contextualized by activists to describe
Neda as “the voice of Iran.” In the days and weeks that followed, countless Neda-
related tweets, songs, and music videos were posted on social media. Additionally,
a new hashtag, “#Neda,” was created by green activists to more effectively dis-
seminate her story.26
22
One popular chant, for instance, was directed to Ahmadinejad, as follows: “Dirt and dust is you,
it is you who are the enemy of Iran.” And a related slogan, often retweeted, asserted, “We are not
dirt and dust, we are Iran’s nation.”
23
As one tweet with the hashtag #IranElection reminded supporters: “Tonight 10,11,12, ‘Allah
Akbar’ from rooftops.”
24
Although this slogan referred originally to the Shah, the Green Movement effectively lifted and
appropriated the frame by instead referring to Ahmadinejad and Khamenei (Gheytanchi 2010,
p. 255).
25
As one tweet observed in somber tones: “Mousavi we will stand beside you—we will die beside
you—Allah Akbar—peace be upon all man.” Another tweet observed that the “people are
prepared to die, our leaders must be prepared to lead.” And one popular movement slogan, often
retweeted, connected martyrdom directly to the act of voting, as follows: “Martyred brother, we
will get back your vote.” Several tweets emphasized the public recognition of recent martyrs, as
follows: “Honorable people of Iran, please pay your condolences to families of martyrs from
recent events by taking part in ceremonies at mosques on Thursday.”
26
Examples of tweets focusing on Neda included, “Let Neda’s voice be heard,” “This is Neda!
Don’t ever forget her,” and “Neda you will always remain in our hearts.” In addition, comments by
150 D. Drissel
In response, the Iranian regime denied any involvement in the sniper attack,
alleging instead that green protesters, conspiring with the CIA or other foreign
saboteurs, were responsible for Neda’s death. Nonetheless, Mousavi and Karroubi
defiantly called upon their fellow Iranians to commemorate the death of Neda, who
had suddenly become an iconic figure for the Green Movement.27 Reviving another
practice from the 1979 Revolution, based on customary Shi’a customs, Green
Movement protesters conducted a traditional mourning ceremony and rally for
Neda on the fortieth day (July 30) after her death, which was heavily promoted
on social media posts. Activists also timed an important demonstration on the same
day as Ashura—a major Shi’a religious festival, following in the footsteps of the
1979 Revolution. “As a method of protest, fortieth-day mourning had all but
disappeared until the Green Movement revived it in the summer of 2009,” Kurzman
(2010, pp. 12–13) observes.
Another example of an attempted indigenous frame alignment involves Green
Movement protesters carrying signs and forwarding tweets featuring the former
Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq. Depicted as a champion of democ-
racy, Mossadeq had been overthrown by a CIA-sponsored coup d’état in 1953,
which reinstated the Shah. The display of Mossadeq’s visage on posters at rallies
and in social media was an attempt to align the Green Movement with historic
democratic traditions in Iran and opposition to both domestic tyranny and foreign
interventionism (Kinzer 2010, p. 27). In effect, green activists on social media
sought to portray Ahmadinejad and Khamenei both individually and collectively as
the new Shah. In particular, green activists apparently sought to frame the 2009
election fiasco as similar to what had transpired in the 1953 coup d’état. Activists
asserted that in both cases important Iranian political norms and values had been
violated by powerful elites with impunity.28
Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame were retweeted frequently by green activists, which referred to
Neda as “the one in fifty million who can help us to be free—because she died on TV.”
27
Announcing his appeal on Facebook, Karroubi asked protesters to assemble in Tehran’s city
center at 4 p.m. on June 22. Green activists also promoted this event heavily on Twitter, thereby
apparently helping to mobilize a larger number of demonstrators.
28
As one tweet asserts euphemistically about the 2009 election, “The Shah’s sin was to insist that
whatever he says is right, not whatever the people say.” In effect, such tweets were a strong
critique of the current Iranian government, framing it as inherently corrupt, fraudulent, and
dictatorial. One popular tweet, for instance, compared Ahmadinejad to the Shah, making light of
Ahmadinejad’s dubious claim that he has a doctorate in engineering: “Down with the dictator,
whether a shah or a doctor.”
7 Transnational Frames of the Green Movement
Besides framing the Green Movement symbolically as the legitimate successor to

the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and linking it discursively to various indigenous
collective action frames, green activists also frequently invoked an overarching
transnational frame of reference identified conceptually in this chapter as social
justice. By definition, social justice refers to the process by which society attains
a fair and equitable distribution of political, economic, and social resources. In
contrast to justice in a broad sense, social justice is a relatively more recent
construct that has its origins in the Western class-based struggles of the nineteenth
century, which arose largely in response to the Industrial Revolution. “When, more
concretely, we attack some policy or some state of affairs as socially unjust, we are
claiming that a person, or more usually a category of persons, enjoys fewer advan-
tages than that person or groups of persons ought to enjoy (or bears more of the
burdens than they ought to bear),” Miller (1999) explains. In the modern era, social
justice increasingly has included a broad spectrum of norms and values that have
been disseminated globally, including support for universal human rights, civil
rights, and national self-determination, along with nonviolent opposition to the
abuse of power by governments, corporations, and financial institutions.29
Approximately 11% of the tweets and online posts observed during the course of
this research project include transnational collective action frames related discur-
sively to social justice. In effect, green activists were endeavoring to frame the
Iranian regime as unjust and illegitimate due allegedly to its premeditative abuse of
power and related violations of universal human rights and other transnational
norms and values associated with social justice.30
More specifically, many online activists in the summer of 2009 effectively
sought to achieve a frame alignment between the Green Movement and other social
movements around the world that also claimed to be committed to the norms and
values of social justice. Such movements, invoked repeatedly by activists on social
media, include the Palestinian Nationalist Movement, the Indian Independence
Movement, and the American Civil Rights Movement. Green activists on Twitter
and Facebook, for instance, widely promoted an upcoming demonstration in Tehran
that was scheduled to coincide with Quds Day (Jerusalem Day), an annual
pro-Palestinian observance. In addition, activists adopted the well-known Palestin-
ian cartoon character, Naji al-Handala, as one of their new movement symbols.
Images of the iconic animated figure, dressed in an Iranian-reformist green scarf,
29
The related concept of “global justice” is described as an alternative globalism (or “globalization
from below”) that contests the power and prerogatives of the reputedly hegemonic, market-
oriented model of globalization that predominates in the world (Steger 2009).
30
Mousavi, for instance, asserted the following in a public statement, which was widely dissem-
inated on Facebook and Twitter in the aftermath of the June election: “Justice is the most
significant indicator of wholesome governance . . . Authoritarianism will depart from the country
when no one is deprived of his or her rights by the personal command of the ruler for the sole
‘crime’ of criticizing and opposing his commands and actions.”
152 D. Drissel
were uploaded to social media. In effect, activists were attempting to identify “the
Palestinian cause with the Iranian opposition, not the Iranian regime” (Kurzman
2010, p. 15).
Moreover, green activists on social media endeavored to lift many of the
collective action frames, narratives, and symbols associated with Mahatma Gandhi,
Martin Luther King Jr., and other historic social movement leaders from around the
world, thereby re-contextualizing their personas and agendas for the Green Move-
ment. Many activists in Iran evidently recognized that the ideas and strategies of
Gandhi,31 King,32 and other historic figures have continued to resonate with
contemporary supporters of social justice in countless global locales. Consequently,
various tweets authored by green activists observed in this research project some-
times quoted or paraphrased Gandhi and King; though additional words and phrases
written by Iranians were often added to such tweets in order to align the ideologies
of such iconic figures more directly to the Green Movement.33
Instructively, green activists generally framed their movement as inherently
peaceful but also as a righteous and powerful vehicle for progressive social change,
thus following in the footsteps of other movements from around the world that
have also extolled social justice and passive resistance. Framed by supporters on
Facebook and Twitter in glowing terms, the Green Movement was described with a
variety of striking metaphors as follows: “Sea of Green, you are radiant face of Iran,
source of hope and revitalization of the human spirit for all people.”34
31
The celebrated Iranian filmmaker, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, for instance, explained that the Green
Revolution was akin to a new civil rights movement committed to non-violent resistance—a
transformative event not only for Iran, but also for Mousavi. As he observed about Mousavi in June
2009, which was posted on Facebook and other social media sites: “Previously, he was revolu-
tionary, because everyone inside the system was a revolutionary. But now he’s a reformer. Now he
knows Gandhi—before he knew only Che Guevara. If we gain power through aggression we
would have to keep it through aggression. That is why we’re having a Green Revolution, defined
by peace and democracy.”
32
For a discussion of Martin Luther King and the Green Movement, see Ahmari (2010). As he
observes, “Iran today is arguably the most vital proving ground for Dr. King’s ideas. The Iranian
Green Movement has consciously transposed to its setting the techniques once used by African
Americans to face down vicious white deputies and their attack dogs. In Iran the role of the
southern deputies is taken up by the baton-wielding Basijis, who mercilessly veer their motorcy-
cles into crowds and indiscriminately beat protestor and bystander alike” (pp. 173–174).
33
As one tweet from June 2009 notes, for instance: “‘Truth never damages a cause that is just,’ and
‘First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.’ ~ Mahatma
Gandhi #IranElection #Gr88 This is our story.” And a Facebook post from the same month
combines synergistically Dr. King’s warning that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere” with a stanza written by the famous thirteenth century Persian poet, Saadi Shirazi,
transliterated into English as follows: “Human beings are members of a whole, in creation of one
essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, other members uneasy will remain. If you
have no sympathy for human pain, the name of human you cannot retain.”
34
Various cautionary notes were also sounded, as one tweet intones: “Do not pick up a gun.
Mousavi calls on Sea of Green not to be violent . . . do not sink to the regime’s level that is how we
win.” Warning protesters against engaging in violent action, one tweet asserts, “The more there are
riots, the more repressive action will take place, the more we face the danger of a . . . fascist
In an apparent attempt to connect the nonviolent tactics of the Green Movement

with the past struggle for civil rights in the United States, Northern Ireland, and
other countries, activists linked their #IranElection twitter feed to a video posted on
YouTube featuring the U2 song, “Sunday, Bloody, Sunday.” In the video, words
from the 800-year-old Persian poem, “Song of the Reed Flute,” appeared on screen.
Thus, the song was re-contextualized for both Iranian and Western audiences,
thereby reflecting a prospective frame alignment between the Green Movement
and related defining moments of harsh repression (“bloody Sundays”) in the
West—from Selma, Alabama to Londonderry, Northern Ireland. In a similar form
of cultural hybridity, posts on Twitter’s Green Movement pages and hashtags were
linked to a new version of the classic American civil rights anthem, “We Shall
Overcome.” Performed by Joan Baez and posted on YouTube, the song included
lyrics in both English and Farsi. Links posted on Twitter noted that the song was
dedicated to the Iranian people during their time of struggle against oppression.
On the one hand, activists sought to counter the Iranian regime’s allegation that
the Green Movement was a foreign plot by emphasizing its authentically Shi’a-
Islamic origins and ideological connections to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and
other symbols and narratives that stand in opposition to all forms of injustice—
including Western imperialism. The green frame of Mossadeq, for instance,
stressed that he had been overthrown by a CIA-sponsored coup d’état in 1953.
Many frames also emphasized how civil rights had been violated previously in the
West; thus portraying Western political elites in an often-negative light. But on the
other hand, several tweets posted by activists around the world sought to connect
the Green Movement to contemporary Western political frames—including the
critical assessment of Ahmadinejad issued by U.S. President Barrack Obama: “I
would suggest that Mr. Ahmadinejad think carefully about the obligations he owes
to his own people.” Not coincidentally, the mainstream Western media sometimes
portrayed Mousavi as “the Obama of Iran,” who symbolized revolutionary change
from a corrupt status quo (Khan 2013, p. 12). Problematically, such depictions
inadvertently fanned rumors of Western intervention in contemporary Iranian
political affairs and covert support for the Green Movement.
8 Failure of the Green Revolution
There are several important reasons why the Green Revolution initially caught fire
within Iran, but ultimately failed. First and foremost, the Iranian regime has
maintained many popular state-sponsored economic arrangements for decades
society.” Attempting to seize the moral high ground, another tweet notes, “There is a point where
condemning atrocity is a moral obligation. Massacres reach that point.” A related tweet utilizes the
injustice frame of oppression, noting, “It is long after midnight and across the nation the cries of
the oppressed ascend to the heavens.”
154 D. Drissel
that have dampened support for subversive movements. In particular, Iran’s huge
oil reserves, combined with an authoritarian political system, have turned the
country into a de facto rentier state (Hashemi and Postel 2010). Significantly, oil
revenues provide approximately 45% of the total Iranian governmental budget,
while tax revenues provide only 30% (Cross 2010, p. 185). In effect, the Iranian
rentier state is able to “buy the allegiance of people” whose livelihood is tied to the
survival of the regime (Hashemi and Postel 2010). Moreover, oil revenues tend to
fuel “the repression effect,” thereby limiting the prospects of democratization “by
enabling governments to boost their funding for internal security” (Ross 2001, p. 328).
Thus, Iran’s rentier state likely galvanized opposition to the Green Movement
and restricted its expansion into many demographic groups that are directly or
indirectly dependent on oil revenues. Such revenues also enabled the regime to
tacitly bribe counter-protesters to come to Tehran and other cities in support of the
regime. The government remained relatively strong in the face of adversity by
retaining control of key institutions of the state and related patronage networks. The
regime utilized its extensive networks to transport busloads of “regime loyalists”
into Tehran by enticing them with either free food or the fear of losing their
government jobs or subsidies (Hashemi and Postel 2010). In particular, most
members of the traditional Iranian middle class—the bazarris—largely supported
Ahmadinejad because of their dependency on government-subsidized commodities
and services (Dabashi 2010, p. 24). Even the vast religious sector (e.g., mosques,
shrines, cultural associations, schools, seminaries) was dependent on proceeds from
oil income (Bayat 2010, p. 51).
In theory, indiscriminate—but not overwhelming—state violence against mobilized
groups and oppositional political figures can facilitate the growth of powerful revolu-
tionary movements (Goodwin 2001). And certainly, the Iranian police/paramilitary
apparatus repeatedly engaged in indiscriminate violence against protesters, which
initially emboldened the Green Movement and prompted higher levels of participation
for a time. However, at some point the regime began to use overwhelming state
violence against the demonstrators; thus seriously weakening the movement’s popular
underpinnings. As the movement approached a crescendo of massive direct action, the
regime went on a vicious counterattack. Consequently, dozens of protesters were
killed, hundreds were injured, and thousands were arrested. Virtually every leader of
the movement was arrested, jailed, executed, or assassinated, as were many sympa-
thetic journalists and activists. Reformist mainstream media outlets were mostly closed
down by the regime.35 In effect, Iran evolved from an authoritarian to a neo-totalitarian
state in response to the movement. Consequently, “Stalinist-style show trials were
conducted,” and Iran witnessed “a full-blown reign of terror” that was utilized to squash
the prospective revolution (Hashemi and Postel 2010).
35
According to Reporters Without Borders, more than 100 Iranian journalists were arrested, and at
least 50 others were deported, during the 6-month period following the June 2009 presidential
election (Honari 2013, p. 152).
Simply put, “the state’s escalation of violence has made the streets a site of
confrontation rather than mobilization” (Ehsani et al. 2010, p. 36). And in spite of
other apparent weaknesses, the Iranian government continues to maintain a rela-
tively strong policing system which includes a physically powerful military-
security apparatus. The IRGC,36 in particular, is a very strong paramilitary organi-
zation that provided Ahmadinejad and his supporters with crucial political support
during the Green Revolution.37 Operating as Iran’s “biggest holding company” and
controlling hundreds of businesses including the Iranian armament industry and its
fledgling nuclear program, the IRGC has become “the dominant force within the
ruling establishment in Tehran” (Taheri 2009, p. 244). Thus, the IRGC was
instrumental in galvanizing and channeling support for Ahmadinejad and opposi-
tion to the Green Movement. In particular, the IRGC and their paramilitary com-
patriots in the Basij effectively crushed the protests and created a “climate of fear”
(Halliday 2010, p. 53).
Moreover, the fact that Khamenei decided to “throw his personal clout” behind
Ahmadinejad in the immediate aftermath of the election was unprecedented, given
the fact that the Supreme Leader normally is expected to remain neutral in electoral
politics. Though some experts believe that Khamenei may have undermined his
own authority in the long run by taking such a step (Ehsani et al. 2010, p. 35), he
managed to present a united front within the regime, effectively helping to bridge
the factional gap between old-guard principalists and neo-principalists.
Even the “Twitter Revolution” eventually backfired on the Green Movement,
though social media posts apparently were very helpful at first in sparking demon-
strations and mobilizing participation on the streets of Tehran, and eliciting support
for the movement worldwide. Indeed, tweets, videos, and other social media posts
uploaded by activists initially “increased the incentives of participation by demon-
strating that a significant number of fellow citizens were taking part in the protests”
(Honari 2013, p. 156). But soon after the protests began, regime supporters began
using both mass media and social media sites to defend the “integrity and legiti-
macy” of Ahmadinejad’s electoral victory (Sreberny and Khiabany 2010, p. 172),
thereby seeking to counter-frame the Green Movement as unpatriotic and backed
surreptitiously by the United States and Israel (Aday et al. 2010, p. 19). Tellingly,
the regime effectively dubbed the new movement, “the Green Sedition.” In addi-
tion, the authorities officially shut down the entire country’s cell phone network and
36
Officially responsible for exporting the Islamic revolution to other parts of the world, the IRGC
provides financing and material support to numerous branches of Hezbollah, along with other
militant groups. The IRGC even has its own air, naval, and ground forces, and thus represents a
powerful parallel counterweight to the official Iranian armed forces, as well as the Council of
Guardians and other theocratic organs dominated by Shiite clergy (Taheri 2009, p. 244).
37
As a vast patronage network, the IRGC serves as a “fast track” for achieving political, economic,
and social success in Iran. It is noteworthy that Ahmadinejad and more than half of his cabinet
were IRGC members. In addition, IRGC members controlled approximately one-third of the seats
in the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis), as of 2008.
156 D. Drissel
short message service (text message) networks, thereby making electronic commu-
nication between movement participants much more difficult (Alizadeh 2010, p. 4).
Even so, many demonstrators found circuitous ways to access social media and
continued to flood threads with “cries of support for protesters.” But ironically, such
steps increasingly rendered Twitter mostly useless as a valid source of information
for the movement. In particular, green activists inadvertently jammed Twitter with
rapid-fire one-sided pointless tweets that often lacked clarity and confused pro-
testers (Malek 2010, p. 282). In addition, many tweets and postings contained
erroneous rumors about events and incidents occurring on the streets of Tehran.38
Such phenomena apparently had the unintended effect of limiting the informational
and motivational power of the Green Movement’s cyber-network.
Furthermore, videos of green protests uploaded to YouTube, Facebook, and
other sites had the unanticipated effect of exposing mainstream movement sup-
porters and potential participants to many extremely “gritty and uncensored
images” of beatings and deaths of their fellow protesters. Although such images
further radicalized a minority of participants, most protesters had been relatively
moderate in their demands and tactics and were thus encouraged to retreat from the
streets after seeing such online displays of overwhelming state violence (Fathi
2009; Malek 2010). The Iranian regime’s security apparatus also utilized the
Internet expeditiously to identify and arrest pro-green protesters. Most ominously,
the regime developed a crowdsourcing website that was used to post photos of
protesters, often copied from Twitter and other social media sites. The authorities
offered rewards online to anyone who could identify the culprits, which led
reportedly to the arrest and detention of numerous protesters (Verderosa 2009).
9 Conclusion
In the immediate aftermath of the June 12, 2009 presidential election, the Green
Movement was sparked by widespread charges of electoral fraud and grew expo-
nentially in both size and influence. Activists were generally defiant though opti-
mistic in their overall demeanor and emboldened by their collective effervescence.
Over a million urban young adults—the so-called “burnt generation”—were
inspired to take to the streets after their hopes had been dashed by the official
results of the presidential election.
Certainly, participation in this nascent movement was incentivized for a time by
the proliferation of relevant tweets and other social media postings that were being
disseminated to both a domestic and global audience. Social media played an
38
For instance, a series of pro-green tweets relayed the erroneous story of a young woman who had
been raped, tortured, and murdered by police, after being arrested for chanting “Allah Akbar” on
her rooftop. This report was revealed to be a hoax, but only after being disseminated extensively on
Twitter and other social media (Esfandiari 2010).
important informational role for a time, especially given the growing censorship of
mainstream Iranian media outlets coupled with the temporary expulsion of foreign
journalists by the Iranian regime. But even if Iran did not undergo a full-fledged
Twitter Revolution, Twitter certainly became a highly visible tool for movement
activists and organizers—especially in the initial post-election period. In particular,
social media were very effective in circulating information about the allegedly
fraudulent election results and the time and location of protest marches. In addition,
many tweets offered various tactical recommendations on how to interact with the
oppressive security apparatus and violent-prone militias of the regime.
Most importantly, the framing of the Green Movement on Twitter and other
social media sites contributed significantly to the social construction of a new
collective identity and oppositional consciousness among youthful protesters and
other regime critics in Iran. To a large extent, this micro-mobilization process was
facilitated by the construction of an innovative online discourse that endeavored to
link the Green Movement primarily to indigenous frames of Iranian-Islamic history
and culture, but also to global justice frames of universal human rights and other
transnational concerns. Such a dual-discursive strategy appears to have been suc-
cessful initially in eliciting greater levels of popular support for the movement both
inside and outside of Iran. In effect, green activists managed to lift relevant frames
of reference not only from the 1979 Iranian Revolution and traditional Shi’a Iranian
culture, but also from the Palestinian Nationalist Movement, the Indian Indepen-
dence Movement, the American Civil Rights Movement, and other comparable
collective struggles. Put simply, movement activists sought to shape their collective
action by aligning the frames of the Green Movement with preexisting, embedded
frames in Iran and around the world.
However, the Green Movement ultimately failed to achieve its main political
objectives because it was unable to seriously threaten the main “pillars of power”
in Iran—the regime’s oil income and related patronage network, government-
subsidized clerical establishment, powerful economic institutions, and the armed
forces and the paramilitaries (Kurzman 2010, pp. 13–15). In each of these power
centers, Ahmadinejad and his supporters maintained a virtual monopoly of power,
which proved to be sufficient for protecting and immunizing the regime from
revolution while effectively counteracting the Green Movement. The rentier state-
system and its subsidy-largess, coupled with Ahmadinejad’s network ties to the
Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, strengthened the regime sufficiently to with-
stand and eventually repress the Green Revolution. Put simply, Ahmadinejad con-
trolled the highly organized “military-clerical-commercial complex” (Abrahamian
2010, p. 61), which gave a decisive advantage to the regime over the loosely
connected, semi-organized movement.
Moreover, the sheer magnitude of Iranian state violence and intimidation over-
whelmed the protesters, thereby generating a climate of fear. Given the deeply
authoritarian, patriarchal, and fervently ideological political culture of Iran (Bayat
2010, p. 47), the Green Movement was unprepared for the united onslaught of a
regime in mass-repression mode. Even the use of social media eventually proved to
be insufficient and counterproductive in mobilizing supporters after the first few
158 D. Drissel
weeks of the rebellion, given the persistent problems of information overload and
unsubstantiated rumors disseminated online. Paradoxically, the online dissemina-
tion of viral videos depicting excessive state violence against protesters almost
certainly fueled more fear than resolve among Green Movement supporters, par-
ticularly as the regime escalated its crackdown in late June. The regime’s use of
highly effective counter-frames to rebut the greens’ ideational framework, coupled
with the technological manipulation of social media to locate and arrest protesters,
apparently served as the coup de gr^ ace for repressing the movement.
Far from enjoying unanimous support in Iranian society, the Green Movement
was weakened by pro-regime forces, which includes a significant percentage of the
populace whose livelihoods or positions are directly dependent upon the state. What
seemed to be conspicuously lacking from the Green Movement’s discourse—both
online and offline—was a comprehensive economic framework for political
change, which likely proved to be a major strategic weakness. Tellingly, surveys
conducted during the Green Revolution revealed that Iranian political sympathies
were almost evenly divided between the regime and the protesters (Alizadeh 2010,
p. 16). To a large extent, the regime succeeded by convincing much of the Iranian
public that the protesters were simply “pawns” of adversarial foreign powers.
Effectively utilizing counter-frames in mass media outlets and social media venues,
regime sympathizers apparently helped to instill perceptions of the Green Move-
ment as “toxic” within large swathes of Iranian society (Aday et al. 2010, p. 19).
Thus, Twitter and other social media outlets ultimately became an ironic vector for
state repression of the Green Movement.
References
Abrahamian, E. (2010). I am not a speck of dirt, I am a retired teacher. In N. Hasehmi & D. Postel
(Eds.), The people reloaded: The Green Movement and the struggle for Iran’s future
(pp. 60–70). Brooklyn, NY: Melville House.
Aday, S., Farrell, H., Lynch, M., Sides, J., Kelly, J., & Zuckerman, E. (2010). Blogs and bullets:
New media in contentious politics. Peaceworks, 65, 1–31.
Ahmari, S. (2010). From Birmingham to Tehran: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Green Move-
ment. In N. Hasehmi & D. Postel (Eds.), The people reloaded: The Green Movement and the
struggle for Iran’s future (pp. 173–175). Brooklyn, NY: Melville House.
Alizadeh, A. (2010). Why are the Iranians dreaming again? In N. Hasehmi & D. Postel (Eds.), The
people reloaded: The Green Movement and the struggle for Iran’s future (pp. 3–6). Brooklyn,
NY: Melville House.
Bakhtavar, S. (2009). The Green Movement: The struggle continues. Irving, TX: Parsa Enterprises.
Bayat, A. (2010). A wave for life and liberty: The Green Movement and Iran’s incomplete
revolution. In N. Hasehmi & D. Postel (Eds.), The people reloaded: The Green Movement
and the struggle for Iran’s future (pp. 41–52). Brooklyn, NY: Melville House.
Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and
assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 611–639.
Buechler, S. (2011). Understanding social movements: Theories from the classical era to present.
Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
Cross, K. (2010). Why Iran’s Green Movement faltered: The limits of information technology in a
rentier state. SAIS Review, 2, 169–187.
Dabashi, H. (2010). Iran’s Green Movement as a civil rights movement. In N. Hasehmi & D. Postel
(Eds.), The people reloaded: The Green Movement and the struggle for Iran’s future (pp. 22–25).
Brooklyn, NY: Melville House.
Drissel, D. (2011). Pan-Islamist networks of the apocalypse: Mobilizing diasporic Muslim youth
on Facebook. In R. G. Howard (Ed.), Network apocalypse: Visions of the end in an age of
Internet media (pp. 145–182). London: University of Sheffield Phoenix Press.
Ehsani, K., Keshavarzian, A., & Moruzzi, N. C. (2010). Slaps in the face of reason: Teheran, June
2009. In N. Hasehmi & D. Postel (Eds.), The people reloaded: The Green Movement and the
struggle for Iran’s future (pp. 173–175). Brooklyn, NY: Melville House.
Esfandiari, G. (2010). The Twitter devolution. Resource document. Foreign Policy Archive. Retrieved
from http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/06/08/the-twitter-devolution/. Accessed 14 August 2016.
Fathi, N. (2009). A recount offer fails to silence protests in Iran. Resource document. New York
Times Archive. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/world/middleeast/17iran.
html?_r¼0. Accessed 14 August 2016.
Gheytanchi, E. (2010). Symbols, signs, and slogans of the demonstrations in Iran. In Y. R.
Kamalipour (Ed.), Media, power, and politics in the digital age: The 2009 presidential election
uprising in Iran (pp. 251–264). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Goodwin, J. (2001). No other way out: States and revolutionary movements, 1945–1991. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, F. (2010). Iran’s tide of history: Counter-revolution and after. In N. Hasehmi & D. Postel
Hashemi, N., Postal, D., & Postel, D. (2010). Introduction. In N. Hasehmi & D. Postel (Eds.), The
people reloaded: The Green Movement and the struggle for Iran’s future (pp. xi–xxiii).
Hernandez, J. (2013). Lost in the labyrinth: The Green Revolution and the Islamic Republic of
Iran. Al Nakhlah: Online Journal on Southwest Asia and Islamic Civilization, Spring 1–8.
Honari, A. (2013). From virtual to tangible social movements in Iran. In P. Aarts & F. Cavatorta
(Eds.), Civil society in Syria and Iran: Activism in authoritarian contexts (pp. 143–168).
Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Keller, J. (2010). Evaluating Iran’s Twitter revolution. Resource document. Atlantic Archive.
Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/evaluating-irans-twit
ter-revolution/58337/. Accessed 14 August 2006.
Khan, S. B. (2013). The western media and Iran’s presidential election 2009: The visual framing of
a Green Revolution. International Journal of Liberal Arts and Social Science, 4, 11–30.
Kinzer, S. (2010). A specter is haunting Iran—the specter of Mossadeq. In N. Hasehmi & D. Postel
Kurzman, C. (2010). Cultural jiu-jitsu and the Iranian greens. In N. Hasehmi & D. Postel (Eds.),
The people reloaded: The Green Movement and the struggle for Iran’s future (pp. 7–17).
Malek, M. B. (2010). Cyber disobedience: Weapons of mass media destruction. In Y. R.
uprising in Iran (pp. 277–288). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Miller, D. (1999). Principles of social justice. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University
Press.
Morris, A. (2000). Reflections on social movement theory: Criticisms and proposals. Contempo-
rary Sociology, 3, 445–454.
Ross, M. L. (2001). Does oil hinder democracy? World Politics, 3, 325–361.
Snow, D. A., & Benford, R. (1988). Ideology, frame resonance, and participant mobilization.
International Social Movement Research, 1, 197–217.
160 D. Drissel
Snow, D. A., & Benford, R. (1992). Master frames and cycles of protest. In A. Morris & C. Mueller
(Eds.), Frontiers in social movement theory (pp. 197–218). New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Snow, D. A., Burke Rochford Jr., E., Worden, S. K., & Benford, R. D. (1986). Frame alignment
processes, micromobilization, and movement participation. American Sociological Review, 4,
464–481.
Sreberny, A., & Khiabany, G. (2010). Blogistan: The Internet and politics in Iran. London:
I.B. Taurus.
Steger, M. B. (2009). Globalisms: The great ideological struggle of the 21st century. Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Taheri, A. (2009). The Persian night: Iran under the Khomeinist revolution. New York and
London: Encounter Books.
Turner, G. (2010). Ordinary people and the media: The demotic turn. London: SAGE.
Verderosa, D. (2009). Digital media and Iran’s Green Movement: A look back with Cameran
Ashraf. Resource document. Hub archive. Retrieved from http://hub.witness.org/en/blog/digi
tal-media-and-irans-green-movement-look-back-cameran-ashraf. Accessed 14 August 2016.
Egyptian Women in the Arab Spring:
Emotions, Political Participation,
and the Internet
Alisa R. Shishkina
1 Introduction
In 2011, the Arab world witnessed a sequence of social and political upheavals.
These events were called the “Arab Spring” and had a significant impact on both the
regional perspective of various countries and global geopolitical trends. During
the numerous anti-government protests, certain mechanisms of protest activity
emerged where information technologies and particularly social media played a
key role. Therefore, understanding this transformation of protest patterns in the
context of globalization and informatization of society seems particularly urgent.
As a rule, in the discussion and study of these processes, the role of the minorities
is not paid too much attention, while the events of the Arab Spring demonstrated the
transformation in the position of some groups, and in particular women in the
political arena of Arab countries. Being an important part of protest potential of
the Arab spring, women’s participation is not well-understood, as since it is often
perceived as a part of feminist movement. Alternatively, Khamis (2011) mentions
that in accordance with age and sex structure of the demonstrators, there is no
significant difference in how both men and women groups are represented. At the
same time, we could put forward an assumption that women’s participation played a
particularized role in protest actions of the modern period.
During this period, women’s participation in political life has reached a signif-
icant magnitude compared to previous periods. Not only were women active in
antigovernment demonstrations, but they also made significant progress in the
protection of their rights. For example, according to Al Nisr (2012), in Yemen
A.R. Shishkina (*)

National Research University Higher School of Economics, Institute for African Studies of
RAS, Moscow, Russia
e-mail: alisa.shishkina@gmail.com

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_10
162 A.R. Shishkina
women confirmed their right to higher education, and a native of Taiz, Tawakkol
Karman, became the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Women’s
participation in the demonstrations can also serve as a shining example of the
inclusion of people in protest activities based on the growing level of national
identity: people were not only protecting their own interests, but were willing to
take responsibility for socially vulnerable strata of society.
In this article we should pay particular attention to the case of Egypt as a key
country for Arab Spring where destabilization tendencies and scenarios displayed
themselves most vividly. Nonetheless, Egypt has its own cultural, historical and
socio-political characteristics that had significant influence on the forms of protest
potential manifestation in this country.
Women’s engagement in the protests was strongly interconnected with communi-
cative factors. In the last decade of the twentieth century, there were revolutionary
transformations in communication and information technologies. These include the
“new wave” of media represented primarily by satellite TV, online newspapers and
magazines, and news sites on the Internet, the influence of which goes beyond national
boundaries of individual states. Thus, the era of local TV, radio, and newspapers under
the jurisdiction of the state that were used for the alignment of national policies, as well
as the period of Western media monopoly on the distribution of news sources are now
in the past. According to The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research
(2006), the Arab media increasingly becomes an important factor influencing interna-
tional relations. For example, by creating unique news satellite TV channels (especially
such as al-Jazeera), the Arab media has been able to effectively influence the regional
and even international politics.
The appearance of a common information and communication space in the
Middle East and North Africa, and its availability for most of the population, is a
significant feature of the modern political landscape. The Arab Spring generation in
Egypt not only perfectly knows how to operate with the latest electronic means of
communication, but also proved to be able to effectively use them for mobilization
and conducting anti-government protests. The example here could be a concept
proposed by Ghonim (2012) according to which the Internet became a perfect
instrument for organizing protest actions. This has resulted, in particular, in their
ability to articulate collective economic, social, and political demands that have
found a response among the population. According to Jungherr (2009), the principal
novelty of the instrument used by the opposition during the Arab Spring demon-
strations is that social media allowed protesters to control the selection of facts and
news: “. . . in the age of smart phones and localized services this immediate
distribution of personalized news is very powerful”. That enabled them to withstand
the traditional media, which often filter such kind of news and present them from a
different angle. The protest model developed over the course of events in 2011 in
North Africa proved to be quite fruitful and served as an example for protesters in
other parts of the world. For instance, the representatives of the Occupy Wall Street
movement openly admitted that they are indebted to the Arab Spring (Stebbins
2011). Similarly, mass protests in the United States and many European cities
(including riots in London and Rome, student unrest in The Hague, strikes in
Egyptian Women in the Arab Spring: Emotions, Political Participation, and. . . 163
Greece, etc.) have also been inspired by the Arab experience. Moreover, similar
trends were observed during the Ukrainian events of 2013–2014.
However, the accumulation of political demands on the virtual space is accompa-
nied by certain difficulties such as censorship and the prosecution of activists. For
example, in January 2011, Tawakkol Karman was briefly arrested and accused of
organizing illegal protests and inciting unrest. In one of her interviews, she emphasized
the role of social media in the revolutionary process only as a particular technology,
stressing that social media is neither a silent witness of the mass movements, nor their
cause; revolution is not Twitter or Facebook, but people. Thus, women’s participation
in the protests of the Arab Spring was not limited to the direct access to demonstrations;
they were also involved in the process of protest preparation and cyber-activism.
2 Political Potential of Social Media and Women’s

Participation
The active penetration of Internet technologies into all spheres of society and, as a
consequence, the transfer of the main focus of social communication in virtual
reality are directly linked with the concept of network society. This concept was
initially defined by Van Dijk (2006), but its earlier discussions can also be found in
the works of poststructuralists and new institutionalists. For example, Bourdieu
(1983) noted that the reproduction of social relations is constructed (consciously or
unconsciously) in accordance with the principle of the network, and the famous
social capital, in turn, “is a collection of actual or potential resources which are
associated with the possession of a sustainable network of more or less institution-
alized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition—in other words, with
membership in a group.”
The example of Egypt shows that the use of social networking during the anti-
government protests was extensive: Facebook was used to plan the demonstrations,
Twitter to coordinate them, and YouTube to tell the world about them (Howard
2011). More than that, women took an active part in the protests, and the image of a
young girl taking part in demonstrations and the images of young girls taking part in
demonstrations were very successfully used for the recruitment of new potential
demonstrators. For instance, the popular blog of Egyptian Internet activist Navara
Negm (2013) contains not only appeals to go to the streets and conduct “reports”
from the field, but also motivating messages that the success of the “Jasmine
Revolution” inspired people in many countries and regions.
The study of mass communication processes refers us to the network theory that
had been actively applied for the analysis of political institutions and processes in
the second half of the twentieth century. Using social media as an effective
mechanism of mobilization and consolidation could be seen in Lasswell’s (1948)
functionalist theory of media. It is noteworthy to say that these theories were
developed before the advent and widespread of social media, and refer rather to
164 A.R. Shishkina
sociology, that allows them to represent, to some extent, universal communication

concepts. Thus, we are able to apply them in the study of the current situation in the
Arab region as a whole and in Egypt in particular. In the context of antigovernment
protests in Egypt, the Internet in some cases played a role of protest activity trigger,
especially after the attempts of governments to block or significantly restrict
communication traffic (Woodcock 2011). In addition, one can mention the politi-
cization of certain population groups that were remarkable for their political
passivity until that moment.
During the Arab Spring protests in 2011–2012, the most important feature of
social media use in anti-government demonstrations was its primary influence on the
dynamics of social mobilization. Unlike traditional media’s mobilization mechanisms
(such as distributing leaflets, posters, etc.), the new media provides opportunities for
high-speed communication and interactivity. Online groups and communities have
been used by activists as platforms for the exchange of information. Internet tech-
nologies were not the cause of the spread of antigovernment demonstrations in the
Arab world, but a means of articulation and canalization of protest activity.
More recently, Langman and Morris (2002) engage in this discussion, asserting
that the forms, organization, and goals of social movements depend on their histor-
ical context. Thus, the rise of bourgeois revolutions was enabled by a bourgeois
“public sphere” dependent on books, pamphlets, and letters; civil rights and anti-war
movements of the 1960s used television to garner support, while alternative glob-
alization movements are organized and coordinated through the Internet. The
authors suggest rethinking social movement theory, taking into account globaliza-
tion as a description of the contemporary world. They argue that new forms of social
relations, unique formats of social organization, and “cyber-activism” become
possible because of informatization; and to some extent they share the goals of
earlier democratic movements such as the unionization, suffrage, or struggle for the
civil rights.
Al-Ali (2012, p. 27) argues that women’s participation and gender issues were
key to revolutionary and counter-revolutionary processes in Tunisia and Egypt.
Without doubt, it has been easier for women to participate in politics in Egypt,
where the protest movement had initially taken an explicitly nonviolent character—
silmiya—and where there exists a long history of large-scale women’s political
participation, since for decades women had been active members of trade unions
and informal networks and organizations. Eventually, they became involved in
virtual communities.
By the beginning of the protests in 2011, a serious level of dissatisfaction with the
economic and socio-political situation among the population of Egypt had accumu-
lated, and the new ways and channels of protest activity mobilization in the form of
Internet technologies overlapped it. Thus, the preparatory phase of protests was
organized in virtual space, and public mobilization was very fast. Here we should
give an example of women’s participation. Thus, for example, Asma Mahfous
become known as a “leader of the revolution” in Egypt after posting a video calling
young people to organize demonstrations and spark protests against President Hosni
Mubarak (Al-Ali 2012, p. 29). However, having no strong ideological framework
and really recognizable leaders, such movements soon displayed a tendency to

decline, and the situation was exacerbated further by the fatal mistakes of authorities
trying to break up already-dissolving demonstrations (Howard and Hussain 2011).
As Lifintseva et al. (2015, p. 538) suggest, this factor mobilized people on the second
wave of protests much stronger than on the first stage because there appeared real
political goals as a rule reduced to the claim of regime overthrow.
Why were the governments so unprepared for such manifestations of unrest?
Why did they misjudge the threat from protesters, leading to fatal mistakes? I argue
that this could be explained (among other factors) by the rapid development of
Internet technologies that give the opposition an opportunity to mobilize in cyber-
space, uncontrolled by the power. The governments are accustomed to fully
controlling the flow of information in the traditional media—television, radio,
print media, etc.—and in most cases underestimated the mobilization potential of
new media communication. The latter, in turn, are characterized not only by the
ability of instant information spread but also by extensive opportunities for feed-
back, as well as extremely reduced level of mobilization costs. Thus, in a rather low
level of trust to the government, like the Arab spring, a significant part of commu-
nication regarding power relations, especially the opposition, was transferred into
the virtual sphere, withdrawing from the control of government censorship.
It is worth mentioning that these processes gave rise to such a format of commu-
nication in which there are no pronounced ideological factors and recognizable
leaders of protest movements. This is a fundamentally new feature in comparison
with the preparation of protests undertaken by traditional media. During the Arab
Spring, the governments generally cooperated with the opposition of the “old”
sample that was provided by charismatic leaders, operated with a more or less
clear ideological program and used to coordinate through traditional media—leaf-
lets, radio, etc. In the cases the power was forced to face an unusual format of
opposition activity, it did not have time to readjust to new circumstances, and, as a
consequence, allowed such mistakes.
The new information technologies, in particular, social media, allowed women to
participate in the demonstrations of the Arab Spring as organizers, activists, and
journalists. As men tend to dominate in the space of traditional media, cyber-
activism allows women to express themselves, both within a particular country
and internationally. Social media thus became a tool for women’s participation in
revolutionary actions, blurring the distinction between social and political networks.
Cyberspace allowed women to attempt to achieve participatory democracy. More
than that, it contributed to overcoming gender and social barriers between men and
women, as well as a whole range of cultural and religious norms of perception of
women in society. This, among other things, is connected with the inspiration of the
opposition-minded youth of Western-style democratic society values and desire to
achieve (as possible) such a state of society in Arab countries.
The recent efforts of women’s movements in Egypt led by female activists
achieved some progress in the area of women’s rights. According to the World
Bank (2013), in some Arab countries, especially those that were covered by the
protest wave in 2011–2012, the literacy rate in Egypt has increased compared to
166 A.R. Shishkina
1990. Davles (2012) also notes that eliminating the educational gender gap is a
relatively recent phenomenon. For many girls, education is the only mechanism of
socialization outside the family, and in some countries, the level of women’s
education is closer to men’s, or even exceeds it.
However, in Egypt, women are still people of the “second-class”, experiencing
difficulties in exercising the right to employment, the possession of property, and
participation in political life. Indeed, despite the improvement in access to higher
education, the employment of women is a great problem; there are paradoxically
few women in politics and their level of employment is low. As Davles (2012)
notes, “the idea that education is the key to obtaining positions of power, have not
been realized”.
Thus, young and educated Egyptian women are faced with a paradoxical situa-
tion. On the one hand, they continue to remain in the traditional dimension that does
not encourage their social and political activity. On the other hand, these women
show extraordinary activism and are involved in various social and political
processes, including protest activities. Such activism is largely fueled by the
discontent of the young educated people with their social position and inability to
obtain the status corresponding to their education and ambitions. Urdal (2006) and
other researchers argue that unemployed young people with higher education
concentrated mainly in the big cities became the main driving force of the Arab
Spring protests. This phenomenon is known as “youth bulge”.
It is noteworthy that the study of women’s perception of the political situation in
crisis and their vision of the revolutionary activity helps better understand the
transformation of the protest moods and the degree of frustration inherent in the
post-revolutionary period after the overthrow of the former regime. For example, in
this paper special attention should be paid to the letters of Samiha Razek, a graduate
of Cairo University and an activist of the protest movement in Egypt who took part
in anti-government demonstrations since 2011, first against Mubarak, then against
M. Morsi, and finally against the returned military regime in the country. She also
was a member of different Internet platforms supporting the ideas of protest
demonstrations and promoted the idea that new information technologies represent
fundamentally new means of communication in political sphere and accumulation
of the protest potential. Samiha’s reflections will help us to see how the moods of
protesting youth about this idea were changing. Here are some extracts from the
letters of Samiha to a group of Russian researchers, including the author of this
article (also see Grinin et al. 2015).
Number 9
05/06/13
Now there is fairly quiet, everyone is preparing for June 30 when all people will
come to the streets to demand the resignation of Morsi, after it has been collected
more than seven million signatures for an uprising against the Muslim Brotherhood
and Morsi.
We plan to hold a sit-in similar to that one as an 18-day strike against Mubarak
starting from June 30, the day which is expected to be a decisive day for the
revolution.
Number 10
04/07/2013
Of course, I’m happy, but the sadness and anger of the Western media coverage
and analysis overshadow my joy.
They call it a military coup! They are calling to stop aid to Egypt as a conse-
quence, like the Egyptian resources cannot ensure self-sufficiency of the country.
They talk as if they don’t see the millions who demanded to dismiss Mohammed
Badei elected as a result of “unfair elections” (although the Western media called
them free and fair) who is an extremist figure being a puppet of Great Khomeini
among the Muslim Brotherhood!
I’m just furious! I really want to blow all the Western media which presented the
success of the Egyptian revolution after 3 years of fighting as the crisis and the
failure of so-called democracy and the regime as a theocracy.
Number 14
04/10/13
I am also concerned about what I hear on the streets and in public transport. It
seems that most people are so impressed with the suppression of the Muslim
Brotherhood broadcasted in the media that they simply demonize them claiming
Mubarak and the military innocent of corruption and killings of protesters during
the reign of Mubarak and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces saying that the
Muslim Brothers were the only who killed the demonstrators! And people are also
beginning to talk that the “democracy” brought by the Muslim Brotherhood is
worse than that one of Mubarak and the military!
Number 35
12/31/14
I can say that the situation in Egypt is now very oppressive! And I was also very
depressed, but now I’m trying to concentrate on the completion of the thesis and not
sink into depression because, as you may know, the number of suicides in Egypt in
recent years has increased, and one of our friends, the revolutionaries, Zeinab
168 A.R. Shishkina
al-Mahdi, committed suicide. You know what were her last words written on
Facebook? (I translate them for you):
I’m tired . . . I’m exhausted . . . No Hope!
Number 34
12/30/14
I think there is no need to tell you that the situation in Egypt is now reminiscent
of hell, if it exists! If you follow all the news, you probably know that the situation
in Egypt is becoming similar to that observed in 2011–2013. Indeed, I would like
that Mubarak is back! During his reign, there was much more freedom, and all the
activists were released. But now it seems that we are living in a military prison!
Number 35
28/01/16
I really don’t follow Facebook anymore, because I personally think that

Facebook has become a discouraging means for action. Back in the days before, I
mainly used Facebook to know where the next demonstrations to go to are. But
now, activists only use Facebook as a psychological means to let go of their anger
(by posting angry words), without doing any action on the ground. Facebook has
become a virtual anger ventilator that provide activists with an illusory sensation of
doing their role of revolutionary act (by posting a courageous tweet/post and getting
thousands of virtual likes) without actually having to even leave their comfy
couches with their little laptops, and thinking that this is where a revolution could
go on!!! I think if Facebook wasn’t there, activists and angry youth would’ve had no
choice but to act in the streets to ventilate their psychological anger! That’s why I
perceive Facebook now as a discouraging force acting against the interest of an
actual revolution, unlike its initial precipitatory force before 2011. Anyway, that’s
why I’m not following it anymore, and I’m trying to spend more time reading
articles and studies. ‘Cause you know what?!! I’ve been thinking the last few days,
that the thing that the Egyptian revolution misses (which past revolutions had) are
thinkers—not necessarily ideologues—but just thinkers and perhaps philosophers.
A real complete revolution can’t be done by the hands of angry young people who
are only good at shouting in the streets, fighting with police, and cursing on
Facebook!!! That’s not enough!
We can see that the first of these letters chronologically referring back to the
reign of M. Morsi, reflect the revolutionary ardor, enthusiasm, and willingness to go
all the way to eliminate the elements of the current regime that cause discontent. It
is worth emphasizing that the same sentiments prevailed among the youth protest in
2011 before the overthrow of Mubarak. However, follow-up letters more clearly
convey the excitement and experiences of young people themselves in the face of
the knowledge that they were betrayed in establishing a prosperous society, one that
was non-corrupt and based on a respect for human rights. The final letters create the
atmosphere of despair and hopelessness of the situation.
History of Samiha Razek somehow signals the development of civil society
institutions in Egypt. Despite the fact that the concept of civil society is mainly
associated with the Western concept, it is, nevertheless, not fundamentally alien to
the Arab world. In addition, as Vallionatos (2012) states, in recent years, the Arab
states worked out a mechanism for the formation of civil organizations, including
those because of Western influence.
However, despite the idea of revitalization and rejuvenation of civil society in
Arab countries, proclaimed long before the events of the Arab Spring, the reality is
that its representatives did not manage to send the Arab states on the path of
democratic transition by undermining the foundations of authoritarian institutions.
The contradictory issue is the situation of women as well: for example, on the one
hand, in recent years, in large cities, they got more educational opportunities for
self-realization, but, on the other hand, involvement in political life, including in the
protest movements, sows a sense of social exclusion and frustration in the minds of
young people, and women are the most vulnerable to this process because of the
greater emotional sensitivity and lack of historical experience of social and political
interaction.
But the main lesson from Samiha’s letters should be the following: we may
observe the disappointment of the protesting youth with social media, e.g. Facebook
that initially was perceived as a new mechanism of the development and struggle for
freedom, civil rights etc., but finally lowered the revolutionary potential, reducing it to
vegetative discussion of the existing problems. This assumption again proves that
social media is largely a technical expression of people’s attitudes, but not the root
cause or determinant of protest actions.
It is worth stressing that when we speak about such figures as Samiha, we have
nothing in common with the feminist movements and even feminist thought. As a
result of the extensive communicative development of the Arab societies, women
put themselves forward in the political arena, articulating social and political
demands, but not struggling for women’s rights per se. One of the reasons here
could be a high level of education in the countries under analysis where the main
revolutionary driving force was educated young people who were not satisfied with
their social conditions. However, the deep roots of this phenomenon seem to be
in the internal desire of women for participatory democracy which goes beyond
traditional “Western” notions of civil, political, and human rights. Despite the fact
that educated youth on Tahrir square demanded reaching the liberal democratic
society and not going into the discussion of the forms of democracy in non-Western
societies, we could state that the participation of Egyptian women in the protest
movements since the beginning of the Arab Spring marked the formation of a
new peculiar format of political participation and, to a certain degree, of political
culture. This format includes a combination of cultural practices traditional for the
Arab world (such as Friday prayers) and the use of the latest achievements in the
field of communication.
170 A.R. Shishkina
3 Conclusion
In conclusion, it should be noted that despite the progress made in many countries
in overcoming traumatic religious rituals and traditional values, as well as women’s
right to vote and the positive changes in family law, a huge number of developing
countries continue to lag behind in economic development, to show the highest
rates of unemployment, illiteracy, AIDS, and other deadly diseases. Women in these
circumstances are one of the most vulnerable groups. Ways of solving problems
developed by the centuries-old experience of Western feminist thought, in this case,
turn out to be irrelevant, as the post-colonial societies in most cases are at the alternative
stage an understanding of the existing problems. However, in recent years in Egypt, as
shown by statistics, there is a strong tendency to involve the female population,
especially in big cities, in the system of higher education established. It played an
important role in overcoming the challenges mentioned above.
Means of communication, whether they are traditional media (television, radio,
newspapers, etc.) or new media (associated, as a rule, with web-technologies), are
just the sort of technical shell of human action which helps to speed up and enhance
their effect, but the driving force of the various processes in the society including
the revolutionary ones become voluntas et actio1 of a group of individuals who at
some point are able to dispense information that they are already familiar with in
the absence of any means of transmission. And the example of Samiha Razek
confirms this point.
However, the latest means of communication and dissemination of information,
as the events of the Arab Spring in Egypt have shown, contributed to the spread of
political participation among the minority groups - in this case, among women. The
absence of clear signs of feminist movements in their ranks made them active
participants in the protests equally with men. They become the people’s leaders and
inspirers, journalists, revolutionary theorists, etc. We have repeatedly emphasized
that the media themselves appear only as McLuhan’s (1954) technical extensions of
man, but the revolutionary wave of 2011–2012 clearly demonstrated how quickly
could articulate the trends that ripened in the society for an indeterminate amount of
time through them. Still, in the end, even revolutionary-minded youth came to the
realization that the media are not all-powerful and are just used as a tool by the
warring parties of the conflict.
Note
This article in an output of a research project implemented as a part of the Basic

research program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics
(HSE) in 2017 with support of the Russian Science Foundation (project # 14-18-
03615).
1
Will and action (Lat.)
References
Al Nisr. (2012). Yemeni, liberian women win 2011 Nobel peace prize. Resource document. Al Nisr
Publishing LLC. Retrieved from http://gulfnews.com/news/world/other-world/yemeni-libe
rian-women-win-2011-nobel-peace-prize-1.887132. Accessed 5 August 2016.
Al-Ali, N. (2012). Gendering the Arab Spring. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication,
5(1), 26–31.
Bourdieu, P. (1983). Ökonomisches Kapital, kulturelles Kapital, soziales Kaputal. In R. Kreckel (Ed.),
Soziale Ungleichheiten (Soziale Welt, Sonderheft 2) (pp. 183–198). Güttingen: Otto Schwartz.
Davles, C. (2012). Mideast women beat men in education, lose out at work. Resource document.
Inside the Middle East. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/01/world/meast/mid
dle-east-women-education/. Accessed 5 June 2016.
Ghonim, W. (2012). Revolution 2.0: The power of the people is greater than the people in power:
A memoir (p (320)). New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Grinin, L. E., Isaev, L. M., & Korotayev, A. V. (2015). Revolyutsii i nestabil’nost’ na Blizhnem
Vostoke [Revolutions and instability in the Middle East] (p. 384). M.: Uchitel.
Howard, P. (2011). The cascading effects of the Arab Spring. Resource document. Miller-McCune.
Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20110301052550/http://www.miller-mccune.com/pol
itics/the-cascading-effects-of-the-arab-spring-28575/. Accessed 21 August 2016.
Howard, P., & Hussain, M. (2011). The role of digital media. Journal of Democracy, 22, 35–48.
Jungherr, A. (2009). The DigiActive guide to Twitter for activism. Resource document. DigiActive.
Retrieved from http://akgul.bilkent.edu.tr/digiactive_twitter_guide_v1-0.pdf. Accessed 3 July 2016.
Khamis, S. (2011). The Arab “Feminist” Spring? Feminist Histories and Institutional Practices,
37(3), 692–695.
Langman, L., & Morris, D. (2002). Internet mediation: A theory of alternative globalization
movements. Resource document. In M. Gurstein & S. Finquelievich (Eds.), Proceedings of
the 1st international workshop on community informatics. Montreal, QC. Retrieved from
http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/langmanbk01.htm. Accessed 7 June 2016.
Lasswell, H. D. (1948). The structure and function of communication in society. The Communication
of Ideas, 37, 215–228.
Lifintseva, T., Isaev, L., & Shishkina, A. (2015). Fitnah: The afterlife of a religious term in recent
political protest. Religions, 6, 527–542.
McLuhan, M. (1954). New media as political forms. Explorations, 3.
Negm, N. (2013). Tahyees front blog. Retrieved from http://tahyyes.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_
archive.html
Stebbins, W. (2011). Social media and the Arab Spring: Where did they learn that? Washington,
DC: World Bank.
The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research. (2006). Arab media in the information
age (pp. 3–4). Abu Dhabi: The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research.
Urdal, H. (2006). A clash of generations? Youth bulges and political violence. International
Studies Quarterly, 50, 607–629.
Vallionatos, S. (2012). Arabskoe grazhdanskoe obschestvo na pereput’e demokratizatsii: vliyanie
Arabskoy vesny [Arab civil society at a crossroad: The influence of the Arab spring]. Resource
document. Neighborhood Policy Paper. Retrieved from http://www.khas.edu.tr/cms/cies/
dosyalar/files/NeighbourhoodPolicyPaper(10)RussianVersion.pdf. Accessed 7 August 2016.
Van Dijk, J. (2006). The network society: Social aspects of new media. London: Sage.
Woodcock, B. (2011). Overview of the Egyptian Internet shutdown. San Francisco: Packet
Clearing House.
World Bank. (2013). World development indicators online. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Retrieved from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/. Accessed 9 August 2016.
Cyberspace Attacks and Social Media
Momentum: Building Blocks from Syria
to Ukraine
Ina Wanca
1 Introduction
The evolution of digital technology and social media practices are, without a doubt,
transforming an individual’s and collective participation in civil affairs. Social
media tools such as Twitter and Facebook, in conjunction with the increase of
Internet and mobile connectivity, have become normative tools for participatory
democracy during the last decade. In 2004, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine
ushered in a new form of digital activism via mobile phones. Following this
example, the Arab Spring benefited from the widespread diffusion of information,
validating the transnational character of this new social activism. As a result, the
Internet accessibility and social media converged as an agent for direct social
change, altering the way networks of people connect, negotiate, exchange, and
coordinate ideas and actions, while also ushering in new actors who possess
strategic positions within limited frameworks.
After the initial protests in Syria in 2011, there was a demarcated line of online
deviation as a form of participatory behavior action through the use of cyber-
attacks. A new trend of online behavior has now emerged during both the 2011
Syrian uprising and the 2004 predecessor in the Ukraine. Specifically,
non-governmental actors including individuals and groups have become successful
in branding themselves mobilizing participation in civil upheaval by successfully
initiating cyber-attacks against government institutions and other relevant symbols
of institutional power. This David vs. Goliath form of activity is exclusive to
cyberspace and will continue to manifest as an unstoppable column affecting the
geopolitical landscape. This paper will examine the origins, developments, and
I. Wanca (*)
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA
e-mail: wanca@caasny.com

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_11
174 I. Wanca
patterns that have led to this current evolutionary form, and will specifically reflect
on the importance of 2004’s Ukrainian mobile revolution and 2011’s Syrian cyber-
attacks, forming the basis for a fertile cyber environment that not only allows for
direct activism, but also has the power to disrupt the political status quo.
2 Research Methodology
Social movements ideology can be explained through the theory of “contentious

politics”, best defined by della Porta and Tarrow (2011, p. 14) as the “interaction
between the transnational diffusion of new forms of protest behavior and police
practice in response to them.” Protests and demonstrating behavior can be under-
stood as a specific formulization of social activism, further contextualized within
the theories of social movements. Kaldor, defines a social movement as the process
through which individuals “negotiate, argue, struggle against or agree with
each other and with the centers of political and economic authority” (2003, p. 16).
Munck (1995, p. 17) additionally supports that social movement is a type of col-
lective action oriented toward effectuating change.
The intersection of contentious politics, social movements, and the global diffu-
sion of information are now examined through the new paradigm of technology.
Ayres (1999) claimed that the ability of the Internet to quickly disseminate infor-
mation across borders bolsters its potential as a medium for empowerment.
Internet-mediated communication tools created opportunities for mobilization by
encouraging collective action. According to Tarrow (2005), the Internet is more
than a form of communication; it is an impetus of a new movement type. In this
globalized, high-tech world, social networking services and the Internet have been
designed to put people in touch with each other, often in unexpected ways as a result
of a common experience, interest, problem, or cause. (Kirkpatrick 2010).
Scholars such as della Porta and Mosca (2005) concluded that the Internet is not
only a tool to organize protests, but it also increases the possibilities for a direct
intervention in politics through different forms of online protests. This chapter
discusses one such form via the use of cyber-attacks and analyzes their trans-
formative role within politics. These specific case studies regarding Syria and
Ukraine are based on the understanding that the Internet and the digital technology
tools including computers, mobile phones, and other electronic devices offer a
diverse menu of options to those seeking new channels to protest via these mecha-
nisms. As Tarrow (1991) notes from the perspective of the political processes
approach, “social civil groups become visible through their public actions.” In
this sense, cyberspace is a free social public arena where protests can gain traction
through their actions. Digital tools offer a durable avenue for opposing unpopular
policies that capture popular attention. For example, the Internet transmission of
emotive events through video, electronic photography, and mobile phone pictures
enhances into a conduit for transformative inspiration.
Cyberspace Attacks and Social Media Momentum: Building Blocks from Syria to. . . 175
Besides creating visibility and opportunities for widespread participation, cyber-

space has a clear and inherent advantage. Given its scope, it strengthens the notion
of the “transnational collective identity.” Scholars argue that individuals come
together around common grievances, interests, or social ties and engage in collec-
tive actions on the basis of a common understanding (Meyer and Whittier 1994;
Heaney and Rojas 2014). Hence, this chapter is predicated on the basis that
cyberspace effectively rallies like-minded individuals around matters of common
concern and it is therefore creating common identities across artificially constructed
borders, formally defined by bounds and measures or physical geography. In addi-
tion to influencing contemporaries, computer-mediated diffusion of information
has become a method of influencing international politics both internally, and
externally through the use of computer hacking. This method is referred to within
this research document as “cyber activism.”
Concepts, tactics, methodology, participants, and organizations of one move-
ment often initiate change, moving into others’ geopolitical boundaries affecting
formally isolated and independent social movements. This capacity to penetrate
geographical boundaries regardless of their stipulated physical demarcation conti-
nues to increase; regardless of whether or not Internet activists are unable to finalize
their ultimate goals immediately, they have set the stage for others to win victories
who may ultimately vindicate them (Heaney and Rojas 2014).
The link between civil society groups and digital technology is critical to this
supposition. The conditions of political, economic and cultural-societal character
have distinct and individual characteristics based on the nationalities and cultures
that utilize them. Thus, it is inherent that such cultural aspects will have an inherent
and direct correlation on the civil groups using them and are likely to modify the
character of how Internet-based protests are expressed. Most analogous to this
concept can be articulated within the United Kingdom’s Strategic Conflict Assess-
ment Framework (SCAF) developed by Department for International Development
(DFID 2002). SCAF allows one to assess the interactions among structural factors,
actors, and dynamics that have key relevance that form of online protests that can be
applied in both the protests in 2004 in the Ukraine and 2011 in Syria. In addition,
three factors have been considered as vital in terms of their significance. These
include economic, political, and security considerations, which provide the fertile
soil for cyber activism to take root, allowing it to flourish in conjunction with a
social media audience, which forms the visible expression of the public social
activist movement within each respective country.
To understand what degree Internet and technology play in social movements
during ongoing conflicts, this research document explores two case studies from
Ukraine and Syria. Each case study is examined through the lens of the SCAF
framework. Through the investigation of the group motivations, the level of partici-
pation in civic action, and social movement strategies for sustaining operations in light
of the following considerations: (1) Were the cyber-attacks during the conflicts in
Ukraine and Syria a form of collective action? And if so, what were the cyber campaign
social and civil benefits? (2) How did technology change civil engagements since the
176 I. Wanca
Arab Spring? And are there substantial differences or similarities between the
two case studies?
3 Syria
3.1 Syrian Protests and Civil Conflict: A Brief History
To summarize the nature of the conflict in Syria, one must understand that the
Levant area, in which Syria is comprised, was under Ottoman control until the end
of WWI in 1918. Before this period, the concept of the nation state “Syria” would
be misleading; however, the city of Damascus has been a major city and trading
center since the dawn of the Roman Empire. After the French control of Syria
denied King Faisal a role in its governance, Syria, which was taken over by the
Nazis after the fall of France, was liberated by the British; and unlike many other
Arab countries within the Middle East who expelled installed monarchs, Syria
adopted its own nationalistic expressions that manifested in immediate military
coups until the Hafez Al Assad de-facto Presidency of 1970. Syria is comprised of a
minority religious offshoot of Shia Islam (followers of the grandson of the Prophet
Mohammad’s PBUH daughter), the Aluwi (Latinized Aluwite) differ from the
majority Sunni (followers of the elected Caliphs by consensus) population within
Syria, including the Kurdish minority in the north boarding the Turkish border
(Slim and Trombetta 2014). Hafez Assad’s autocratic regime placed strict control
over overlapping religious Syrian populations, which lead directly to the religious,
ethnic, geographic, and economic identities influencing the positions many Syrians
have sided within the current conflict under Hafez’ son Bashar Al-Assad (President
since 2001).1 Syria, unlike many of its Arab neighbors, is not petroleum rich in
regard to its percentage of GDP export and has still relied heavily on agriculture
(Lund 2014). With unattainable economic factors, high levels of unemployment,
rampant corruption, and a lack of political freedom, the Syrian allegiance with Iran
and subsequent alienation from the United States, with continued support (and
speculative interference in Lebanon’s political affairs) for Lebanon’s Shia political
and military Hezbollah movement, has led to multiple attacks and conflicts via
Israel throughout the first decade of Assad’s rise to power. This authoritarian
government and the use of repressive security forces fueled the initial Syrian
opposition groups against the Assad regime in 2011 (Sharp and Blanchard 2012).
Cultural differences, which dominate the Levant and Middle East, are often
1
A majority of Syrians, roughly 90% of the population, are ethnic Arabs; however, the country
contains small ethnic minorities, notably Kurds, the country’s largest distinct ethnic/linguistic
minority (7–10% of the total population). Of more importance in Syria are religious sectarian
differences. In addition to the majority Sunni Muslims, who comprise over 70% of the population,
Syria contains several religious sectarian minorities, including three smaller Muslim sects
(Alawites, Druze, and Ismailis) and several Christian denominations (Slim and Trombetta 2014).
expressed in terms of honor or humiliation, specifically regarding a male’s income.

This cultural distinction was first witnessed through the use of the physical and
online slogans including, “Do not humiliate the Syrian people,” as thousands of
people gathered in February 2011 in the southern city of Daraa to protest against the
governor and to demand justice and freedom (Slim and Trombetta 2014).
Before the 2011 conflict in Syria along with non-profit organizations, most of the
informal civic groups were community run. These community groups were typi-
cally focused on single-issue projects, often sponsored by the elite patrons (Slim
and Trombetta 2014). Such groups received limited funding from national and
international companies doing business in Syria.
As a consequence, many international organizations were restricted in their capa-
city to distribute funds and resources within the region. Forming a direct connection
with local civic groups was thus hindered by government control. Many local and
informal groups could not continue funding projects, and quickly dissolved after the
conflict’s inception. However, one component made up of Syria’s younger population
was able to maintain communication within their respective ethnic enclaves, and was
able, although constrained, to communicate with external organizations.
Slim and Trombetta (2014) reports that college students comprised the first local
coordination committees during the first phase of the Syrian uprising, leading to
tangible meeting points as Internet and mobile communication created seemingly
spontaneous gatherings in order to document the events unfolding within each town
or province that was under threat by the Syrian government. These shared norms of
honor and strong communal ties within each of these communities intrinsically rallied
young participants regardless of the differing religious and/or cultural differences
within the Syrian state.
The Syrian conflict began with non-violent student protests that eventually esca-
lated into an armed military confrontation. These protests were decentralized and were
often smaller in comparison to many of the more visible protest movements occurring
in Tunisia and Egypt broadcast on global news networks. Additionally, even with an
active civil movement, there was a lack of a cohesive leadership opposition coalition
(Slim and Trombetta 2014).
Shortly after the formation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the fall of 2011,
these uprisings became militarized in opposition to the Syrian army. However, the
same fragmentation affecting the national makeup of Syria also permeated the FSA,
which lacked a clear strategy and common identity, dissolving the potential power
gained by the youth segment. With varying dissident movements against the Syrian
government, the conflict became significantly more influenced by external entities
taking sides based on religious and geopolitical concerns. From Iran, Turkey, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and even Lebanon, this leadership vacuum was influenced
and supported on an external level resembling a cold war theater. Western countries
were also active in attempting to support specific community militias that were
perceived as politically favorable. As a result, the religious delineations of the
Sunni vs. Shia, still raw from the United States’ 2003 invasion of Iraq, offered
fertile ground for the further alienation of these communities, and the involvement
of specific Sunni-affiliated Islamist military groups supported by Saudi Arabia and
178 I. Wanca
Fig. 1 Conflict actors. The mapping of the actors was derived through analysis of the
current literature as outlined in the Reference page
the UAE against Shia supportive countries, specifically Iran, who had directly
affiliated with the Alawi sect and its military supporters.
As generally understood, there are two broad categories of actors with funda-
mental roles in the ongoing conflict. The first category opposes President Assad and
its governance model “the Opposition” and the second includes Assad Loyalist
forces. Figure 1 illustrates the major actors in the Syrian conflict. While the dyna-
mics within each of these subcategories is complex, pursuing different interests,
incentives, relations, and different strategic capacities, it is essential to understand
each subcategory and their dynamics to properly formulate the development of
cyber-activism.
3.2 Cyber Activism in Syria and New Tactics of Protest
Following the onset of the Arab Spring, social media, mobile phones, and the
Internet emerged as direct tools for empowering local and personal communication;
however, cyber-activists used local narratives to diffuse local contentions and
initiate attacks against Western and Middle Eastern media news websites and
academic social media accounts. This new cyber-active element of participatory
democracy via the use of the Internet was not fully utilized during the Arab Spring
prior to Syria’s conflict.
In the beginning of the protests in Syria mobile phones, capturing pictures and
videos during the conflicts were used to connect these fragmented segments of the
local Syrian community and to coordinate efforts (Slim and Trombetta 2014). It has
been stated that Obama administration officials acknowledged that U.S. aid to Syrian
opposition included tools to circumvent Internet censorship, such as data anonymizing
software and satellite phones with GPS capabilities (Sharp and Blanchard 2012). It is
conceivable that without such assistance the Syrian government may have possessed
the tools to monitor mobile phones with GPS capability, and circumnavigate the
activists’ intentions.
While the Syrian conflict was similar to those during the Arab Spring, where
mobilized population used demonstrations and street protests to change a long-lasting
oppressive regime (Tkacheva 2013), the lack of Internet accessibility compared to
other Arab Spring countries was further compromised by the Syrian government’s
restrictions and Syria’s mobile infrastructure, making Syria’s use of digital technology
and cyber-activism as a successful tool more compelling.
Even while opposition groups were generally restricted in their use of web-based
platforms (Tkacheva 2013), at the same time inside of the country, independent
citizens and journalists utilized computer-media communication tools to express
personal views on issues. There was no centralized body or civil group that was
directly responsible for reporting events occurring on the ground; however, these
independent stories mobilized followers and drew online attention to particular
causes as well as serving as a reporting tool where interested parties posted infor-
mation about human rights abuses or civilians who were killed during the conflict.
While this digital information shaped the international community’s perception of
the conflict and affected the ongoing responses to conflict, it did not influence the
internal Syrian activists’ role in specifically advancing the use of the Internet as a
formidable tool.
With all of the challenges, Syria opposition groups and individuals faced, Syria
presents the most illustrative example of digital activism through the use of cyber-
attacks and the ensuing virtual battlefield. One of the most active groups in the
Syrian conflict is comprised of an independent shadow group that actively supports
the Assad Regime (Lohlker 2011). While it is believed by some, according to
Lohlker and Telič (2013), that SEA is a group inspired by the Syrian Computer
Society, which was directed by Bashar al-Assad before his presidency, the infor-
mation regarding the composition of the SEA and its relationship, if any, to the
government, is speculative. Factually, what is known is that this independent group
may be comprised of any one of the subcategories of players within the Syrian
conflict that may have cultural, religious, or economic motives in supporting the
weakened Syrian government. This may include both internal and external support.
During the Syrian conflict from 2011 to 2014, the SEA used malware and sophis-
ticated hacking tools to directly attack Syrian and non-Syrian targets. However,
SEA cyber-attacks focused predominantly on U.S. and specific anti-Syrian govern-
ment players in the Middle East (IntelCrawler LLC 2014). The SEA also targets
foreign embassies, government, military, and law enforcement communication
channels (Lohlker 2011; IntelCrawler LLC 2014).
While the SEA is supportive of the Syrian government, little is actually known
about the individuals or actors that successfully initiated multiple cyber-attacks and
has operated with an unparalleled online presence. The group has its own website,
180 I. Wanca
governed by eight key technical leaders (IntelCrawler LLC 2014).2 SEA used its
website to post sensitive leaked data from Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other
Arab countries (IntelCrawler LLC 2014). SEA also promotes its cause by engaging
in social-media campaigns, which suggests that the interests of the group are
gaining legitimacy. The SEA uses the Internet and social media to gain legitimacy
through projection of power, to recruit followers, and to directly launch cyber-
attacks. Its public profile on YouTube and Facebook suggests that the group is
seeking recognition from followers and has attempted to reach out to internal
religious/cultural communities that are aligned with the Aluwi government.
A timeline of the Syrian conflict and a timeline of concurrent SEA cyber-attacks
suggest that these events are interconnected and had an effect on one another.
a. Academic Website, July 2011
Academic Website attacks (July and September 2011): The nationwide non-violent
uprisings in Syria started in January 2011 and continued until July 2011. During the
month of July, President al-Assad sent troops to restore the order. On July 6, SEA
compromised the American University UCLA’s website by posting a message
that read, “We love our president, do not intervene in our Internal Affairs.”
(IntelCrawler LLC 2014).
While the Syrian movement was sparked by student protests and students proved
to be actors within the Syrian conflict, Human Rights Watch reported in 2013 that
Al-Assad targeted innocent students, schools, and universities by torturing and
assaulting members of its academic staff. While it is not clear why the SEA claimed
responsibility for the attack on a foreign university’s website, these attacks could be
viewed as an example of local actors manipulating foreign entities on a
global stage.
Between September 2011 and December 2011, the Syrian social movement
transformed into a civil war. During the same month, SEA compromised Harvard
University’s website by posting a picture of Assad and its flag (IntelCrawler LLC
2014). Students and academic representations comprised of oppositional move-
ments, civil players, and as an audience have become valuable targets for
cyber activism.
b. Attacks on Media Outlets, March 2012
The first quarter of 2012 was marked by killings and the continued torture of local
activists and foreign journalists (Ivengar and Fishman 2013). Al-Arabiya, one of the
largest news media networks in the Arab-speaking Middle East, leaked email
messages of Bashar al-Assad (Abbas 2012). By the end of March, both its Twitter
and Facebook account were compromised (IntelCrawler LLC 2014).
Al-Arabiya news has covered all the events in Syria and Egypt since 2009
(Al-Arabiya News Channel 2015). According to its website, Al-Arabiya’s mission
2
According to IntelCrawler LLC (2014), the SEA leaders are Pr0 (Th3Pr0), SyRiAn_34G13, The
Shadow, Tiger, Soul, Vikt0r, Syrian Hawk and Osmancode. The report includes particular details
about each profile and their contacts.
is to reach an international audience through groundbreaking journalism. Through

the use of cyber attacks on Twitter and Facebook, these hackers sought to take control
over the channels of exchange of information and networking communication.
Following the unraveling of Syria, the United Nations General Assembly formally
demanded the resignation of the President Assad (BBC 2014). In 2014, Reuters
reported that opposing forces and the government were losing command control on
the battlefield. According to a witness from a Syrian refugee camp, the particulars of
20 killings were revealed (Alakhbar 2012). On August 5, 2014, Reuters’ Twitter
account was deceived, and 22 false tweets were published (IntelCrawler LLC 2014).
Again, these attacks on news providers indicate that hackers are vying for control of
information, the power to disrupt large institutions, and a possibility to attempt to
deceive the public.
A new wave of cyber-attacks occurred from February 2013 until February 2014,
targeting the Twitter accounts of foreign media news including Agency France
Press, CBS, ITV News London, Washington Post, CNN, Time, NY Times,
Huffington Post, Twitter, VICE, Forbes, and NBC Universal (IntelCrawler LLC
2014). As the momentum of the Syrian conflict gained widespread notoriety, their
respective social media sites were reporting repeated attacks during this period.
c. Attacks on Governments, May 2013
On May 3, SEA attacked several ministries and government organizations of Qatar,
including the Qatar Armed Forces and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (IntelCrawler
LLC 2014). SEA leaked confidential financial and diplomatic files indicating how
Qatar utilizes money to navigate its political goals.
Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Qatar have particular interests in
limiting Iranian influence in the region. Qatar is an ally of Saudi Arabia and is
closely aligned to the Saudi Wahhabist Sunni doctrine. Both countries are also
allies with the United States and have strong economic and military interests. These
attacks on Qatar can be explained by the dynamics of these two main actors in the
conflict as outlined in Fig. 1.
As the international community became increasingly involved, SEA cyber-
attacks began to target French, German, Saudi Arabian, Israeli, American, and
Turkish government accounts (IntelCrawler LLC 2014). In August, the United
Kingdom and the United States deployed ships near Syria to aid the United Nations
ground investigations. Two months later, SEA claimed access to President Obama’s
Twitter and Facebook accounts (IntelCrawler LLC 2014). Later in August, Jordanian
intelligence officers’ email accounts were also subjected to similar attacks. Separately,
former U.S. officials were also victims of SEA cyber campaigns. A total of 16 Saudi
Arabian government websites were also compromised (IntelCrawler LLC 2014).
This new wave of cyber-attacks launched against government websites and stra-
tegic persons revealed a new tactic adopted by SEA. The access and leaking of
sensitive data and confidential reports could premeditatedly affect the security and
the relationship of countries as allies.
Computer-mediated forms of communications, such as social media and web-
sites were the major targets of SEA cyber-attacks. The Internet has a specific
182 I. Wanca
cognitive function, as it enables information to be disseminated and public opinions

to be sensitized on issues not properly covered by the mass media (Della Porta and
Mosca 2005). An analysis of the cyber-attacks shows that SEA launched attacks
only against specific targets starting from academia and ending with foreign
governments. The targets of the attacks are those that are either directly involved
in the conflict or indirectly diffuse local narratives through the use of online communi-
cation. The Internet was used by multiple actors within Syria to inspire international
solidarity through videos, pictures, and forums, but it is the SEA’s use as means for
direct political participation in the conflict which differentiates this actor within the
Syrian conflict. Specifically, most opposition protesters did not manage to disperse a
strong common identity, while the members of SEA established its existence globally.
Furthermore, by maintaining its website and Facebook page, SEA made its identity
available for communication with affiliates and followers.
The Internet and digital technology devices during the Syrian conflict illustrated
the power of social protest even in the face of the most controlled governmental
attempts to literally shut down electronic communication. As a result, the initial
demonstrations against the Assad government were harder to control, and because
of the retraction and weakness of the Syrian Government’s power from their success,
the pre-existing religious and tribal fragmentation and external interference lead to
war within Syria featuring multiple actors. This highly volatile and uncontrollable
conflict gave birth to the power of direct and intervening cyber-attacks as potential
third-party geopolitical participants.
4 Ukraine
4.1 Ukrainian Protests and Civil Conflict: A Brief History
Ukraine is a country that is comprised of two equal cultural groups consisting of

Ukrainians and ethnic Russians (Korostelina 2011). The westernmost region of the
country is primarily Ukrainian, while the eastern is populated with more Ukrainians
of Russian background, specifically centralized in Crimea, making up nearly 20% of
the total population. The country, once part of the Soviet Union before gaining inde-
pendence in 1991, has been politically unstable because of three factors: corruption,
lack of political transparency, and unstable governmental structure (Kingston 2009).
Ukraine’s geographic importance has made the country a literal crossroad between
Russia, Europe, and the United States. As a result, this external influence has affected
Ukraine’s national stability, further eroding its capacity to independently form a cohe-
sive government and nation.
After 25 years, as of 2016 Ukrainians have continued to struggle with develop-
ing their own individual national identity. This was expressly evidenced in 2004
during the Orange Revolution, via popular media slogans directed to a global audi-
ence including “Do they think we are stupid,” the Orange Revolution, which
preceded Ukraine’s recent 2013 Euromaidan protests. During the Orange Revolu-
tion, Ukraine’s most prominent political movements, Maiden and Pora!, utilized
digital tools to facilitate the formation of their protests. However, the impact of the
social movement’s use of the Internet did not offer demonstrable changes after the
Orange Revolution, rather only changes in the political personnel (Bogomolov
2009). As a result of the Revolution’s failure to completely reform the Ukrainian
political system, internally Ukrainian’s citizens lost more freedoms than they had
intended, eventually leading to the 2013 Ukrainian crisis. In totality, the Orange
Revolution’s initial goal was achieved and is pivotal in demonstrating that
civil groups were able to organize and mobilize via the Internet and social media
communication platforms.
Following the Orange Revolution within Ukraine’s still-stagnant political atmo-
sphere, the Euromaidan protests began at the end of 2013 and resulted in a three-
phase cycle of contention (Elting 2014). The first major protests occurred in
November 2013 with an estimated crowd of 800,000 people (Simon 2014). The
second phase, which took part in early 2014, was characterized by aggressive riots,
the deaths of high-profile activists, and the resignation of the prime minister. The
third phase was characterized by violent demonstrations, which continued until
February 2014 (Elting 2014).
The spark for the 2013 protest emanated from President Yanukovych’s refusal to
sign the Economic Associate Agreement with the European Union. The Ukrainian
government suspended negotiations with the EU in November 2013 and a few days
later 200 students occupied Maidan (the center square of Kiev) (Savin 2013). The
Ukrainian government sent special police units (Berkut) to dismantle the protesters
by means of force. This brutality employed by the police units was subsequently
documented and released on all relevant social media channels. As the violence
continued to escalate by government forces to Maidan, the increased use of social
media began to attract more public attention (Savin 2013). As an unintended result,
instead of spreading fear, such documented violence increased the number of
protesters.
After the first wave of protests, the Ukrainian conflict again became an external
battle from international governments including Russia, Europe, and the United
States, subsequently exacerbating the divide between Ukrainians and Ukrainians of
Russian descent. In early 2014, a newly selected Ukrainian government was not
entirely well received by Ukrainian ethnic-Russian citizens in Crimea (Khmelko
and Pereguda 2014). As the cultural divide became more apparent in March 2013,
Russia signed a treaty annexing Crimea into Russia to protect its Russian ethnic
group, while the international community through the United Nations strictly con-
demned the annexation as an act of aggression and violation of sovereignty (United
Nations 2014). The partial dissolvent of greater Ukraine signaled the end of post-
1991 greater-Ukrainian sovereignty but led to a successful overhaul of Ukraine’s
political system and the restoration of its prior constitution. The initial thrust of the
Orange Revolution’s use of digital technology to mobilize civil groups into action
gave rise to many of its original goals being formed 10 years later in 2014. While
the aftermath of the 2014 revolution led to partial divisibility within the country, the
184 I. Wanca
overall status of Ukraine has improved directly because of the utilization of tech-
nology and its power to mobilize and act as a persuasive tool, contrary to govern-
ment activity and attempts to mitigate.
4.2 Cyber Activism in Ukraine and Tactics of Protest
At the time of the Euromaidan protests, activists extensively used social media,
blogs, and the Internet to transmit the emotive events via video and cell phone
pictures (Earl 2013). From a study of the online conversation about the Ukrainian
Euromaidan protests, Elting (2014) concluded that the English and Russian lan-
guage has been used in computer-mediated communication for support of the
protests. Surprisingly, the study showed “more support for the Euromaidan protests
in Russian-language sources, including sources and users based in Russia, than
originally expected. Moreover, this social media content in Ukraine was more posi-
tive than traditional media outlets in the country.” The power of social media first
inspired by the Orange Revolution was provided fertile ground to mature and fully
take hold within Ukraine in 2014, influencing not only internal groups but also
external public opinion in other countries independent of traditional news and
media sources.
After February 2013, the Ukrainian conflict transformed into a division between
two ethnic groups. It is speculated that an ethnic Russian nongovernmental organi-
zation referring to itself as CyberBerkut was responsible for successful attacks
on external infrastructures aligned with Europe and the United States, including
NATO websites and private companies within the United States supplying military
equipment. CyberBerkut also successfully blocked over 700 phones of Ukrainian
government officials in Crimea (Matlack 2014). In response, other groups, who are
believed to be aligned with Ukrainian interests, intruded the Indian Embassy’s system
in Moscow, targeting Russian arms exporting agency Rosoboronexport (DefenseWorld
2014). Following the Russian military presence in Ukraine, Ukrainian hackers success-
fully took down the website of the Russian Central Bank (Matlack 2014). Cyber attacks
became more frequent as tensions between Ukraine and Russia were intensifying
evidence by Crimea’s vote for secession which manifested direct cyber attacks on
Russian websites including 132 separate denial-of-service attacks (Clayton 2014).
5 Conclusion
The use of technology in social movements empowered civil society groups to

become more actively engaged within cyberspace during ongoing conflict affairs
affecting political and social changes. The Orange Revolution’s formative use of
technology set the stage for 2014’s complete social activism as a mode of partici-
patory democracy. While Syria’s turmoil is still unfolding, Ukraine is in the process
of rebuilding. Both models of participatory democracy serve to indicate the incredi-

ble power of technology in galvanizing individuals and in the rise of third party
players who operate independent of government power, but serve as commanding
entities operating in a cyberspace shadow achieving their aims through political
messages to involved or related parties without direct violence.
These movements in both Syria and Ukraine are an example of a political
modular phenomenon. The Internet empowers a series of fundamental functions
of social movements by modifying their organizational structure (more networked,
flexible, and polycentric) and allow for a rapid creation of demonstration. The
Internet and digital technology have substantively increased the possibilities for
direct intervention in politics through different forms of cyber protests. Cyber-
diffusion has changed the capability and the capacity of local contenders, creating
new transnational actors inside and outside of emerging social movements.
Acknowledgments I would like to thank Eric Parnes for his research assistance in this project.
References
Abbas, T. (2012). Syrian opposition unites under SNC’, al-Sharq al-Awsat. Asharq Al-Awsat News.
Retrieved from www.asharq- e.com/news.asp?section¼1&id¼29036. Accessed 25 January
2017.
Alakhbar. (2012). Shells hit Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. Retrieved from http://english.al-
akhbar.com/node/10665
Al-Arabiya News Channel. (2015). About us. Retrieved from http://english.alarabiya.net/tools/
about.html. Accessed 21 June 2016.
Ayres, J. (1999). From the streets to the Internet: The cyber diffusion of contention. Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, 566, 132–143.
BBC. (2014). Syria profile: A chronology of key events. Resource document. BBC. Retrieved from
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14703995. Accessed 21 August 2016.
Bogomolov, L. (2009). Ukraine’s bottom-up democracy. Center for European Policy Studies,
76–83.
Clayton, M. (2014). Massive cyberattacks slam official sites in Russia, Ukraine. Resource docu-
ment. The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/World/
Passcode/2014/0318/Massive-cyberattacks-slam-official-sites-in-Russia-Ukraine. Accessed
17 June 2016.
DefenseWorld. (2014). Indian Embassy’s systems in Moscow hacked to target Rosoboronexport.
Resource document. DefenseWorld. Retrieved from http://www.thecyberwire.com/issues/
issues2014/March/CyberWire_2014_03_07.html. Accessed 5 July 2016.
Della Porta, D., & Mosca, L. (2005). Global net for global movement? A network of networks for a
movement of movements. Journal of Public Policy, 25, 165–190.
Della Porta, D., & Tarrow, S. (2011). Interactive diffusion: The coevolution of police and
protest behavior with an application to transnational contention. Comparative Political Studies,
45, 119–152.
DFID. (2002). Conducting conflict assessments: Guidance notes. Resource document. DFID.
Retrieved from http://www.ineesite.org/uploads/files/resources/doc_1_Conducting_Conflict_
Assessments.pdf. Accessed 7 August 2016.
Earl, J. (2013). Networks of outrage and hope: Social movements in the Internet Age by
manual castells. American Journal of Sociology, 119(September), 565–567.
186 I. Wanca
Elting, B. (2014). Russia, Ukraine and the West: Social media sentiment in the Euromaidan protests.
Resource document. Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society Research
Publication Series. Retrieved from http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications/2014/euromaidan.
Heaney, M., & Rojas, F. (2014). Hybrid activism: Social mobilization in a multimovement envi-
ronment. American Journal of Sociology, 119, 1014–1103.
Human Rights Watch. (2013). World report: Events of 2012. Retrieved from http://www.hrw.org/
sites/default/files/wr2013_web.pdf. Accessed January 2015.
IntelCrawler LLC. (2014). Syrian Electronic Army—Hacktivision to cyber espionage. Report.
Retrieved from https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2774533/Intelcrawler-SEA-Report-
Copy.pdf. Accessed 24 January 2017
Ivengar, R., & Fishman, B. (2013). The conflict in Syria: An assessment of US strategic interests.
Resource document. New American Foundation. Retrieved from http://newamerica.net/sites/
newamerica.net/files/policydocs/Fishman_Iyengar_Syria_NAF.pdf. Accessed 10 September 2016.
Kaldor, M. (2003). The idea of Global Civil Society. International Affairs Journal, 79(3), 583–593.
Khmelko, I., & Pereguda, Y. (2014). An anatomy of mass protests: The Orange Revolution and
Euromaydan compared. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 227(47), 36.
Kingston, B. (2009). Ukraine: A risk assessment report. Resource document. The Norman Paterson
School of International Affairs. Retrieved from http://www4.carleton.ca/cifp/app/serve.php/
1490.pdf. Accessed 28 August 2016.
Kirkpatrick, D. (2010). The Facebook effect: The inside story of the company that is connecting the
world. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Korostelina, K. (2011). Ukraine after 20 years of independence: Models of development, narra-
tives of national identity, and crisis of legitimacy of power. Resource document. Friedrich-
Ebert-Stiftung. Retrieved from http://scar.gmu.edu/publication/ukraine-after-20-years-of-inde
pendence-models-of-development-narratives-of-national-iden. Accessed 4 July 2016.
Lohlker, R. (2011). Syria and propaganda warfare: The Syrian Electronic Army. Resource docu-
ment. Academia.Edu. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/5220314/Syria_and_propa
ganda_warfare_the_Syrian_Electronic_Army. Accessed 25 July 2016.
Lohlker, R., & Telič, A. (2013). Syrien: Hintergr€ unde, Analysen, Berichte (pp. 175–187). Vienna:
Promedia.
Lund, A. (2014). Drought, corruption, and war: Syria’s agricultural crisis. Resource document.
Carnegie Middle East Center. Retrieved from http://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/55376?lang¼en.
Accessed 17 August 2016.
Matlack, C. (2014). Cyberwar in Ukraine falls far short of Russia’s full power. BusinessWeek.
Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-10/cyberwar-in-ukraine-falls-
far-short-of-russias-full-powers. Accessed 5 August 2016.
Meyer, D., & Whittier, N. (1994). Social movement spillover. Social Problems, 41, 277–298.
Munck, G. (1995). Actor formation, social co-ordination, and political strategy: Some conceptual
problems in the study of social movements. Sociology, 29, 667–685.
Reuters. (2014). Libya’s official government targets rival forces trying to seize ports. Resource docu-
ment. Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/21/us-libya-security-
idUSKBN0JZ0MO20141221. Accessed 23 July 2015.
Savin, K. (2013). Maiden 2013 in Kiev: Revolution in people’s heads. Resource document.
Online Journal of the Center for Governance and Culture in Europe. Retrieved from http://
www.gce.unisg.ch/~/media/internet/content/dateien/instituteundcenters/gce/euxeinos/euxeinos%
2013_2014.pdf?fl¼en. Accessed 9 and 13 June 2016.
Sharp, J., & Blanchard, C. (2012). Armed conflict in Syria: U.S. and international response.
Resource document. The U.S. Congressional Research Service. Retrieved from http://fpc.state.
gov/documents/organization/214423.pdf. Accessed 19 August 2016.
Simon, N. (2014). The struggle for universal suffrage in Hong Kong. Resource document.
Albert Einstein Institution. Retrieved from http://www.aeinstein.org/category/other-reports/.
Accessed 5 September 2016.
Slim, H., & Trombetta, L. (2014). Syria crisis common context analysis. Resource document.
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Retrieved from https://
docs.unocha.org/sites/dms/Documents/Syria%20Crisis%20Common%20Context%20Analysis_
June%202014.pdf. Accessed 8 July 2016.
Tarrow, S. (1991). Struggle, politics and reform: Collective action, social movement, and cycles of
protest. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Tarrow, S. (2005). The new transnational activism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tkacheva, O. (2013). Internet freedoms and political speech. Resource document. Rand Corpo-
ration. Retrieved from http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR200/
RR295/RAND_RR295.pdf. Accessed 6 August 2016.
United Nations. (2014). General Assembly adopts resolution calling upon states not to recognize
changes in status of Crimea Region. Resource document. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/
press/en/2014/ga11493.doc.htm. Accessed 26 June 2016.
Conclusion: The Changing Face of Social
Movements and Emerging Patterns Across
the Non-Western World
Dina Rosenberg and Ekim Arbatli
1 Introduction
In this volume, we argued that the most recent social movements are unique in that
they often go beyond democratic liberal agenda, or fall outside of it, even if these
movements arise under nondemocratic settings. The authors throughout this vol-
ume compellingly substantiated this theoretical claim with unique empirical cases.
One explanation for that lies in the fact that such movements often emerge in the
countries that are ‘late-comers’ in terms of both democratic and economic devel-
opment. Hence, participants of the social movements and protests have a plethora of
historical cases to draw upon. Moreover, the unprecedented pace of information
dissemination and its availability, largely through new technologies, provides for
global framing and transnational cooperation. Importantly, this sequence of events
tells us that social movements with the goal of political liberalization and democ-
ratization do not necessarily precede these other movements with post-liberal, anti-
liberal, or even postmodern agenda. The social movements of the 1960s and 1970s
such as protection of civil, women or labor rights, are in a sense inherently demo-
cratic because they aim at broader representation. Movements that we discuss in
this volume often depart from a purely democratic discourse, although some claims
echo those of democratization. It is a separate question whether such movements
can prepare the public for democratization by building necessary social capital, but
even if they can, these social movements as they are now should be studied from a
different angle.
The recent volume by Della Porta and Mattoni (2014) looks at the very diverse
universe of cases, mostly from the angle of transnationalism and diffusion. The
D. Rosenberg • E. Arbatli (*)

e-mail: balalaeva@gmail.com; ekimarbatli@hse.ru

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_12
190 D. Rosenberg and E. Arbatli
authors come to a very interesting conclusion that despite heterogeneity and

seeming incomparability of these protests, the cases in fact share many similar
features and globally diffused practices. Using the same justification for choosing
cases that spread from Bosnia to India, in our volume, we, in contrast, focus on
national protests in terms of demand frames and strategies employed, albeit with
certain elements of diffusion, and challenged the conventional wisdom that most
movements make inroads in achieving democratization. Is it possible that social
protests and movements are no longer an idiosyncratic feature of democratic
government? What if people do not need democracy to take to the streets, and
when they do, they do not demand democracy, but social justice and dignity
instead? At the same time, protesters in democratic settings seem to have similar
demands to those in non-democracies; an observation that casts doubt on whether
liberal democracy can solve their problems efficiently.
That said, we believe that the cases presented in this book imply far-reaching
implications for social movement theory and the conceptions of democracy. As
diverse as our case studies are, the findings of our authors share certain similarities.
First, democratization is not a primary goal of most protesters. In fact, their demands
go beyond a popular request for democratization, incorporating both very specific
demands (such as impeachment of the President in Brazil) and more broad requests
for real institutional change. Importantly, a lot of demands spread beyond everyday
politics: in many places (e.g., Russia, Ukraine, and India), people strived for dignity.
Second, the portrait of protest participants is unprecedentedly variegated and cannot
be reduced to socio-economic, class, castle, religious, or ethnic basis. Third, pro-
testers employ a full arsenal of different forms of protests and self-expression in
general, ranging from street demonstrations, to institutionalized public plenums, to
cyberattacks. Fourth, the role of Internet and mass media is less straightforward than
usually presumed: whether Internet plays into the hands of protesters or power
holders depends largely on the political regime and bargaining leverage of both
sides.
Yet, it is probably premature to coin a new term that will unite the described
contemporary non-Western social movements. Protests varied sharply both in their
causes and political consequences, which can be largely explained by their different
contexts. Some protests (e.g., Russian protests in 2011–2013 and the Iranian Green
Movement in 2009) were catalyzed by fraud elections, which is a well-known window
of opportunity. Both were quelled by the government and waned thereafter. Other
protests such as those in Brazil and Turkey started with a triggering event that outraged
the already tired and disappointed citizens. Yet, some protests were inspired by the
events in other countries. For instance, the “Palestinian Tamrod” revolt movement
against Hamas’ rule in Gaza was encouraged by the ousting of the Egyptian President
Morsi from power. The results also varied considerably. While protesters in Brazil,
Bosnia and Ukraine gained noticeable concessions, they drastically failed in Russia,
Iran, and Palestine. However, as we argue throughout this volume, their transformative
function should not be overlooked even in the case of political failure.
Conclusion: The Changing Face of Social Movements and Emerging Patterns. . . 191
2 Building Collective Identities
Since participatory democracy essentially seeks to involve more people directly

in the decision-making process, it necessitates some form of collective identity.
People’s ability to construct such identities has been transforming at a very fast
pace. First, barriers to collective action are substantially lessened, especially due to
new forms of social media that solve many organizational problems that seemed
insurmountable before. Equally important, the amount of time needed for human
capital and collective identities to form has shrunken. Or, from a more radical
standpoint, the demand for a collective identity in its traditional interpretation has
started to fall. Strikingly, all authors in this volume independently emphasize
the very diverse nature of participants in the protests they analyze. The established
cleavages that allow drawing lines between protesters and pre-regime forces (reli-
gious, ethnic, socio-economic, urban-rural) are becoming a thing of the past and
give leeway to a new form of protest publics: autonomous individuals with very
different backgrounds and grievances, whose sole collective identity is being ‘pro-
testers’. This identity seems to be sufficient for them to succeed and to return to the
streets.
Curiously, these identities are often based on very fragile and loose grounds as
opposed to a clear common goal, shared interests, or similar values. As Kavada
(2010, p. 297) aptly argues, the modern social movement has to maintain “the fluid,
flexible and fragmented identities of their participants, providing a fertile ground
for pursuing one’s journey of self-exploration”. Taking to its extreme, the analysis
of the Russian protesters’ Internet profiles, which showed that almost half (8000 out
of 20,000) of the participants of the most famous protest at Bolotnaia square in
Moscow were not friends, enables Suvorov (2012) to call protests political flash-
mobs of alienated individuals.
Success of protests in uniting diverse participants was tremendous and ubiqui-
tous. Probably, the greatest similarity between participants in different countries
was age structure. In all cases presented in this volume, the authors emphasized
the growing role of the youth. For instance, according to Natil (Chap. 3),
Hirak Shebabi (Independent Youth Movement) in Palestine is built around the
principle of inclusiveness and endeavors to coalesce diverse groups under its
umbrella. For democratic countries it may have far-reaching policy implications.
Assuming that elected politicians care about protesters’ demands, they might intro-
duce a change in political priorities with an eye towards courting the youth.
In many cases protests palpably reduced the gap between the rich and urban poor
(as shown in the case studies on Russia and India) and enabled creating supra-
national identities (e.g., in historically ethnically-divided Bosnia). As Rajhans
(Chap. 5) put it, “this middle-class-dominated social pan-Indian movement has
not been decisively controlled by the urban rich, but it has the necessary significant
presence of politically conscious citizenry that is urban poor and provincial seg-
ments. They expand the agenda and create a much larger span of social base, which
is interested in strengthening the capacity of the state by demanding that it functions

with better redistributive policies and mechanisms.”
In many countries protest movements made people and politicians reconsider the
role of the most oppressed and vulnerable social strata (such as LGBTI members or
women) play in the society and politics. According to Shishkina, numerous anti-
government protests during the Arab Spring helped to build supra-gender collective
identities empowering women, whose protesting visibility was swiftly extrapolated to
their power in other spheres. “For example, in Yemen women confirmed their right to
higher education, and a native of Taiz Tauakul Karman became the first Arab woman to
win the Nobel Peace Prize” (Shishkina, Chap. 10). In Turkey, as Shevtsova argues
(in chapter 6), Gezi protest movement succeeded at integrating, or at least making more
visible, LGBTI community, largely because they clearly expressed their anti-regime
political attitudes and gained support from the EU institutions that were on the agenda of
protesters.
In other cases, however, protesters failed at such unification task. Historical and
structural factors prevented Palestinian youth from reaching the desired degree of
unification: “stateless” nature of Palestine; Israeli occupation; deeply rooted Pales-
tinian division; political polarization between Hamas and Fatah, and even geo-
graphical separation between Gaza Strip and the West Bank (Natil, Chap. 3). In
another example by Shevtsova (Chap. 6), the strong resentment over LGBTI within
the large part of the Ukrainian society, and even among protesters themselves,
played into the hands of pro-regime forces.
In conclusion, although the efforts at building a loose collective identity may
have failed at certain instances, it has definitely left a lasting mark on the political
landscapes of many countries. Protesters’ activity has its ebbs and flows, but in
many countries they do not fully disappear, even in times of relative inactivity. In
Russia, for instance, active political phase is shown to transform into civic grass-
roots activities at the local level (Lankina 2014). In Brazil, protests have been
ongoing in different stages and intensities over a period of three years. The
new-found ability to build collective identities beyond ethnicity and classes can
be one of the reasons why protests in many cases are not merely one-time events.
3 Social Movements and the Role of Information

Technologies
Don’t worry; we’re OK, though frightened and angry. Moscow is full of tanks and military
vehicles, I hate them. They are trying to close all mass media, they shut down CNN an hour
ago, and Soviet TV is showing opera and old movies. But, thank Heavens, they don’t think
of Relcom1 as part of the media, or perhaps they have simply forgotten about us. Now we
1
A Russian operating system previously known as Demos. It was created in 1990 by computer
scientists from Russia’s nuclear energy research, which enabled them to join some Usenet (a U.S.-
created predecessor of the modern social networks) groups.
are transmitting enough information to put us in prison for the rest of our lives :-) I hope
everything will turn out well in the end. . . (Konradova 2016).
The excerpt above is from one of the Usenet’s archives written by the people
during the 1991 August putsch in Russia. These lines are noticeable at least in two
regards. First, although the coup failed, it significantly shook the power of the USSR
and Usenet seemed to play an important role in sending such “political message” to
the West. Second, it is only 25 years between “not thinking about Internet as part of
media” and Internet being called a “liberation technology” (Diamond 2010) and the
announcement of ‘Twitter revolutions’.
Earlier literature posited that the Internet provides distinct opportunities of political
mobilization for private actors vis- a-vis states (Froomkin 1997; Swire 1998). Today,
many scholars acknowledge that the relationship between new communication tech-
nologies and political participation is not that straightforward.
They note that political mobilization through social media is not always effec-
tive, and the governments are finding new ways to filter content and monitor the
flow of information online (Deibert et al. 2008; Alterman 2011; Morozov 2012).
Some scholars even suggest that social media can serve as a useful tool for auto-
cratic stability (Kalathil 2003; Gunitsky 2015).
The protest movements mentioned in this volume also reveal other channels of
Internet influence, apart from the well-established thoughts in the literature that Internet
helps to solve collective action problems and reduces organization and mobilization
costs. Our conclusions speak to Della Porta and Mosca’s (2005) findings that Internet is
not merely a facilitator of organizing protests, but represents a new form of direct
participation in politics. For instance, Wanca (Chap. 11) shows that during Syrian
protests and Maidan revolution in Ukraine cyber-attacks became a powerful tool for
direct participation of different groups in both conflict and politics. Such attacks are
examples of a new digital activism because they did not simply function as mobiliza-
tion and communication tools, but rather engaged in actual political action within and
outside protesting country. For instance, the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) initiated
several successful cyber-attacks on both Syrian and non-Syrian targets and posted
sensitive leaked data from Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. The
online nature of SEA enabled the organization to practice politics transnationally. For
instance, in June 2013, SEA hacked the Turkish government with the aid of another
groups called Anonymous Turkey.
The role of Internet is also mixed in movement success, and sometimes it can
have unexpected consequences. For example, Flesher-Fominaya (2014, p. 164)
argues that in the case of the Egyptian revolution, “the media blackout brought
more people onto the streets; unable to call, check the Internet or TV, they went to
the squares to see what was happening”. On the contrary, in the case of Iranian
protests, activists inadvertently jammed Twitter with tweets that often lacked clarity
and confused protesters (Malek 2010, p. 282). Some of the findings in this volume
also highlight this ambiguous role of the Internet in protests. For instance, Rosenberg
(Chap. 2) shows that it is unclear whether Internet helped more to protesters or power
holders during the Russian protest movement, 2011–2013. According to Drissel
(Chap. 9), although “gritty and uncensored images” of beatings and deaths further
radicalized a minority of participants, most protesters were encouraged to retreat
from the streets after seeing such online displays of overwhelming state violence
(Fathi 2009; Malek 2010).
Another important effect of the Internet highlighted in this volume is the dis-
semination of ‘counter frames’ used by the regime against protesters. Although
digital framing is usually analyzed as one of the strategies employed by protesters,
it is also successfully used by regime supporters. As Drissel notes (Chap. 9), the
Iranian government supporters efficiently utilized counter-frames to picture the
Green Movement as ‘toxic’. The Ukrainian power-holders also attempted to link
protesters’ request for Europeanization with same-sex marriages and propaganda of
homosexuality and LGBT-values, which angered and split large swaths of pro-
testers (Shevtsova, Chap. 6). Similarly, the Russian authorities tried to delineate
protesters as rich bourgeoisie and young hipsters from capital cities of Moscow and
Saint Petersburg, who are blind to the real needs of the Russian people. All of these
counter-frames were disseminated online and hence reached a greater audience,
jeopardizing the chances of movement success in many instances.
4 Participatory Democracy and Achievements
There are three concurrent interlaced global processes that need to be explained.
The number of democracies has been increasing worldwide, although their quality
is plunging and peoples’ dissatisfaction with them is growing (Della Porta 2013;
Diamond and Morlino 2005; Pharr and Putnam 2000). At the same time, the number
of autocracies has also started to grow, marking the potential reversal towards
authoritarianism. Moreover, as our book demonstrates, not only are people disen-
chanted with their representative democracy, but they are also ready to fight for
their rights and they actually do fight until their grievances are heard and dealt with.
Echoing Della Porta (2013), we interpret this as the evidence for the claim that
“democracy can be saved” through the introduction and broadening of participatory
and deliberative forms of democracy.
In some of the described cases, protests led to the formation of new institution-
alized forms of citizens’ direct participation in sociopolitical dialogue with each
other and government. Citizen plenums in Bosnia and Herzegovina—open discus-
sion spaces, networks and assemblies that were organized by protesters in more
than 15 cities—serve as a prominent example. Their concrete actions ranged from
efficient humanitarian aid during ecological disasters (recent flood in 2014) to
creating alternative executive bodies with multiple working committees on socio-
economic and other issues. Although it is debatable how much impact these
plenums had on real politics, especially given the fact that they ceased functioning
after the protests, the author showed that plenums completed two important tasks
for the country. First, they were instrumental in creating supra-ethnic citizenship,
which is laudable given a country’s tragic history of ethno-national cleavages.
Second, they set a precedent that people are in fact able to overcome ethnic issues
and collectively organize in order to directly participate in politics (Belyaeva,
Chap. 8).
Another interesting and probably unique case is Brazil, where protests became
basically a routine form of direct democracy. The “protests publics”, or main enablers
of political change, demand a permanent direct dialogue with power holders, in which
they assume the roles of both initiators and watchdogs: every time politicians deviate
from their promises, people immediately take to the streets (Zaytsev, Chap. 4).
We showed in this volume that indeed many protest movements gave birth to new
forms of participatory democracy. We are cautioned against calling them institutions,
because some of them have not been institutionalized and are unique in that way, but
they surely became an independent actor of politics that the government cannot turn the
blind eye to anymore. Equally important then is whether these forms are efficient in
alleviating protesters’ grievances and helping them to achieve their goals. Some pro-
tests were definitely crowned with success meaning that at least some of protesters’
demands were met by politicians. In Bosnia and Herzegovina four cantonal govern-
ments resigned in the wake of the protests and some ended up cutting politicians’
benefits at protesters’ request. In Brazil after the protests of 2013 the government made
a decision not to increase public transport fares, which was one of the major triggering
issues of the protests, and in some cities even reduced them. Other movements were
less successful, but even those protests that the authors dubbed a failure, were able to
score their small victories. For instance, although in general the Palestinian youth
movement failed at unifying different sociopolitical forces in their territory, the
15 Marsh Movement solicited from Ismail Hana, Prime Minister of Hamas, the visit
to Gaza by the Palestinian President, Mahmud Abbas.
5 What Is Next?
In this volume we dispelled a myth that every protesting nation strives for liberal
democracy and showed an increasing request for direct participation among pro-
testers in the non-Western countries. What we found in this volume, and we believe
it is striking, is that direct democracy is wanted not only in already democratic
countries like Brazil or India whose citizens want to bring politics into a whole new
level, but also under authoritarian settings such as Russia, Ukraine or Iran, whose
citizens almost never or only shortly in history engaged with true democratic
practices. This request is of an equal scope and strength in democratic and
non-democratic countries, which calls into the question the orthodoxy of represen-
tative democracy being the best possible political regime. According to Della Porta
(2013), democracy can be saved only if it strengthens its participatory and delib-
erative components.
Our cases demonstrated that the most important, but often overlooked, achieve-
ments of the recent non-Western social movements—uniting variegated masses,
prioritizing dignity and social justice above representation, inventing new forms of
direct participation in politics—make inroads towards enhancing and deepening

democracy. Simply because democracy as we know fails to satisfy citizens’
demands, and people show resolve to fight for their goals until they are met.
Theoretically, this means that future scholars of social movements eschew
stretching the concept of representative democracy to all nations that experience
protests. Such approach is often flawed and leads authors to erroneously conclude
that protesters’ failed to achieve their goals. Researchers should carefully re-
evaluate protest participants’ goals before measuring their success by the Western
standards. Methodologically, this can be achieved by taking into account country-
and even situation-specific contexts. Outcome-based approaches that ignore con-
textual factors seem misleading. Also, ‘democratizing democracy’ cannot be done
overnight and thus success of the social movements should be assessed on an
incremental scale.
Finally, our focus on the protests in the non-Western (and often non-democratic)
countries emphasizes the importance of global dynamics paradigm for future
scholars. Protests and social movements with similar goals, slogans and repertoire
of actions unfold in the most unpredictable places around the world. Some actions
even take the form of a transnational protest: people across different countries
protest on the same issues simultaneously. Yet, these countries where people take to
the streets are not connected geographically, politically or culturally. Protests
cascade into all parts of the world regardless of their political and economic
systems. Della Porta (2017) introduces the powerful idea of a cumulative effect
of such protest cascades, which suggests that the implications of such protests for
the society and politics cannot be understood using the same paradigm as the
Western protests. Hence, studying non-Western movements within their own con-
text and dynamics becomes even more crucial today and offers a promising venue
for future work.
References
Alterman, J. B. (2011). The revolution will not be tweeted. The Washington Quarterly, 34(4), 103–116.
Deibert, R., Palfrey, J., Rohozinski, R., Zittrain, J., & Stein, J. G. (2008). Access denied: The
practice and policy of global internet filtering. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Della Porta, D. (2013). Can democracy be saved?: Participation, deliberation and social move-
ments. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Della Porta, D. (2017). Global diffusion of protest: Riding the protest wave in the neoliberal crisis.
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Della Porta, D., & Mattoni, A. (2014). Spreading protest: Social movements in times of crisis.
Colchester: ECPR Press.
Della Porta, D., & Mosca, L. (2005). Global-net for global movements? A network of networks for
a movement of movements. Journal of Public Policy, 25(01), 165–190.
Diamond, L. (2010). Liberation technology. Journal of Democracy, 21(3), 69–83.
Diamond, L. J., & Morlino, L. (2005). Assessing the quality of democracy. Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Fathi, N. (2009). A recount offer fails to silence protests in Iran. Resource document. The
New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/world/middleeast/
17iran.html?_r¼0. Accessed 15 August 2016.
Flesher-Fominaya, C. (2014). Social movements and globalization. How protests, occupations and
uprisings are changing the world. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Froomkin, A. M. (1997). The Internet as a source of regulatory arbitrage. In B. Kahin & C. Nesson
(Eds.), Borders in cyberspace: Information policy and the global information infrastructure
(pp. 462–543). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Gunitsky, S. (2015). Corrupting the cyber-commons: Social media as a tool of autocratic stability.
Perspectives on Politics, 13(01), 42–54.
Kalathil, S. (2003). Dot com for dictators. Foreign Policy, 135, 43–49.
Kavada, A. (2010). Between individuality and collectiveness: Email lists and face-to-face contact
in the Global Justice Movement. International Journal of E-Politics, 1(1), 41–56.
Konradova, N. (2016). The Usenet coup: How the USSR discovered the internet in 1991. Resource
document. Open democracy. https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/natalia-konradova/
usenet-coup. Accessed 21 June 2016.
Lankina, T. (2014). Daring to protest: When, why, and how Russia’s citizens engage in street
protest (PONARS Eurasia, № 333). Washington, DC: George Washington University.
Malek, M. B. (2010). Cyber disobedience: Weapons of mass media destruction. In Y. R.
uprising in Iran (pp. 277–288). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Morozov, E. (2012). The net delusion: The dark side of Internet freedom. New York: Public
Affairs. Reprint edition.
Pharr, S. J., & Putnam, R. D. (2000). Disaffected democracies: What’s troubling the trilateral
countries? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Suvorov, G. (2012). Kto zhe vse tak i byl na Bolotnoy i na Sakharova? Analiz profiley 20 000
uchastnikov [So who was at Bolotnaya and Sakharov? Analysis of the profiles of 20000
participants]. Resource document. Basilisklab. Retrieved from http://basilisklab.com/boloto-
analis-posetitelei.html. Accessed 21 August 2012.
Swire, P. P. (1998). Of elephants, mice, and privacy: International choice of law and the internet.
International Lawyer, 32, 991–1025.

Non-Western Social Movements and Participatory Democracy Protest in The Age of Transnationalism PDF

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Titolo originale

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Non-Western Social Movements and Participatory Democracy Protest in The Age of Transnationalism PDF

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Societies and Political Orders in Transition

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15626

International Advisory Board:

ISSN 2511-2201 ISSN 2511-221X (electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934491

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

To my loving husband, Stanislav Rosenberg

preceding one, and often producing a cumulative effect.”1 In parallel, in a protest

September 2016 Donatella della Porta

Introduction: Non-Western Social Movements and Participatory

Egyptian Women in the Arab Spring: Emotions, Political Participation,

Ekim Arbatli is an assistant professor of political science in the National Research

Nina Belyaeva is a professor of public policy in the National Research University

David Drissel is a professor of social sciences at Iowa Central Community

He has numerous articles and book chapters on conflict resolution, peacebuilding,

Sanjay K. Rajhans is an assistant professor of public policy in the National

Dina Rosenberg is an assistant professor of political science in the National

Mutlucan Şahan is a doctoral candidate and research assistant in Galatasaray

Maryna Shevtsova is a doctoral candidate at Berlin Graduate School of

Alisa R. Shishkina is a junior research fellow at the Laboratory for Monitoring of

Ina Wanca is an adjunct professor in the Department of Security, Fire

Dmitry Zaytsev is an associate professor of public policy in the National Research

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 1

2 The Non-Western Critique(s) of Liberal Democracy:

2.1 Real participation

into the formation of ODP in Turkey as an experiment of “the platform of move-

2.2 Social justice

3 Studying Non-Western Social Movements: The Role

4 Organization of the Volume

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 11

4 The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back

5 Who Are the Protesters?

The composition of the protesters astoundingly changed in comparison to the partic-

6 What Do Protesters Want?

quality of public goods provision, stifling corruption, and strengthening institutions

7 How Do the Protesters Coordinate?

LGBT propaganda, prohibition of the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans

Many view the protests on December 4, 2011, as game-changing (Shevtsova 2012;

From the ideological standpoint, it is not clear whether ultranationalists’ band-

11 Reaching Out to the Broader Context: Tahrir vs. Slavic

Beissinger, M. R. (2013). The semblance of democratic revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine’s orange

participants]. Resource document. Basilisklab. Retrieved from http://basilisklab.com/boloto-

To understand Palestinian youth movements’ responses to the region changes

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 33

2 Emergence of New Youth Movements

3 New Political Environment

4 Youth Hierarchy and Leadership

The Palestinian youth are represented by different local organizations, unions,

1- Palestine’s 15 March Movement

650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel. This forms approximately

Palestinian youth movements attempted to copy the achievements of Tunisian and

1 Protests in Brazil: Overview

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 43

2 Factors of Political Changes in Brazil

2.1 Economic Factors: From “Crisis of Hopes” to Economic

2.2 Socio-Cultural Factors: Lack of Conventional Social

2.3 Political Factors: Deepening “Legitimacy Crisis”

Movement, the Women’s Movement, the charitable and humanitarian organi-

3 Brazilian Protests as “Public Assemblies” around

4 Protesters’ Demands in 2013–2016: Participatory

Calling for President Dilma Rousseﬀ's