How Protesters and the State Learn From One Another

Spiraling Repertoires of Contention and Repression in Ukraine, 1990-2014

Bibliographic Data

ID3759540
AuthorsOlga Zelinska (0000-0003-0148-1507, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume64
Issue9
Pages1271-1298
Publication date2020-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0002764220941223
OpenAlexW3044008992
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited56

This article employs a contentious politics framework to examine the mobilization-repression nexus as it occurred in Ukraine from the 1990 Revolution on Granite, through the 2000-2001 Ukraine without Kuchma campaign and the 2004 Orange Revolution, to the 2013-2014 Euromaidan movement. Comparative analysis of these four cases suggests that developments in both the contentious and repressive repertoires resembled spirals: each campaign became more complex and of longer duration than the last, and each was driven by the repeated protester-government interactions and by the political, economic, and technological environment that changed over time. In the transit from autocracy to democracy, Ukrainian activists adopted and "normalized" political protest much more quickly than did the authorities. The activists creatively innovated as they borrowed from earlier dissent traditions and from other social movements abroad. For the government, the process of learning how to manage contention with means other than their usual repression tactics was much longer, and it is not over. As it slowly transits from Soviet past to democracy, Ukraine continues its development into a "social movement society

Authoritarianism · Autocracy · Civil society · Contentious politics · Democracy · Dissent · Nexus (standard) · Opposition (politics) · Political dissent · Political economy · Political opportunity · Political science · Politics · Social movement · Sociology · State (computer science) · Ukrainian · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics · Soviet and Russian History