Braking bad
How internal brakes restrain violent tactics in leaderless protests
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24225133 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Shingheirobin Yuen (0000-0002-7816-7180, Hong Kong Baptist University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 41-54 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-05 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Peace Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3433 • E-ISSN: 1460-3578 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jopres/xjaf013 |
| OpenAlex | W7124880789 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 38 |
How do protesters restrain their use of violent tactics in leaderless and decentralized mass protests? While existing research highlights the role of leaders and movement organizations in enforcing nonviolent discipline, we lack understanding of how protester violence is regulated from within protest movements in the absence of centralized leadership. This article addresses this puzzle through a case study of Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Movement of 2019. Through content and descriptive statistical analysis of LIHKG, an influential online discussion forum widely used by protesters during the movement, I examine the discursive strategies protesters employed to restrain violent escalation through the construction of “internal brakes”—discursive reasonings that aim to establish normative boundaries around the tactical use of violence. In addition to describing the basic characteristics of these internal brakes, I identify four subtypes based on their normative logic: proportionality, conditionality, consequentiality, and moral sanity. By analyzing how these brakes emerged and operated in relation to various forms of protester violence during the movement, I demonstrate that their salience varied depending on contextual factors including the target scope, predictability, and severity of the violence they aimed to restrain. The findings contribute to the contentious politics literature by developing a novel theoretical framework for understanding self-regulation mechanisms in leaderless and decentralized movements that experience tactical radicalization.
Conditionality · consequentiality · discursive strategies · Hong Kong · nonviolent discipline · normative boundaries · Proportionality · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Political Conflict and Governance · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
Total Mobilization from Below
Affordances, movement dynamics, and a centralized digital communication platform in a networked movement
Situational Breakdowns
The Making of Leaderful Mobilization
Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement
Clandestine Political Violence
The crowd
The Politics of Collective Violence
Violence
The internal brakes on violent escalation
How the “Internal Brakes” on Violent Escalation Work and Fail
Opinion leadership in a leaderless movement
The Rise of the Masses
Agenda Seeding
Native-Place Networks and Political Mobilization
An Eye for an Eye? An Integrated Model of Attitude Change Toward Protest Violence
Retreating from the Brink
The Radicalization of Contention in Northern Ireland, 1968-1972
Relational Dynamics and Processes of Radicalization
The Future of Nonviolent Resistance
Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones
Deterrence or Escalation
Ethnic Cleansing and the Politics of Restraint
From Rallies to Riots
A Turn to Violence
Tolerant Solidarity With Violent Protesters
The Institutional Foundation of Countermobilization
Tolerating violence
No water in the oasis
Discursive Institutionalism
Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution
Pulling the Brakes on Political Violence
Contentious Repertoires
Dynamics of Tactical Radicalisation and Public Receptiveness in Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Bill Movement
Upping the ante without taking up arms
Understanding nonviolent resistance
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |