The ’68 Movements around the World and in Turkey: One Movement or Many?

The student movement of ’68 was both a major source of inspiration and subject of research for the social movement scholars. One persistent disagreement about studying ’68 lies between the world-system theory—Wallerstein views the movement as “a single revolution”—and the contentious politics approach—McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly refuse to consider ’68 “one grand movement.” Expanding this theoretical debate, this article overviews Turkey’s ’68 movement and discusses its divergence from the global movement. Wallerstein summarizes “the single revolution” of ’68 with five points: challenging US hegemony, working-class solidarity, demanding education reform, counter-culture, and challenging the old left. This article revisits these points and cross-reads them with insights of the contentious politics approach to evaluate Turkey’s ’68 movement. It then focuses on mobilizing structures, framing processes, and repertoires of contention that have shaped student activism.

Framing and Agenda Setting of the Day of Republika Srpska and its 2016 Referendum

The purpose of this article is to explore broadsheet newspaper framing and agenda-setting of two events using the five-frame model developed by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000). This article provides insight into how the leading broadsheet newspaper within BiH’s Republika Srpska frames relationships between the three main ethnic groups and is the first such study to occur in BiH. By identifying and exploring the most common frames in Glas Srpske during the five-year period (from 31 December 2015 to 30 December 2020), the research is meant to answer the following research questions: How does Glas Srpske frame the conversation about it and portray the Day of Republika Srpska (RS) and Referendum of the RS Day? The results, which find Attribution of Responsibility and Conflict frames to be the more prevalent in Glas Srpske, illustrate contentious politics that reinforce differences between ethnic groups in BiH. These events and the controversial narrative surrounding them are relevant more than ever in the light of the recent non-paper ‘Western Balkans – A Way Forward’.

Policing Protest in Russia

As Russia’s post-communist regime descends deeper into authoritarianism, protest politics has become a regular feature of the political landscape. As such, President Putin increasingly faces the “dictator’s dilemma”: How much coercion to deploy against protesters without incurring a social backlash against the regime? That question more generally is now part of analytical consideration in comparative scholarship on social movements and contentious politics. This article contributes to the comparative discussion, first, through an elaboration of an original conceptual typology of protest-policing strategies, applicable to democratic and authoritarian regime types. Second, the article applies this conceptual scheme to Russia to illustrate the variant protest-policing strategies employed during the post-communist period. The research explains how Putin’s authoritarian regime responded to the challenge of the dictator’s dilemma by enacting protest-policing reforms. Inspired by policing trends in the Western democracies, these reforms entail a shift from confrontation-based to containment-based tactics. The article shows variation and adaptation in the way protesters were policed across Russia’s transition from unconsolidated democracy to consolidated authoritarianism. Finally, the article suggests the consequences of protest-policing reform for the ruling regime.

‘I am tired of being afraid’: Emotions and protest participation in Belarus

Belarus witnessed a staggering level of mass mobilization in the aftermath of the 2020 fraudulent election and disproportionate use of police force against peaceful protesters. Using the case of anti-government protests in Belarus, this article argues that a confluence of moral and reflex emotions explains an incredibly high level of protest participation in a hard autocracy. Specifically, indignation over the magnitude of electoral malpractices and the intensity of police violence, in congruence with the loss of fear, provides a moral battery for generating and sustaining mass mobilization. It is further argued that a sense of unity within the protest movement mitigates fear of repression and facilitates sustained engagement in protests. Drawing on media reports and protesters’ narratives, the study traces how citizens overcame their fear of state reprisal and took to the street. The article contributes to contentious politics literature by elucidating the role of emotions in shaping mass mobilization.

‘We Will Never Forget’: Thematic Analysis of Digital Media Contents during the 2021 #EndSARSMemorial protests in Nigeria

The thrust of the study was to appraise the influence of social media in contentious politics and solidarity building by interrogating themes from tweets and posts of digital activists during the 2021 #EndSARSMemorial protests in Nigeria. The content analysis of digital media posts and tweets (N=24,688) show that social media platforms were used as a vehicle for provoking solidarity contagion that ignited a memorial for fallen activists in Nigeria. Findings further demonstrate that protesters used social media platforms to reveal how vexed, and anguished they were as well as imprecating the authorities. Data reveal that there is a substantial relationship between celebrity posts and tweets and positive hedonic experiential valence about the 2021 #EndSARSMemorial protests. Finally, this study explicates and contributes to the theorisation of the affective theory.

The Politics of Protest Processes: A Portrayal

This integrated overview of a dynamic field of study covers two main areas. The first half concerns the main internal dimensions of protest movements- their scope and variability, their ideational foundations, and their dynamics, including leadership and resource base. The second half places these movements in the context of their interactions with public authorities, and introduces certain key literatures, including “contentious” politics and the “exit, voice and loyalty” framework.