Shooting Citizens - Saving Regimes?: A Case-Centered Approach to the Puzzle of Protest-Repression Interactions

Abstract

This paper investigates the interaction of protest and repression, drawing on Islamist protests and state repression in Tunisia and Algeria in the early 1990s. Putting the findings from large-n quantitative studies to the test in a case-centric design, it identifies serious shortcomings in current, largely static, approaches and proposes a shift towards a dynamic understanding of the relationship between protest and repression: Specific repertoires and practices of protest interact with and make more likely specific repressive responses (and vice-versa) in cycles of escalation or de-escalation. Building on this dynamic understanding, the paper specifies escalating and de- escalating practices and context conditions.