Contentious Politics in Undemocratic Settings

Abstract

The literature on contentious politics has by far preferred to focus its attention on contentious episodes in democratic political settings. This panel aims, instead, to contribute to a better understanding of protest mobilization in undemocratic settings. It does this by either casting times of crisis as a dependent variable, or as a key independent variable in explanations of such processes as the emergence and mobilization of non-institutional actors challenging or supporting regime’s stability. Among others, the following questions will form the focus of our discussions: in which ways contentious politics contributes to the outbreak or/and acceleration of a crisis of legitimacy/authority, and how we can measure this impact; how repression changes (in terms of level, visibility, identity of the agents, and others) in times of crisis; which mechanisms keep activists protesting in highly repressive contexts; what is the role of international factors in shaping domestic contentious politics in undemocratic settings? We invite proposals for papers addressing these and other questions in the analysis of contentious politics in undemocratic settings, both historical and contemporary, around the globe. Contributions that articulate micro, meso and macro levels of analysis will be particularly welcomed as well as those with a cross-national or cross-level (local, national, transnational) comparative dimension.

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