Contention and Regime Change in Asia: Contrasting Dynamics in Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand [1st ed.] 9783030492199, 9783030492205

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CHALLENGES TO DEMOCRACY IN THE 21ST CENTURY SERIES EDITOR: HANSPETER KRIESI

Contention and Regime Change in Asia Contrasting Dynamics in Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand Linda Maduz

Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century

Series Editor Hanspeter Kriesi Department of Political and Social Science European University Institute San Domenico Di Fiesole, Firenze, Italy

Democracy faces substantial challenges as we move into the 21st Century. The West faces malaise; multi-level governance structures pose democratic challenges; and the path of democratization rarely runs smoothly. This series examines democracy across the full range of these contemporary conditions. It publishes innovative research on established democracies, democratizing polities and democracy in multi-level governance structures. The series seeks to break down artificial divisions between different disciplines, by simultaneously drawing on political communication, comparative politics, international relations, political theory, and political economy.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14889

Linda Maduz

Contention and Regime Change in Asia Contrasting Dynamics in Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand

Linda Maduz Center for Security Studies ETH Zurich Zurich, Switzerland

Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century ISBN 978-3-030-49219-9 ISBN 978-3-030-49220-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49220-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Se Yong Jang/EyeEm/Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

I would like to dedicate this book to my parents and my children.

Acknowledgments

I gratefully acknowledge that this book was made possible through financial support from the Humer Foundation for Academic Talent, the University Research Priority Program (URPP) Asia and Europe of the University of Zurich, and the Swiss National Science Foundation. I thank my fellow researchers and friends at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Zurich and the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich. I have greatly benefited from discussing and working with them. In particular, I would like to thank Swen Hutter, who introduced me to the methodology of protest event analysis. I further wish to acknowledge the excellent research assistance provided by Godela Dönnges, Corinne Graessle, Benedikt Hofer, Samuel Nuspliger, and Mathias Winterberg. Last but not least, I would like to thank Nadim, my family, my parentsin-law, and all my friends for encouraging and supporting me and helping in whatever way they could during these past years.

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Contents

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A Fresh Look at the Interrelationship Between Protest Dynamics and Regime Change 1.1 What Is This About? 1.2 Classical Approaches to the Study of Regime Change: Dominance of the Apolitical 1.3 What’s News? A Politics-Focused Approach to the Study of Regime Change 1.4 Goal and Methodological Challenge: How to Study Mass Protest During Regime Change 1.5 The Empirical Basis of the Book: A Comparison of Highly Contentious Transitions in Asia 1.6 Plan of the Book References Old Concepts, Newly Combined—And a New Dataset 2.1 The Conceptual Basis of the Book: Combining Insights from Democratization and Social Movement Research 2.2 Regime Change in Asia: Countries and Critical Episodes for Comparison 2.3 Protest Event Analysis: Established Methods and New Data for Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand References

1 2 4 5 6 6 8 10 13 13 24 34 38

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Contrasting Protest Dynamics in Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand (1985–2005) 3.1 The Challenge of Measuring Protest Patterns 3.2 Stylizing Protest Dynamics: Opportunities for Protest in the Course of Regime Change 3.3 Fast-Changing Protest Dynamics in Indonesia and South Korea, Steady Patterns in Thailand References

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Where Does the Power of the People Lie? Organization and Forms of Protest During Regime Change 4.1 Social Movement Theories Put to Test 4.2 Design of the Analysis 4.3 The Role of Organized vs. Spontaneous Protest and Moderate vs. Radical Protest in Contention During Regime Change 4.4 Conclusion References What Are They Shouting About? Protest Demands During Regime Change 5.1 Concepts for the Study of Protest Demands During Regime Change 5.2 Design of the Analysis 5.3 The Role of Regime Relevance and Radicalness in Protest Demands During Regime Change 5.4 Conclusion References Opposition from Within? Mobilization and Organization of Civil and Political Society During Regime Change 6.1 Moving Beyond Actor-Centered Democratization Theories 6.2 Design of the Analysis 6.3 The Role of Civil and Political Society Actors in Contention During Regime Change

47 47 49 51 54

57 58 65

71 93 95

99 100 103 108 122 124

129 131 135 140

CONTENTS

Discussing the Role of Elites and Masses in Indonesian, South Korean, and Thai Transitions 6.5 Conclusion References

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6.4

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Rise of the Previously Excluded Classes? Mobilization and Organization of Workers, Farmers, and Students During Regime Change 7.1 Structural Democratization Theories Put to Test 7.2 Design of the Analysis 7.3 The Role of Workers, Farmers, and Students in Contention During Regime Change 7.4 Discussing the Role of Socio-Structural and Organizational Factors in Indonesian, South Korean, and Thai Transitions 7.5 Conclusion References Repression and Protest During Regime Change: Democratization as an Interactive Process Between Power Holders and Challengers 8.1 Arguments of the Literature on Protest Policing Put to Test 8.2 Design of the Analysis 8.3 The Role of State Repression in Contention During Regime Change 8.4 Conclusion References Final Discussion and Conclusion: Dynamic Transitions and Their Implications 9.1 A Key Distinction: Dynamic vs. Non-dynamic Transitions 9.2 Building Up Pressure: Qualities of Dynamic Transitions 9.3 Actors and Reaction: Conditions for a Dynamic Transition

156 163 165

173 174 179 181

196 202 204

209 210 215 224 243 245

251 253 253 257

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9.4

Contention and Regime Outcome: Democratic Durability and Quality 9.5 In a Nutshell: Contention and Regime Change in Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand 9.6 Research and Policy Implications of This Book References

262 268 269 272

Appendix

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References

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Index

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 4.5 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2

Fig. 5.3

From authoritarian to democratic rule: ideal-typical phases of democratization Development of protest across time: overall protest levels, 1985–2005 Development of protest across space: protest in the capital vs. in the rest of the country, 1985–2005 Modes of organization in protest: organized vs. non-organized actors, 1985–2005 Modes of organization in protest per half-year: organized vs. non-organized actors, 1985–2005 Organization and cooperation in protest during regime change, 1985–2005 Protest forms: conventional, demonstrative, confrontational, light, and heavy violence, 1985–2005 Protest forms per half-year, 1985–2005 Regime-related protest demands vs. other demands, 1985–2005 a Regime-related protest demands vs. socioeconomic demands, 1985–2005. b Regime-related protest demands vs. stateness demands, 1985–2005 Detailed composition of regime-related protest demands, 1985–2005

23 51 51 72 74 78 82 83 110

112 118

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 6.1

Fig. 6.2

Fig. 7.1

Fig. 7.2

Fig. 7.3

Fig. 8.1

a Protests organized by societal actors: organized and non-organized actors (freq.), 1985–2005. b Protests organized by societal actors: organized and non-organized actors (% of total protests), 1985–2005 a Protests organized by political actors: organized and non-organized actors (freq.), 1985–2005. b Protests organized by political actors: organized and non-organized actors (% of total protests), 1985–2005 a Protests organized by workers (freq.), 1985–2005. b Protests organized by workers (% of total protests), 1985–2005 a Protests organized by farmers (freq.), 1985–2005. b Protests organized by farmers (% of total protests), 1985–2005 a Protests organized by students (freq.), 1985–2005. b Protests organized by students (% of total protests), 1985–2005 a Levels of state repression (no. of protests repressed, freq.), 1985–2005. b Levels of state repression (no. of protests repressed, % of total protests), 1985–2005

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List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Table 4.4a Table 4.4b Table 4.4c Table 4.5a Table 4.5b Table 4.5c Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3a

Phases of democratization in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia Modes of organization in protest during regime change (%) Organization and cooperation among protest actors during regime change (%) Protest forms during regime change (%) Protest forms in democratizing Korea by mode of organization of first actor (%) Protest forms in democratizing Thailand by mode of organization of first actor (%) Protest forms in democratizing Indonesia by mode of organization of first actor (%) Protest forms in democratizing Korea by type of organization and cooperation among actors (%) Protest forms in democratizing Thailand by type of organization and cooperation among actors (%) Protest forms in democratizing Indonesia by type of organization and cooperation among actors (%) Protest demands during regime change (%): varying degrees of radicalness Protest demands during regime change (%): detailed composition of regime-related demands Protest demands in democratizing Korea by type of organization and cooperation among actors (%)

28 71 77 81 89 89 90 91 91 92 108 117 120

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 5.3b Table 5.3c Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 6.3 Table 6.4 Table 6.5 Table 6.6a Table 6.6b Table 6.6c Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 7.5a Table 7.5b Table 7.5c Table 8.1 Table 8.2a

Table 8.2b

Protest demands in democratizing Thailand by type of organization and cooperation among actors (%) Protest demands in democratizing Indonesia by type of organization and cooperation among actors (%) Protest actors during regime change (%): all types of actors Protest actors during regime change (%): societal and political actors Protest demands during regime change (%): share of regime-related demands by societal and political actors Protest actors during regime change (%): societal actors, detailed Protest actors during regime change (%): political actors, detailed Cooperation during regime change (%): societal and political actors in Korea Cooperation during regime change (%): societal and political actors in Thailand Cooperation during regime change (%): societal and political actors in Indonesia Protest actors during regime change (%): farmers, workers, middle-class professionals, and students Protest demands during regime change (%): demands made by workers Protest demands during regime change (%): demands made by farmers Protest demands during regime change (%): demands made by students Organization and cooperation during regime change (%): workers and students in Korea Organization and cooperation during regime change (%): workers and students in Thailand Organization and cooperation during regime change (%): workers and students in Indonesia Binary logistic estimation models predicting state repression at protest events, 1985–2005 Marginal effects of situational, tactical, and ideological factors on state repression during different transition phases (percentage points) Marginal effects of actor variable on state repression, conditional on form, goal, and organization of protest (percentage points)

121 121 136 143 143 146 154 155 155 155 182 186 188 191 194 194 194 227

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CHAPTER 1

A Fresh Look at the Interrelationship Between Protest Dynamics and Regime Change

On 9 March 1997, longtime authoritarian leader Suharto is asked by the Indonesian parliament to serve another term. He has been unanimously elected despite the calls from opposition leaders, students, and other activists against his re-election. In the following days, Suharto takes the oath as president and forms a new cabinet. Student protests on campuses continue despite attempts to ban them and despite direct appeals by the president and the military. On 19 April, opposition leader Amien Rais says that student demonstrations have reached the point of no return. On 1 May, Suharto says that political reform must wait until the next legislature. One day later, he welcomes reform. On 4 May, riots erupt in Medan after the government decides to hike fuel prices by up to 70%. Four days later, the parliament rejects the fuel hikes. Around the same time, the parliament and the military assure the public that they are working on reform. The protest dynamics take a new turn on 12 May when four students are shot dead by security forces during peaceful demonstrations for reform. The next day, they are buried and unofficially declared “heroes of reformation”. This event is followed by a minor riot in Jakarta. All this happens while Suharto is away attending the G-15 summit in Cairo. On 14 May, a newspaper quotes Suharto in Cairo as saying that he is ready to resign. In the aftermath, massive riots break out in Greater Jakarta that will last three days. Several hundred people die. On 15 May, Suharto © The Author 2020 L. Maduz, Contention and Regime Change in Asia, Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49220-5_1

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returns from Cairo and denies the resignation rumors. On the same day, unrest spreads to other towns on Java. The government decides to cut fuel and electricity prices. On 16 May, Suharto shows his willingness to reshuffle the cabinet and to abdicate by constitutional means. On 18 May, the House speaker asks Suharto to resign for the sake of national unity. Three days later, on 21 May, Suharto resigns. The chronology of events reported by the Jakarta Post on 19 May 1998 (“Chronology of Recent Major Events” 1998) illustrates the dynamics of contention as they may develop between challengers and the regime during transition from authoritarian rule. In Indonesia, the pressure from below was manifold. Students held continued, large-scale demonstrations. Their calls for reform were supported by a key opposition leader. Riots triggered by a decision by the government unrelated to political reform increased the pressure on the government. The authoritarian regime tried to react by both making concessions and repressing mobilization. Repression led to the killing of students, which triggered an escalation of the conflict that became more and more violent. Protest spread from the capital to other parts of the country. A point was reached where events could not be controlled or contained by actors on either conflict side. In the end, the authoritarian regime made its biggest concession by launching the process that would lead to the introduction of democratic rule.

1.1

What Is This About?

The events in Indonesia show both the necessity and the challenge of studying the role of protest during regime change. It is difficult to argue that Suharto would have stepped down if protesters had not pressured him to. Understanding the strategies of protesters, the timing of their actions, and the claims they made is, thus, key in understanding the overall dynamics of actions and eventually the pressure they were able to build on the government. At the same time, much of what happened in Indonesia ahead of regime change seems accidental and highly contingent on individual actions. A series of unpredictable events deployed in an uncoordinated fashion eventually made democracy emerge in an abrupt and punctuated manner. Adequate concepts and methods are necessary to detect regularities and generalities in this seemingly unpredictable transition process, in which mass protests played a substantive role.

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In many ways, Indonesia’s transition to democracy is characteristic of many democratic transitions and its treatment in the literature illustrates the shortcomings that exist in the study of regime change. The transition is typical in that it occurred in a general crisis situation. At such times of extraordinary politics, regularities in people’s behavior appear to be few. Change is endemic and affects all levels of politics. In the case of Indonesia, the role of the financial crisis and the related constraints set by the IMF have often been emphasized as main explanatory factors for regime change (see, e.g., Aspinall and Mietzner 2013). Such rather unique country- and situation-specific explanations are often drawn upon to explain a specific country’s transition. By contrast, the observed mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians, which finds its parallels in other high-mobilization transitions such as in Eastern Europe, has not received sufficient attention in the literature. The challenge of developing theoretical arguments, which take into account the role of the masses and which are, at the same time, valid beyond a specific transition case, has up to now remained largely unresolved. While democratization research acknowledges the role of the pressure from below for cases, such as Indonesia, oftentimes other factors figure as preferred explanations for regime change. Among the most influential ones cited in the literature we find a country’s socioeconomic structure, suggested to set the country’s path toward democracy. According to another dominant thought in the literature, the self-interest of elite actors is the driving factor behind democratization. Both approaches, which are discussed in more detail below and in the chapters ahead, fail to be useful in the Indonesian context. The present study shares with these approaches the concern of defining the key actors of democratization. Differently from them, a more action-based analysis is suggested. The validity of the respective explanatory factors can only be rigorously assessed once it is empirically established who participated in political contention ahead of and during regime change. Both leaders and their social base can then be attributed their role. How can we determine if protest has been a critical factor and intervened at a critical time of the democratization process? How can we evaluate the intensity and the timing of protest? Only once political activities and their originators have been systematically captured in a time-sensitive analysis can qualified statements be made in this regard. In democratizing Indonesia, we could observe a clear escalation and deescalation of protest. At one point, means of protest became more and

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more radical, as did the goals promoted by protesters. People involved in protest actions resorted to violence and demanded the overthrow of the government. The government would then react: sometimes repressively, sometimes by making concessions. All these dimensions of political contention, i.e., the types of protest actions and the claims people make, the government’s behavior, as well as the timing of actions and interactions, are elements that help explain when, why, and how regime change came about.

1.2 Classical Approaches to the Study of Regime Change: Dominance of the Apolitical In democratization studies, the role of popular mobilization is underresearched. This can be explained by the dominance of analytical perspectives that do not account for strategic action by non-elite actors, such as the people that engaged in mass protest in Indonesia. Early democratization research explained regime change from a structural viewpoint (Lipset 1959, 1960; Moore 1966): broad socioeconomic changes lead to political change. Scholars in the structuralist tradition define key actor categories, such as the middle class or labor, but they do not accord them an independent, strategic role. Structuralist accounts of regime change were followed by approaches that emphasized the role of individual actors and actions, but they narrowly focused on elite actors (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986; Przeworski 1986, 1992). Actions of the ruling and oppositional elite have been analyzed detached from social structure. So far, the democratization literature has not lived up to what Tarrow (1995, p. 226) calls the analytical necessity of examining the role of movements in democratization more seriously given that “many of today’s democracies reached that exalted status through the clash between movements and elites”. It is common in democratization research to settle the question of popular mobilization by making general statements about the overall relevance of protest and mass actors (e.g. Merkel 2010), which is usually considered to be very limited, constrained in time, and dependent on elite action. The definition of elite in this regard is highly flexible. These assessments are often made without the authors going through the trouble of systematically examining who the actors are that protest, what they want, and when exactly they mobilize. Without this information, it is difficult to assess their impact on transition, though. Analytical concepts and methods for a systematic study of protest action are widely absent in democratization studies. Interestingly, a rather recent shift in

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the literature’s focus from democratization to authoritarianism, reflecting real-world developments, brings at least some attention to the role of movements and protests (see Slater 2010).

1.3 What’s News? A Politics-Focused Approach to the Study of Regime Change An alternative analytical, explicitly political, perspective is suggested for the purpose of this book: democratization is understood as the result of people struggling for power. We find this idea in structural accounts of regime change (Rueschemeyer et al. 1992). Differently from these accounts, however, socioeconomic change is not seen as a sufficient condition for political change. Many stable, wealthy (semi-)autocracies illustrate this point. Democratization is not always but often an openly contentious process. If and to what extent political change is achieved depends on the actions and strategies of people asking for political change or rather the dynamics of interactions between them and the government. The example of Indonesia highlights the role of protest as means by which the less-privileged “wrest concessions from their rulers” (Piven and Cloward 1979, p. 23). Our book emphasizes the importance of an action- and actor-based analysis in the study of regime change. Among the key actors in regime change, we consider political parties, whose importance is highlighted by Capoccia and Ziblatt (2010). Differently from more traditional structureoriented accounts, actors are not seen as solely representing socioeconomic groups as given by the structures present in a country. Rather, the emphasis is on the independent and strategic role actors play, detached from these structures. Party ideology and dynamics within the party system and with actors outside drive their actions (ibid., pp. 950–952). The focus on individual actions and actors allows the analytical breakdown of a macro-process, such as regime change, into its micro-foundations. In line with Capoccia and Ziblatt’s argument (ibid., pp. 952–953), democratization is understood as the result of political interactions rather than an automatic translation of socioeconomic developments. A time-sensitive analysis is key. This affects the conceptualization of regime change within the critical episode as well as how it is related to previous and subsequent episodes. The concepts of critical juncture and path dependency (Capoccia and Keleman 2007; Collier and Collier 1991; Mahoney 2001) are useful in this context. During regime change,

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decision-makers typically find themselves in situations of high uncertainty, in which they are faced with an expanded range of choices. They have to take decisions that are particularly far-reaching and consequential, as they set the path for the future. Regime change is a moment of major change, preceded and followed by phases marked by more continuity. The timing as well as the sequencing of actions matter. Single events in the transition process are dependent on precedent events. In such a scenario, democratization is seen “as emerging in nonlinear and punctuated fashion” (see once more Capoccia and Ziblatt 2010, p. 945).

1.4 Goal and Methodological Challenge: How to Study Mass Protest During Regime Change This book wants to explain when, during the democratization process, protest erupts, why it takes the form it does, and why the government responds to it in the way it does. These are questions typically asked by social movement scholars. It is in this research field that we find a wealth of analytical tools that allow us to assess protest patterns. Eventually the interest lies in explaining the pressure that people are able to mount on the government during the transition process. Within social movement research, various sub-strands exist that value the role of structure and agency differently (see McAdam et al. 1996; Tarrow 2011, Chapters 5–8). An approach that is of particular interest to this study is the protest cycle model, which allows short-term dynamics in protest to be captured (Koopmans 1993; McAdam 1982; Tarrow 1989). Findings from social movement research suggest that there are regularities in contention and more specifically in what types of actors participate, when they engage in protest, and when their actions radicalize. This has implications for the study of regime change.

1.5 The Empirical Basis of the Book: A Comparison of Highly Contentious Transitions in Asia Asia, and more specifically East and Southeast Asia, is a world region where an important number of countries have recently gone through a democratization process. The transitions in this region which took place during the third wave of democratization (Huntington 1991a, b) were

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all marked by high contention. Depending on the country, the role of protest in the transition process has, however, been differently discussed in the literature. The approach of this book was to select a number of countries that exhibited important similarities in their institutional and structural setting. In this way it could be expected that protest takes place under similar conditions in the presence of similar actor groups. Three countries were selected for this book, namely South Korea (Korea), Thailand, and Indonesia. The democratization wave reached the East and Southeast Asian region in the mid-1980s. The Philippines were the first country of the region to hold free and fair elections in 1986. Other countries followed. The wave ended after Indonesia’s transition, which reached a first stage of consolidation in 2004 when a new president came into power. The book covers the 20-year period from the mid-1980s until the mid-2000s. During this period Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia successfully underwent a transition from authoritarian to democratic rule. Such transitions can be reversed, though. This has been the case in Thailand. While all new democracies in the region struggle with various issues of democratic consolidation, the consolidation in Thailand is the one that has clearly failed (Croissant and Merkel 2010, pp. 293–323). While reference will be made to the current situation in Thailand at certain points in this book, the focus is on its transition process between 1988 and 2001. At the time when research for this study started it was not clear if the transition process in Thailand was only temporarily halted or if the military’s seizure of power would be of a more durable nature. Today we know that the transition process has been reversed and that authoritarian structures have firmly been reestablished. Mass mobilization in Thailand reached a new dimension starting in 2006, which is only after the end of the time period examined in this book. The polarization of the Thai population under Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra found expression in the mass protests organized, first, by his opponents and later on, i.e., after his ousting in a military coup, by his supporters as well (see Forsyth 2010). From the perspective of democratization studies, the ongoing power struggle, including popular mobilization against the ruling military junta or the monarchy, or both, is of upmost interest. In the scope of this book, however, only tentative attempts will be made to relate current events to the earlier democratization process.1 1 The edited volume by Montesano et al. (2012) offers an interesting overview of the various dimensions of the current political conflict in Thailand. See also Buchanan (2019).

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1.6

Plan of the Book

After this introduction, Chapter 2 prepares the ground for the analytical chapters to follow. It introduces some key theoretical concepts that (re-)appear in every chapter in one form or the other. In a further step, it presents a discussion of the case selection, which is followed by an overview of the data and methods used in the book. For each of the countries under study, i.e., Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia, we identify the key historical episode in which democratic institutions have been created or significantly reshaped.2 The analysis is based on a comparison of these episodes. The method of data collection and analysis employed in this book is protest event analysis, as developed by social movement researchers. The first three analytical chapters (Chapters 3, 4, and 5) are dedicated to the study of general dynamics of contention during regime change. To assess the pressure protesters are able to mount against their authoritarian rulers, several factors have been taken into account. First, Chapter 3 analyzes the general level of protest intensity in the countries during regime change. This analysis establishes a key difference between the countries that we explain in the remainder of the book: while the level of total protest in the three democratizing countries is everywhere high, protest in democratizing Korea and Indonesia undergoes a highly dynamic development as compared to Thailand, where protest is much more equally distributed over time. Chapter 4 explores in more detail the organization of protest and the various forms of mobilization during regime change. The results in this chapter suggest a key role for spontaneous protest. In Korea and Indonesia, the emergence of spontaneous protest, which is being spurned and supported by more organized protest and vice versa, occurs early in the democratization process and constitutes the bulk of total protest when it escalates shortly before regime change. It is this type of spontaneous protest that is closely associated with radicalization in protest forms: we found spontaneously organized protesters to be more likely to use confrontational and violent actions than more organized protesters. These radical forms of protest were widespread in democratizing Korea and Indonesia, and rather rare during the Thai transition. However, 2 On the concept of “historical episodes” in studying democratization, see Capoccia and Ziblatt (2010, p. 934).

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the most used strategy in all three democratizing countries was a more moderate form of protest, i.e., demonstrations. This form allows for broad participation of the masses. In the analysis of protest claims in Chapter 5, a basic distinction is made between regime-related political demands and all other demands. The former type has been found to be, in large parts, responsible for the escalation of protest, as observed in democratizing Korea and Indonesia: before major political concessions in the democratization process are made by the power holders, general claims against the authoritarian government and demands for the extension of political rights are particularly prominent among protesters. Also important for the overall mobilization, but highly contingent on the specific context, are calls for more civil liberties. In Thailand, where overall levels of protest are steadier, different types of protest claims are more evenly distributed over time; we do not observe the spreading of contention from one issue area to another, as is the case in Korea and Indonesia. The next chapters (Chapters 6 and 7) focus on the actors of contention and how the composition of actors relates to the dynamics of contention examined in the previous chapters. The theoretical argument in Chapter 6 follows democracy research, which highlights the role of civil and political society in providing independent organization and leadership. Political actors and, in particular, political organizations, such as parties, are found to hold a leading position in mobilization during regime change. This could be seen in political parties’ high overall participation, their welltimed actions vis-à-vis the democratization process, and the frequent regime-related claims they made. This holds for all three countries. But in terms of actor types and claims, mobilization in Korea was the most political, and mobilization in Thailand the least political. This is also true when considering claims of civil society actors who, overall, intervened later in the democratization process and were generally less political as compared to political parties. Chapter 7 aims at assessing the role of actors defined in structural, socioeconomic terms, such as workers, farmers, and students, with the latter representing the middle class. The analysis reveals the key role played by students as actors who mobilize early in the democratization process and push for topics relevant for regime change. The extraordinarily high student mobilization in Korea and Indonesia, which is missing in Thailand, explains, to a considerable extent, the variation in overall mobilization levels; mobilization levels are high and quickly become

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regime-threatening in Korea and Indonesia, but not in Thailand. In addition to their structural disposition, actors’ organizational capacities have proved useful in explaining time- and country-specific mobilization patterns. Chapter 8 shifts the attention from the demand side of protest politics to the supply side: to what extent is protest mobilization a reflection of governments’ (repressive) politics? How do authorities handle and shape protest action? Importantly, all the previously considered factors, such as protest forms, claims, and actors, are included into the analysis of this chapter: we estimate a logistic model as to whether they make repressive action more likely. The analysis confirms the well-established argument in the protest-policing literature that governments repress protest by which they feel threatened, such as large and/or violent protests. We introduce a novel aspect by asking whether repression politics is ideologically driven and whether certain types of protesters are more likely to be repressed. The latter argument finds partial support: in Korea, workers, farmers, and political opponents are more likely to suffer from authoritarian repression than other protest actors. In Indonesia, this was the case when these types of actors got organized. The last chapter (Chapter 9) summarizes the findings of the book, discusses their theoretical and policy implications, and concludes. Based on the present analysis, we suggest making a conceptual distinction between dynamic and non-dynamic transitions. In dynamic transitions, the authoritarian government faces massive multi-dimensional pressure, which is related to quick changes in the quantity and quality of protest mobilization. We argue that cross-country variation in the composition of actors and their interaction with the government help explain why we see dynamic transitions in some places and not in others. Lastly, we discuss possible implications that the type of transition, i.e., dynamic vs. nondynamic, may have for the quality and durability of a resulting democratic rule.

References Aspinall, Edward, and Marcus Mietzner. “Indonesia: Economic Crisis, Foreign Pressure, and Regime Change.” In Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective, edited by Kathryn Stoner and Michael McFaul, 144–67. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.

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Buchanan, James. “Is the Era of ‘Red Versus Yellow’ Over in Thailand?” New Mandala (blog), August 21, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.newman dala.org/is-the-era-of-red-versus-yellow-over-in-thailand/. Capoccia, Giovanni, and R. Daniel Kelemen. “The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism.” World Politics 59, no. 3 (2007): 341–69. Capoccia, Giovanni, and Daniel Ziblatt. “The Historical Turn in Democratization Studies: A New Research Agenda for Europe and Beyond.” Comparative Political Studies 43, nos. 8–9 (January 8, 2010): 931–68. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0010414010370431. “Chronology of Recent Major Events.” The Jakarta Post, May 19, 1998. Collier, Ruth Berins, and David Collier. Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991. Croissant, Aurel, and Wolfgang Merkel. “Die Dritte Demokratisierungswelle: Ost- Und Südostasien.” In Systemtransformation: Eine Einführung in Die Theorie Und Empirie Der Transformationsforschung, by Wolfgang Merkel, 261–323, 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010. Forsyth, Tim. “Thailand’s Red Shirt Protests: Popular Movement or Dangerous Street Theatre?” Social Movement Studies 9, no. 4 (November 20, 2010): 461–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2010.522313. Huntington, Samuel P. “Democracy’s Third Wave.” Journal of Democracy 2, no. 2 (1991a): 12–34. ———. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991b. Koopmans, Ruud. “The Dynamics of Protest Waves: West Germany, 1965 to 1989.” American Sociological Review 58, no. 5 (October 1, 1993): 637–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/2096279. Lipset, Seymour Martin. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1960. ———. “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.” The American Political Science Review 53, no. 1 (March 1, 1959): 69–105. https://doi.org/10.2307/1951731. Mahoney, James. The Legacies of Liberalism: Path Dependence and Political Regimes in Central America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. McAdam, Doug. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930– 1970. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982. McAdam, Doug, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald, eds. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

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Merkel, Wolfgang. Systemtransformation: Eine Einführung in die Theorie und Empirie der Transformationsforschung. 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010. Montesano, Michael J., Pavin Chachavalpongpun, and Aekapol Chongvilaivan, eds. Bangkok, May 2010: Perspectives on a Divided Thailand. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2012. Moore, Barrington. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966. O’Donnell, Guillermo A., and Philippe C. Schmitter. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard A. Cloward. Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York, NY: Vintage Books Edition, 1979. Przeworski, Adam. “Some Problems in the Study of the Transition to Democracy.” In Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Guillermo A. O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Whitehead, Laurence, 47–63. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. ———. “The Games of Transition.” In Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective, edited by Mainwaring Scott, Guillermo A. O’Donnell, and J. Samuel Valenzuela, 105–52. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992. Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, Evelyne Huber Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens. Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Slater, Dan. Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Tarrow, Sidney. Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965–1975. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. “Mass Mobilization and Elite Exchange: Democratization Episodes in Italy and Spain.” Democratization 2, no. 3 (September 1, 1995): 221–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510349508403440. ———. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

CHAPTER 2

Old Concepts, Newly Combined—And a New Dataset

2.1 The Conceptual Basis of the Book: Combining Insights from Democratization and Social Movement Research Action in democratization studies has for a long time been primarily understood as elite action (see Bermeo 1997; Bos 1996; Collier 1999, pp. 5ff.). As a consequence, the analysis of opportunities for actors to act during regime change concentrates on a small number of elites. Influential scholars like O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986) depict the transition process as a process of negotiation and pact-building between key elite actors. By contrast, mass movements are generally seen as a rather passive element in the process that can be mobilized and de-mobilized by the elite, depending on the issue, the regime type, the power context, and the phase of transition (see Merkel 2010, p. 89). This perspective leaves little room for independent strategic action by protest actors. There are scholars who attribute protest action a limited role at specific moments in the transition process. Based on the empirical evidence of the third wave of democratization in Europe, Asia, and Latin America (see Huntington 1991a, b), Merkel (2010, pp. 91–93) concludes that, if at all, mass actors play an independent and significant role only in the final phase of the authoritarian regime and at the beginning of the transition, when democratic structures start to be institutionalized. The empirical results on the second and third wave of democratization would further suggest © The Author 2020 L. Maduz, Contention and Regime Change in Asia, Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49220-5_2

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that the extent of mass participation in the transition process does not reveal anything about a democracy’s chances for consolidation. According to Merkel, the theoretically plausible argument that a stable democracy can emerge more quickly in the case of active participation of the masses in the process can therefore not be sustained. The respective role of action and structure has been valued differently in the study of regime change depending on the level of analysis. In the past, democratization scholars showed a stronger interest in the question of whether or not mass actors played a role in democratization, rather than in the “how” and “why”. If protest action entered their research at all, it was mostly to assess its relative importance vis-à-vis elite action (e.g. Karl and Schmitter 1991). These limited perspectives on protest action may to a certain extent be explained by a lack of appropriate concepts, methods, and data to systematically capture protest action. This lack, in turn, is related to a preference for certain levels of analysis that can be observed in the study of regime change (see Snyder and Mahoney 1999; Mahoney and Snyder 1999). For a long time, scholars explained regime change as the result of either socioeconomic structural factors or decisionmaking by individual leaders. They focused less on the explanatory power of the in-between levels, where we find social groups and institutions. 2.1.1 Episode, Opportunity, Regime, and Protest in Democratization and Social Movement Research Still, recent thematic and methodological innovations in democratization studies have opened up the research field and more directly addressed questions of non-elite actors and their opportunities to intervene during regime change. Capoccia and Ziblatt (2010) suggest dissecting democratization into episodes of reform, which would “potentially constitute important critical junctures in the development of each specific institution, in which events or political decisions may have long-lasting pathdependent effects” (p. 940). This analytical focus on episodes allows for causal complexity, considering both conjunctural and structural factors, and for a time-sensitive analysis of regime change: the opportunity to shape democratization by targeted action concentrates in specific critical moments in history. Political factors and actors are given an important role, which is independent from underlying structural factors. In such a perspective, protest action can potentially play an active role in triggering and shaping transition and the resulting regime.

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2.1.1.1

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Political Opportunity Structure: Regime and Protest in Social Movement Research In social movement research, the study of the connection between protest on the one hand and political regimes and institutions on the other is the focus of a sub-field, referred to as the political process model (Tarrow 2011, pp. 26–28, 157–180). A key concept used by these scholars is the concept of political opportunity structure (see Kriesi 2004). It refers to “features of regimes and institutions (e.g., splits in the ruling class) that facilitate or inhibit a political actor’s collective action and to changes in those features” (Tilly and Tarrow 2007, p. 49). Scholars in this research tradition usually adopt a structuralist view. In its strictest interpretation, the model based on political opportunity suggests a linear proportionate response of protest to opportunity: expanding opportunities lead to an increase, contracting opportunities to a decrease in mobilization (Goldstone and Tilly 2001, pp. 180–181). The “usual story” of political opportunity which “goes basically in one direction – from opportunity to action” (Goldstone and Tilly 2001, p. 180) finds ample support in the literature. It has, however, also been challenged early on. Empirical research has shown that protests may suddenly emerge, reverse, follow revolutionary spirals, or fade away.1 Repression, instead of extinguishing protest, may lead to a rise of protest action (Olivier 1990, 1991). Moreover, the classical model shows weaknesses in explaining demobilization in terms of the opportunity structure (Jung 2010). The more recent view that opportunities may change over the course of a cycle of contention due to dynamics inherent to protest mobilization constitutes a departure from the basically static and one-directional classical model. Problems identified with the classical social movement research agenda are not only the lack of dynamism, but also the absence of an interactive framework (McAdam et al. 2001). In a classical perspective, the state and regime actors are seen as part of a given structural setting protesters face. They are subject to change, but external to and not influenced by the development of protest action. Furthermore, the focus on single actors prevents an analysis of interactions between multiple protester actors, whose competition and collaboration added to the complexity of protest mobilization (Koopmans 2004; McAdam et al. 2001). Over time, a number of new explanatory frameworks have been developed trying to

1 See Goldstone and Tilly (2001).

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explain complex episodes of contention, where protest action, actors, and their identities are dynamic, strategic, and interactive. An important step has been the shift away from general models toward a smaller-scale analysis, as suggested by the authors of Dynamics of Contention (McAdam et al. 2001, see pp. 74ff.). Scholars of this approach adopt an alternative vision of the study of contention by breaking down big events, such as major protest events, into smaller episodes, and by focusing on mechanisms and processes at a smaller scale. They suggest that regularities and causalities are to be found at this smaller-scale level of analysis. Mechanisms and processes, such as brokerage, identity shift, or radicalization, help explain changes in actor constitution and alignment and shifts in strategies, and help causally relate outcomes to these factors (see, e.g., ibid., pp. 27–28, 68–70, 92). Furthermore, a more differentiated view of actors’ motivational basis, going beyond opportunity structure, has been introduced and allows researchers to account for interaction dynamics between protesters and power holders (Goldstone and Tilly 2001). Importantly, these new theoretical and methodological approaches also help scholars explain more complex episodes of political contention, observed outside the research field’s traditional geographical and temporal focus. Most social movement research in the past was devoted to events that took place in states with similar, democratic regimes, i.e., North American and Western European countries (see Della Porta 2014, p. 4). Protest mobilization in a more dynamic and diverse context, such as in authoritarian and transitional settings in other world regions, did not receive much attention. The scholars behind these new approaches highlight the similarities of phenomena, such as social movement mobilization, revolutions, failed and successful ones, or democratization processes, and see them as “a possible outcome of opposition and state actions” (Goldstone and Tilly 2001, p. 193; see also McAdam et al. 2001, pp. 193ff.). By introducing new analytical approaches, they have opened the door to a potentially fruitful exchange with scholars from related research fields, such as the study of regime change and revolutions or conflict research. 2.1.1.2

The Protest Cycle Model: A Dynamic and Interactive Approach to Studying Protest Action The analytical framework offered by social movement scholars studying protest cycles integrates many of the suggestions by the critics of the classical social movement approach, such as the concern to conceptualize

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contention as a process and the interest in interaction between protesters and the elite. Studies on protest cycles were among the early attempts to capture dynamics in political contention. They preceded the more recent attempts since the 2000s (see above) to “put the political processes of contention in motion through the specification of their component mechanisms” (Tarrow 2011, p. 28). While criticized by the latter for being a stage theory (McAdam et al. 2001, p. 66), the cycle approach helps define relevant elements of contention to be looked at and provides a clear framework as to how they combine to produce an impact at the macro-level. This is useful for the study of contention during regime change. The protest cycle model, which will be used in this book, is a conceptual model, to which variants exist that are of nominal2 and more substantial nature. However, they all share a common definitional base. Researchers who have criticized the model as being a stage theory prefer using the term “contentious episode” to “contentious cycle”.3 A definition of a contentious episode, which, however, perfectly refers to the individual elements of a cycle, is provided by Tarrow (2011, p. 199): it is “a phase of heightened conflict across the social system, with rapid diffusion of collective action from more mobilized to less mobilized sectors, a rapid pace of innovation in the forms of contention employed, the creation of new or transformed collective action frames, a combination of organized and unorganized participation, and sequences of intensified information flow and interaction between challengers and authorities”.

2 The terms “cycles” of contention (Tarrow 2011, pp. 195–214) or protest “waves” (Koopmans 1993, 2004) basically designate the same thing. Koopmans (2004, p. 21) explains that “the notion of a ‘cycle’ suggests a periodically recurring sequence of phenomena”, which is an assumption he rejects. The term “wave”, by contrast, would not imply such regularities, but “simply (refer) to the strong increase and subsequent decrease in (…) contention”. The term “cycle” is, however, well established in the literature and allows researchers to make clear predictions, which is not or less the case with fuzzier analytical concepts. This makes it the preferred choice for this study. 3 Episodes can be defined as “bounded sequences of continuous interaction, usually produced by an investigator’s chopping up longer streams of contention into segments for purposes of systematic observation, comparison, and explanation” (Tilly and Tarrow 2007, p. 36). The concept of “episodes” is different from the concept of “cycles” in that episodes also refer to units of a smaller range where the focus is on a specific event or moment in time. Like the concept of “wave” it suggests a more explorative approach to capturing patterns of contention, while the basic analytical perspective taken on contention is the same.

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The advantage of a dynamic and interactive model, such as the protest cycle model, is that it allows for opportunities to change along a cycle of protest and acknowledges protesters’ role in pushing the door open for further protest, thereby shaping their own opportunities. Literature suggests that once a cycle is triggered, costs for other actors to organize protest and act collectively are lowered (Tarrow 1989, pp. 13–14). Opportunities are broadened for potentially all actors of society who no longer depend as much on their own internal resources (such as the degree of organization and funding possibilities). In this phase of mobilization and growing opportunities, actors will more readily and easily engage in campaigns and form coalitions. Authorities’ response can take different forms and vary in its strength. It adds to the complexity of protest dynamics and shapes the course of action toward either demobilization or escalation (see, e.g., Goldstone 1998; Koopmans 2004). 2.1.2

Approach of This Book: A Time-Sensitive Model of Regime Change

Social movement research and democratization research both offer important insights for the study of protest mobilization during regime change. Since its beginnings in the 1960s, social movement research has developed a wide range of conceptual and methodological tools to study protest. The empirical approach of the present book is to use these concepts and methods to detect and analyze protest patterns in the context of regime change. During the phase of transition to democracy, protesters face conditions which differ from more stable conditions under democratic rule. Democratization scholars have extensively studied the particularities of these conditions. Their work provides us with a differentiated understanding of what type of actor potentially mobilizes and why and when. For a dynamic analysis of protest, the approach in the actororiented, descriptive democratization research (see Merkel 2010, pp. 85– 86) is useful. Here the transition process is analytically dissected into different phases. The criteria developed by the phase-based analysis will help us identify the critical episodes for each country in our comparison. 2.1.2.1

Phases of Democratization: Concepts and Definitions in the Literature Regime change can be understood as the interval between an old and a new political system (Merkel 2010, p. 94). In the present book, the concept of “regime change” means the transition from authoritarian to

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democratic rule and is used interchangeably with the concept of “transition”, “political transition”, “democratic transition”, or “democratization”. A regime can be defined as “the formal and informal organization of the center of political power, and of its relations with the broader society” (Fishman 1990, p. 428). Changes in the regime are to be distinguished from changes in other forms of political organization— less permanent ones, such as a specific government, and more permanent ones, such as the state (ibid.). In a procedural perspective, regime change finds its starting point in the end of the old authoritarian regime and its finalization in the newly established democratic system (see Merkel 2010, p. 94). In-between, democratization scholars distinguish three distinct ideal-typical phases: liberalization, transition, and consolidation.4 In the literature, no consistent approach has been applied to conceptualize, and even less to operationalize, the key phases of the transition process (Schneider and Schmitter 2004, p. 2).5 Certain agreement exists, however, about the constituent elements of the different phases. The end of a given phase and the start of the following one can be demarcated by a number of key events. Generalizable features and regularities are easier to identify for the phases of liberalization and consolidation, and less for the “in-between” phase of the actual transition. The transition phase is usually characterized by a high uncertainty and unpredictability with regard to the duration and outcome of events (see Schneider and Schmitter 2004, p. 7) and can, therefore, strongly differ from one country to the other. LIBERALIZATION. Political liberalization, or liberalization, has been defined as “the process of making effective certain rights that protect both individuals and social groups from arbitrary or illegal acts committed by the state or third parties” (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986, p. 7). The relevant literature thus usually refers to the exercise and the respect of the rule of law as the minimum criteria for liberalization (Schneider and Schmitter 2004, p. 3). The existence of non-controlled trade unions or professional associations, more than one legally recognized independent political party, a recognized opposition party in parliament or constituent assembly, or an independent press (see Schneider and Schmitter 2004, p. 6) are some measurable features of this first phase of transition. 4 The exact terminology may differ from author to author. 5 The authors’ effort to operationalize the transition phases by capturing various dimen-

sions of regime characteristics constitutes an exception. They provide indicators allowing them to compare countries’ democratization progress over the period from 1974 to 2000.

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TRANSITION. Scholars agree that “there is no one way by which the transition from one regime to another is accomplished – if it is accomplished at all” (Schneider 2008, p. 99). The defining event of the phase of democratic transition is the announcement and organization of “founding elections”; another constituent event is the drafting and ratification of a new or revised constitution (see Schneider and Schmitter 2004, p. 8). This latter step prepares the ground for the next phase of transition, i.e., the consolidation of democracy. Democratic transition marks the start toward democratization in the proper sense, which implies changes in the distribution of power to govern and inserts accountability of those who govern to the citizens (ibid., p. 3). Constitutional organs and territorial and functional representation by intermediary groups, such as political parties, interest groups, and associations, are put in place during this phase (Merkel 2010, p. 95). CONSOLIDATION. After a period of high uncertainty with regard to actors’ behavior, the support by the followers, and the outcome of the overall regime change, “uncertainty” becomes “institutionalized” (Przeworski 1991) and constrained again to certain roles and policy areas. Procedural certainty is introduced by the introduction of free and fair elections. With elections, the outcome of political competition falls into a predictable range (Schmitter 1992). Consolidation can be characterized by events, such as the putting in place of a constitution, intermediary structures, integration of “informal” political actors, and consolidation of a civic culture (Merkel 2010, p. 95). Concrete empirical evidence for a consolidated system is given when, for example, major political parties do not demand major constitutional changes and respect the outcome of regularly held elections (Schneider and Schmitter 2004), even when it involves a rotation in power.

2.1.2.2

Two Main Phases from a Social Movement Perspective: An Adapted Categorization of Transition Phases How do political opportunities, which are a key concept in social movement research, align with the above categorization of democratization phases? When do opportunities for protest expand and when do they contract during regime change? The view of much of the democratization literature, namely that regime change takes place when political opportunities are widened, is shared in this study. It is assumed that along a successful transition process, opportunities open up ahead of the moment of transition and narrow again afterward. As a main interest of this book lies in actions and interactions between protesters and the power holders, which they challenge, the visibility of an event perceivable by every citizen seems particularly relevant to mark changes in the opportunity

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structure. Given the unpredictability and rapidity with which events can deploy, an immediate understanding of their meaning is another decisive characteristic of events that occur along the transition process. What are then the key events during regime change from a social movement perspective? Figure 2.1 offers an illustration of key events during regime change. Models 1–3 are taken from the democratization literature. Model 4, by contrast, takes an explicitly social movement perspective and is the model employed for this study. THE SWITCH POINT. The holding of free and fair elections is a wellestablished criterion among democratization scholars to separate democracies from non-democracies (see Dahl 1971). A binary regime classification (see Model 1 in Fig. 2.1) is widely used in quantitative democratization studies and contrasts with the more (temporally) differentiated view of qualitative democratic research, such as the three-phase model presented above (see Model 2 in Fig. 2.1). In the latter, the first free elections are a key event in the second, i.e., the transition, phase, but they usually do not mark its starting point. However, some democratization scholars, such as Merkel (2010), prefer to use a variant of the three-phase model, in which the first free elections constitute the actual turning point in the democratization process, separating the first, i.e., the liberalization, phase from the next (see Model 3 in Fig. 2.1).6 In the present analysis the founding elections, i.e., the first free and fair elections, are taken as a criterion to divide the democratization process in a pre- and post-democratization phase. The first free elections fundamentally change the relations between opposition and rulers. They constitute a highly visible event and their significance can immediately be understood. Protest mobilization after transition is expected to be different from mobilization before transition; a major concession has been made to meet the demands of people, who will now also have increasingly new, alternative channels of political participation at their disposal. THE START. According to the established democratization literature, the end of the autocratic system, which marks the start of the liberalization phase, is usually introduced by a crisis in government (see, e.g., Merkel 6 In this variant, the first free elections separate the second phase (“democratic institutionalization”) from the first phase; according to Merkel (2010, pp. 105ff.), a liberalization process may or may not accompany the replacement of the autocratic system, which he identifies as the first phase. The second phase of “democratic institutionalization” overlaps with the phase of “transition” of the three-phase model presented earlier. It also ends when consolidation starts. However, it begins later in the process, i.e., democratic institutionalization only starts with the holding of the first free elections.

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2010, pp. 95ff.), typically a split in the elite (see, e.g., Bos 1996, p. 91); a more cautious definition for the start of the political liberalization is suggested here. In the context of the present study, liberalization only becomes relevant once it opens the political space in a way that is visible to every citizen. Among the indicators Schneider and Schmitter (2004) use to measure countries’ democratization, they emphasize the degree to which opposition is allowed to organize. Following their approach, the criterion retained for the present study to mark the beginning of liberalization is the existence of an open, tolerated political opposition (see ibid., p. 7). THE END. The end of the democratization phase, when opportunities are closed again, is reached when a country becomes a stable, consolidated democracy. The consolidation of a democracy may take years or even decades. When exactly a transitory democracy becomes a stable democracy is very difficult to establish (Bos 1996, p. 86). A key event in the period following the founding elections when democratic institutions are being introduced is the adoption of a new or revised constitution (Merkel 2010, p. 110)—it formalizes and defines the new relationship between citizens and the government. The following elections under the newly established system open the door for the election of a head of government with no connections to the old authoritarian establishment. This is the point the present study retains as the end of the democratization process; a first important step in the consolidation of democratic institutions is then reached (see Model 4 in Fig. 2.1).7 To sum up, this study considers two main phases along the process of democratization: 1. political liberalization and 2. democratic institutionalization, including early consolidation (see Model 4 in Fig. 2.1). Political liberalization starts when political opposition is tolerated in a way that is visible to everyone. It leads up to the moment when regime change, i.e., free elections, is announced. This is the moment many scholars would define as the start of transition. Democratic rule is however only introduced when the first free elections are actually held. For the purpose of this study, political liberalization spans the whole period until the elections. With the first free elections, the democratic institutionalization process starts. This process comes to an end when a new or revised constitution is adopted. However, again, a more visible, later event is chosen to mark the end of the phase and thereby the end of the whole transition period, namely the

7 For the present analysis, the phases of democratic institutionalization and early consolidation are, thus, collapsed into one category.

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Model 1: A binary distinction: pre-democratization vs. post-democratization phase

Post-democratization phase

Pre-democratization phase

Model 2: The three-phase model of transition

Autocracy

Liberalization

Transition

Consolidation

Democracy

Consolidation

Democracy

Model 3: A variant of the three-phase model of transition

Autocracy

Institution alization

Liberalization

Model 4: A two-phase model of transition: key phases from a social movement perspective

Autocracy

Advanced consolid.

Instit. & early consolidation

Liberaliz.

Democracy

Timeline: Key events in the transition from authoritarian to democratic rule Crisis in gov. (e.g. split in elite)

Regime change announced

Open opposition tolerated

New constitution adopted

Founding elections held

Head of gov. elected under new constitution

Fig. 2.1 From authoritarian to democratic rule: ideal-typical phases of democratization coming into power of a head of government that is elected under the changed or new constitution (see Timeline in Fig. 2.1). 8

8 For a detailed and informative discussion of the indicators to define and separate the various phases of democratization from each other especially for the purpose of a cross-country comparison, see Merkel (2010).

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2.2 Regime Change in Asia: Countries and Critical Episodes for Comparison A world region where transitions to democracy were numerous in the recent past and where these transitions occurred in a context of high contention and mass mobilization is East and Southeast Asia. Bunce (2003, p. 169) has made a well-known argument in favor of intra-regional research designs, according to which it is considered to be preferable to first engage in cross-national comparative research within regions before moving to comparisons across regions: “(t)he most illuminating comparisons are those that restrain the universe of causes while expanding the range of results”. This approach is well applied in the field of democratization studies, where “within-area comparisons have … flourished” (Della Porta 2014, p. 2). Differently from other world regions, we do not find one common story in the literature for the transitions in Asia. For each new wave of democratization in a given world region, area specialists would come up with new concepts and interpretative frameworks and highlight different aspects (Della Porta 2014, pp. 2–3): in Southern Europe the role of political parties and elite pacts was stressed, in Latin America it was the military power, and in Eastern Europe civil society. In the color revolutions, such as the orange revolution in the Ukraine, the emphasis was on electoral processes, and in North Africa and the Middle East it was on religion. The literature on the study of transitions in Asia has been more fragmented. This is probably related to the difficulty of making sense of the “remarkable range of political forms” in the region (Hewison 1999, p. 224), with both “unlikely democracies and unlikely dictatorships” (Slater 2008, p. 63).9 2.2.1

A Comparative Study of Three Democratizing Countries in East and Southeast Asia

Many Asian countries and more specifically East and Southeast Asian countries share, however, similarities in their institutional and structural conditions as well as in the constellations of actors. Similar conditions for development were, for example, observed in the “long strip of coastal 9 These observations were made in the context of Southeast Asia, but are valid for large parts of Asia. See also Case (2015) on this.

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capitalist states stretching down from South Korea to the eastern edge of the Indian Ocean” for the postwar period (Anderson 1998, p. 300). As mentioned in the introduction chapter, the wave of democratization started in this region in 1986 when the Philippines started its transition. Korea democratized in 1987. Next, Taiwan and Thailand followed in 1992, and finally Indonesia democratized in 1999. Transitions in these countries all started from similar conditions. These similarities have not received sufficient attention in the study of their regime change. The role of popular upsurge and mass mobilization has been widely discussed in the context of regime change in Eastern Europe. If this aspect has been considered at all in the studies on East and Southeast Asian transitions, it has been discussed in very different terms depending on the country. Countries have, for example, been differently assessed in terms of the modes of transition (see Karl and Schmitter 1991), i.e., in terms of who—elite or mass actors—have dominated the process (Merkel 2010, p. 104). Transitions in Indonesia and the Philippines are considered to have happened “from below”, and transitions in South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan “from above”.10 (Single) country studies, however, do suggest for each of the countries under study individually that mass mobilization has taken place at critical moments in the transition process (see, e.g., Aspinall 2005; Boudreau 2004, Chapter 10 on Indonesia; Kim 2000 on Korea; Murray 1996 on Thailand). Within the broader region of East and Southeast Asia, this book focuses on Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia in the period between 1985 and 2005. The countries share similarities that are critical in the context of the present study. They concern, among others, the institutional setting and the composition of power holders at the time of their democratization. During their authoritarian period, all of the three states could be classified as bureaucratic-military regimes (Merkel 2010).11 Powerful well-developed bureaucracies ran the countries under military leadership. Authoritarian leaders were committed to economic policies to which other policies, such as education and health policies, were subordinated 10 While Korean and Thai transitions were negotiated, Taiwanese transition was elitecontrolled (Merkel 2010, p. 104). 11 The Philippines and Taiwan would also have been interesting cases to study in the context of this analysis. Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia, however, have been (even) more similar in many regards. These similarities can be related to parallels in their authoritarian past (see Croissant and Merkel 2010).

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(see, e.g., Goodman et al. 1998; Kohli 2004; Woo-Cumings 1999 on developmental states). Domestic politics was strongly influenced by the international environment, more specifically the Cold War situation: the authoritarian rulers in all three countries were committed to a clear anti-communist ideology, under which repressive policies targeted labor, farmers, and the political Left (Haggard and Kaufman 2008, pp. 51–56; Hewison and Rodan 1996). While the above factors affect the actor constitution on the supply side of policy-making, the countries also exhibit similarities with regard to the actors on the demand side of policy-making. In contrast to other forms of authoritarianism, such as totalitarianism (see Linz and Stepan 1996), civil society retained some pluralistic traits and was given limited space to organize under authoritarian rule. As for political parties, they were generally weakly institutionalized and lacked a clear ideological profile (Croissant and Völkel 2012; Sachsenröder 1998).12 Moreover, in all three countries, the political Left had been weakened through systematic repression. Further cross-country similarities are related to common structural conditions and their development over time. As a consequence of the fast changes in the countries’ socioeconomic structure since the 1960s, workers have emerged as a new societal force and urban population has grown, as has the number of educated people (World Bank 2014). The present study aims at a systematic cross-country comparison of protest dynamics during regime change. The within-region design allows us to control for many factors. Selecting countries that are similar in their institutional and structural developments makes them comparable with regard to potential protest actors and the conditions they face. This is important since an actor- and action-based approach to the study of protest is suggested here; a major interest lies in the strategic choice of protest actions as a means employed by people to challenge their power holders and eventually shape politics in their interests. This interactive dimension of contention, i.e., the interactions between challengers and rulers, during democratization is an aspect that has been neglected in the study of regime change and is particularly interesting to analyze in the context of East and Southeast Asia. The dynamic procedural perspective adopted in this study allows us to examine opposition as well as state actions not only across countries but also over time. 12 For a detailed account of party system institutionalization in Asia and how it relates to authoritarianism, see Hicken and Kuhonta (2014).

2

2.2.2

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27

Critical Episodes in Indonesian, South Korean, and Thai Transitions from Authoritarian Rule

As this study takes a dynamic perspective, the selection of the appropriate episodes is as important as the selection of countries. Protest is analyzed along the democratization process. Earlier, we have seen that the categorization of the democratization process into different phases is an established analytical tool in democratization research. According to this categorization and the corresponding criteria, which we summarize in Table 2.1, this section will define the critical episodes for each of the countries under study. As explained in detail below, the political liberalization phase in Korea lasted from April 1985 until December 1987, in Thailand from August 1988 until September 1992, and in Indonesia from December 1993 until June 1999. The following phase of democratic institutionalization and early consolidation lasted in Korea from December 1987 until February 1998, in Thailand from September 1992 until February 2001, and in Indonesia from June 1999 until October 2004. The comparison across phases within a country and the comparison of a specific phase across countries constitute the main dimensions of comparison applied in this study. 2.2.2.1

South Korea’s Transition: A Gradual Process with an Eventful Start (1985–1987, 1987–1998) While gradualism is a defining trait of the transition process in Korea, a number of key milestones concentrated in a short time period. On 29 June 1987, a declaration announced the holding of free elections, in October of the same year a new constitution was adopted by referendum, less than two months later, in December 1987, the first free elections were held, and in February 1988 the new president was sworn in and the new constitution entered into force. However, political reforms to install a fully democratic system continued to be actively pursued for another ten years after the adoption of the constitution, first, during Roh Tae-woo’s five-year presidency, but even more importantly after 1993, when Kim Young-sam, the first civil leader, became president (Bedeski 1994, pp. 27–28, 40–52; Oh 1999, pp. 98–219).13 Therefore, not the first elections under the new constitution, but the first elections after the 13 For an encompassing overview of institutional reform and early consolidation in Korea during this period, see Diamond and Shin (2000). A broader perspective on politics in

→ Renewed repression

Start: Political liberalization Toleration of open opposition 11 Apr. 1985: Inauguration of new parliament, where opposition is represented—after (almost free) electionsa After May 1985: New wave of repression of dissidents at pre-1984 levels 23 Feb. 1991: Coup d’état Aug. 1991: Evidence of military wanting to stay in power 7 Apr. 1992: General Suchinda becomes prime minister

4 Aug. 1988: An elected member of the parliament becomes prime minister

26 Oct. 1979: Assassination 22 Dec. 1978: Promulgation of authoritarian ruler Park of new constitution: start of Chung-hee “semi-democratic” period

Start: Beginning of the end of authoritarian rule

Thailand

Korea

Phases of democratization in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia

Phases

Table 2.1

27 July 1996: Open repression of Megawati’s opposition party

11 Mar. 1988: Split in the ruling coalition (military, Golkar, Suharto) because of election of vice-president against military’s will 6 Dec. 1993: Establishment of opposition party (election of Megawati Sukarnoputri as head of the PDI party)

Indonesia

28 L. MADUZ

6 and 29 Jan. 2001: First elections under new constitutionb 9 Feb. 2001: Thaksin elected prime minister by parliament → Opposition leader in power

OLD CONCEPTS, NEWLY COMBINED—AND A NEW DATASET

a Presidential elections; b Parliamentary elections

Start: Democratic consolidation (b) Election of head of government under new constitution

25 July and 20 Sep. 2004: First elections under new constitutiona 20 Oct. 2004: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono sworn in as president (first directly elected president and first head of gov. elected under revised constitution)

29 Oct. 1987 (before founding elections !): Adoption of constitution in a popular referendum 25 Feb. 1988: Roh Tae-woo sworn in as president and new constitution takes effect 18 Dec. 1992: First elections under new constitutiona 18 Dec. 1997: First elections after ongoing substantial institutional reformsa 25 Feb. 1998: Kim Dae-jung sworn in as president → Opposition leader in power (“turnover test”)

Start: Democratic consolidation (a) Adoption of new/revised constitution

11 Oct. 1997: Enactment of new constitution

7 June 1999: First free electionsb 20 October 1999: Election of head of gov. by parliament → Opposition leader in power 10 Aug. 2002: Ratification of the fourth amendment to constitution, completing the constitutional reform process (1999–2002)

13 Sept. 1992: First free electionsb

Start: Democratic institutionalization Holding of founding elections

21 May 1998: President Suharto steps down

24 May 1992: General Suchinda steps down

29 June 1987: June 29 declaration by Roh Tae-woo, making concessions to opponents and announcing free elections 16 Dec. 1987: First free electionsa

Start: Democratic transition Announcement of regime change

Indonesia

Thailand

Korea

Phases

2

29

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major reforms and the coming into power of longtime opposition leader Kim Dae-jung (see ibid., pp. 220–239) mark in Korea the beginning of the period of advanced consolidation. The earliest moment that certain scholars refer to as the end of authoritarian rule is when authoritarian leader President Park Chung-hee was assassinated in October 1979 by his intelligence chief (see, e.g., Adesnik and Kim 2013). He had led the country for almost two decades. A coup in December of the same year by Chun Doo-hwan ensured the continuation of the authoritarian regime under the military. In this sense, strong visible fissures in the authoritarian power bloc that could be perceived by the civil society and would have encouraged its activity (see Przeworski 1992, pp. 107ff.) did not exist at this point in time. The new military and political leadership resorted to repression to (re-)establish order (Kim 2000, pp. 78–80). In May 1980, several hundred people were killed in the opposition stronghold Gwangju (Oh 1999, pp. 80–83). The harsh repression of political opposition was only reduced after 1983, when a policy of appeasement was introduced. Actors in civil and political society began to organize (Jung and Kim 2009, pp. 8–12; Kim 2000, pp. 80ff.). Political opposition had formed and gained strength shortly ahead of the parliamentary elections in 1985 (Kim 2000, pp. 84–86). The elections were then surprisingly free. The success of the opposition came as a surprise and was not expected by the power holders. The elections, which were called to neutralize the opposition’s protest potential, were the starting point for a controlled liberalization, which developed an ever stronger dynamic in the aftermath of the elections (Merkel 2010, p. 273). When the parliament was inaugurated, the toleration of opposition was made official. It was only after a renewed wave of repression bringing repression in 1984 back to previous levels that the opening of the political system again took a leap forward (U.S. Department of State 1986). 2.2.2.2

Thailand’s Transition: Oscillating Between Authoritarian and Democratic Rule (1988–1992, 1992–2001) The democratization process in Thailand is particularly difficult to assess according to the usual indicators. With its frequent coups, the country seems to oscillate back and forth between authoritarian and democratic rule (see Hewison 1996, pp. 75–80). Exceptional politics seem to be these early years of democratic rule in Korea is provided in the volume edited by Cotton (1995).

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normal in Thailand. In this fluctuation between very liberal periods and periods of emergency, during which the military assumes power, it is difficult to identify breaks from the routine that define the critical moments and episodes of regime change. Scholarly opinion about how democratic Thailand has been at a specific point in time, consequently, varies hugely.14 What makes Thailand difficult to analyze is the relatively stable coexistence of democratic and authoritarian institutions and the complex structure of the latter (Connors 2009; Ivarsson and Isager 2010; Chai-anan Samudavanija 1997). Early on, Thailand adopted many formal, procedural aspects of a modern democracy. Based on indicators of civil liberties and political rights, Thailand belonged in the 1980s to the most liberal regimes in East and Southeast Asia (Freedom House 2018). Although Prem Tinsulanonda, the former army chief, was the authoritarian strong man at the head of government during the 1980s, authoritarian power was not centralized. It is better described as a network, with the military, the civil bureaucracy, and the king as key players (McCargo 2005). These decentralized authoritarian structures of domination and coordination have proved to be very resilient. These features are, despite the many similarities between the authoritarian Thai regime and its counterparts in Korea and Indonesia, rather country-specific.15 Scholarly agreement exists about the importance of the elections in 1992 and the following period (Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit 2009, pp. 251ff.; Croissant and Merkel 2010, pp. 276–278; Hewison 1997). After a renewed coup in 1991 and the temporary seizure of power by the military, broad public protest forced the military to step down and free and fair elections were held in 1992. These elections set the path for the following period, during which a constitution was prepared with the, unprecedented, participation of the civil society. This constitution was widely recognized to be the most democratic constitution (Kuhonta 2008). It was adopted by the parliament in 1997. The elections in 2001, under a new electoral system, brought to power a politician that had not 14 Especially Thai scholars are inclined to designate the usually short-lived periods of civilian rule, which occurred now and then after the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, as democratic. 15 See Hewison and Kengkij Kitirianglarp (2010) on “Thai-Style Democracy”. On this topic, which also involves a discussion of the role of the king within the political system, see also Connors (2003).

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been part of the previous authoritarian regime. A shift in the power locus and the change in the leadership of the country, indicating regime change, thus took place (see Hicken 2006). It is less clear when liberalization started.16 An important step in the transition process occurred in August 1988 when for the first time an elected member of parliament became prime minister. This event is here defined as the starting point for political liberalization. Although political opposition had called for this step for some time, it came as a surprise. A detailed analysis reveals the accidental character of the event. Prime Minister Prem’s resignation happened on a voluntary basis. Chatichai became his successor and in the period that followed he was surprisingly independent. Once he was in office, elections started to actually make a difference (Orathai Kokpol 2002, pp. 281–282). Before, they were an instrument of the authoritarian elite. Prem would dissolve parliament and call new elections every time the parliament voted against his will. With Chatichai’s coming into office, a change was visible. 2.2.2.3

Indonesia’s Transition: The Big Bang (1993–1999, 1999–2004) Indonesia is a case of quick transition. Major events in the democratization process happened in a short time period.17 To many observers, it came as a surprise when longtime authoritarian ruler Suharto stepped down in May 1998 and ended his 31 years of presidency. The devastating effect of the Asian Financial Crisis, which hit the country in late 1997, and the regime’s dependence on the IMF, rendering it vulnerable to international pressure, are seen as the exceptional factors that explain— in combination with domestic political factors—the fast crumbling of the regime (Aspinall and Mietzner 2013; Eklöf 1999). A year after Suharto was replaced in power by his vice-president, the first free elections were held. The new head of government was Abdurrahman Wahid, a religious leader who was a key opposition figure under Suharto (Subianto 2008). Abdurrahman would push for fundamental democratic reforms, 16 This is related to the fact that Thailand had enjoyed an extended period of less restrictive politics ahead of the events in 1991 and 1992, which in important ways, however, were still largely authoritarian (Case 1996, pp. 452–457; Chai-anan Samudavanija 1995; Yos Santasombat 1989). 17 For an interesting account of why and how Indonesia’s transition was quick and protracted at the same time, see Malley (2000).

2

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such as the restriction of the role of the military in politics (Mietzner 2006, pp. 19–33). A closer look at events reveals a more gradual decay of the authoritarian regime in Indonesia (Eklöf 1999, 2003). Over the years since Suharto’s coming into power, a stable coalition between the military, the ruling party Golkar, and the clan surrounding President Suharto had run the country with an iron fist. The first rifts in the coalition appeared however as early as toward the end of the 1980s. In March 1989, a vice-president was elected against the military’s will. In the aftermath, the distancing between Suharto and the military would continue. Suharto tried to reestablish a stable power base by reaching out to civil actors, including religious actors. The re-shuffling in the inner circle of power allowed political space to open up. The early 1990s saw the emergence of the first important civil society organizations (Ufen 2002, pp. 334ff.). From the perspective of political opposition, 1993 marked a turning point. In Indonesia, the formation of political opposition took place within a strongly controlled political party system. Only two parties other than the ruling Golkar had been admitted to participate in formal politics since the forced party merger in 1973, namely the United Development Party (PPP18 ) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI19 ) (Eklöf 2003, Chapter 4). Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose father President Sukarno had been pushed out of power by Suharto, was elected head of the PDI Party in December 1993 (Van Dijk 1997). It was through Megawati’s election that a first real opposition party under Suharto was established.20 The regime tried to re-establish order by replacing Megawati by a government-sponsored candidate. Later on, the headquarters of the Megawati-led PDI were violently taken over in July 1996 (Human Rights Watch/Asia and Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights 1996). Open repression of the political opposition followed. A more stable phase started in 2004 when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took up office (Crouch 2010, pp. 35–38; Mietzner 2009, pt. IV). It marked the end of a period of high political agitation and conflicts

18 PPP is short for Partai Persatuan Pembangunan. 19 PDI is short for Partai Demokrasi Indonesia. 20 For a detailed overview of the rise of Megawati and the PDI, see Aspinall (2005,

Chapter 6) and Eklöf (2003, Chapter 8).

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that posed a danger to the political and territorial integrity of the country (e.g. Malley 2002). Suharto’s resignation had led to a power vacuum. After a short while, broad political opposition formed against the new President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was eventually replaced by Megawati in 2001 (Crouch 2010, pp. 28–35).21 This move was supported by the powerful military.22 The military’s dominant position, which is today still among the biggest defects of Indonesia’s democracy, could not substantially be restrained despite the successful revision of the constitution (Croissant and Merkel 2010, pp. 308–310).23 An important reason was the outbreak of violence in Indonesia’s contested areas, which challenged the central government’s authority over the territories (Aspinall 2010, pp. 25–29). Also, the conflict between religious and non-religious actors in the political arena (see ibid., pp. 29–31) helped secure the military’s role as the protector of a secular state. 24

2.3 Protest Event Analysis: Established Methods and New Data for Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand 2.3.1

A New Protest Event Dataset for Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand (1985–2005)25

For the compilation of the dataset, we applied the methodology of protest event analysis (Hutter 2014; Koopmans 1998; Koopmans and Statham

21 For a description and assessment of the presidencies of Abdurrahman and Megawati, see Kingsbury (2005, Chapters 13–14). 22 Assessments of the extent to which Abdurrahman’s removal from power was actively

supported by the military vary, though; some scholars attribute a more active role to the military (Kingsbury 2003; Tomsa 2008, pp. 76–77), while others highlight the political blunders of the president that put him in a situation in which he had to make concessions to the military (Honna 2003; Mietzner 2006, pp. 26–33). 23 On the constitutional change in Indonesia, see Horowitz (2013) and Indrayana (2008). 24 There is abundant literature on the democratization process in Indonesia and its challenges. An important number of studies were issued immediately after the fall of Suharto (Emmerson 1999; Harymurti 1999; Liddle 1999; Schwarz and Paris 1999). But also the following democratic institutionalization and consolidation processes are well documented (Aspinall and Mietzner 2010; Bünte and Ufen 2009). 25 The dataset is available on forsbase.unil.ch.

2

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1999).26 Data was collected based on a content analysis of national newspapers. One quality newspaper was selected for each country: the Jakarta Post for Indonesia, the Korea Herald for Korea, and the Bangkok Post for Thailand. These leading English-language newspapers are known for their detailed coverage of daily news in the respective countries. The content analysis consisted of two basic steps. First, a list with predefined categories of protest actions was used to identify articles in the newspapers, reporting on protest events. We would then, in a second step, code all the relevant information on the protest, as contained in the article, such as forms and goals of protest, the actors involved in the protest, and the presence or absence of repressive actions by the government. Every protest event was counted only once even if it was reported several times.27 For this purpose, each event had to be clearly identifiable based on different protest characteristics, such as the protest date, place, form, goal, and actor. Methodologically and conceptually, we used an approach from an early protest event analysis generation (see Hutter 2014, 2019). Trained human coders manually read and coded protest events. We used finegrained protest categories and well-documented coding procedures. The focus was on identifying and mapping protests.28 Today, human coding co-exists with automated coding, using the new possibilities given by computerized technologies.29 Computerized methods offer not only efficient ways of selecting protest event data from unstructured source texts on a large scale. They also allow us to collect and process new types

26 See also Crist and McCarthy (1996), Koopmans and Rucht (2002), and Olzak (1989). 27 In the process of data cleansing, we consolidated multiple entries for the same protest into one record. 28 More recent PEA research attempts to capture additional, for example, relational, dimensions of political contention, defining the latter more broadly (see Kriesi et al. 2019). 29 Researchers have analyzed the respective advantages of human and automated coding and developed methods that combine them (see Croicu and Weidmann 2015; Schrodt and Van Brackle 2013). Computers were found to be more efficient at screening and pre-selecting large amounts of news reports. Humans, however, were found to be better at extracting relevant content. Croicu and Weidmann (2015, pp. 1–2) suggest a semi-automatic procedure where “source material is first screened for relevant news articles through machine learning techniques” and “(t)he remaining, much smaller set of potentially relevant articles are assigned to human coders for further processing”.

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of data and to access new sources. Instead of only focusing on news reports, we are today able to make use of multimedia data originating from multiple sources, including image data found in social media channels (see Zhang and Pan 2019). However, when collecting data for this study, such methods and data were still much more limited. Reports of the selected newspapers for most of the years covered in the study were not available in digital form and could not be accessed online. Hence, we decided to use a traditional data collection approach. The manual scanning of daily newspapers is a resource-intensive endeavor. Therefore, researchers in the protest event analysis tradition often relied on sampling techniques (Earl et al. 2004, p. 68). For this study, articles were selected from the front page and the national news section of the newspapers. Following Koopmans and Statham (1999, p. 8), editorial and commentary sections were not considered. In addition, only one newspaper edition per week was coded and fed into the dataset. The sampling was carried out by constructing an “artificial week”, which was composed of the Monday issue of the first week of each year, the Tuesday issue of the second week, and so on. Sunday editions were, however, excluded from the coding—in Korea, there were no Sunday issues for many years.30 In Thailand and Indonesia, the content of Sunday issues was clearly distinct from the content of issues on other weekdays, i.e., more oriented toward entertainment.31 The coding procedure resulted in a dataset with 6371 protest events for the whole period under study: 2566 protests for Korea, 1836 for Thailand, and 1969 for Indonesia.32 The dataset includes protest events that took place sometime between the mid-1980s and the mid-2000s: 1986– 2005 in the cases of Thailand and Indonesia and 1985–2004 in the case of Korea. The data was collected for the period over which the democratization wave in East and Southeast Asia extended. As mentioned earlier, the 30 This is true for the later years covered in this study. During the earlier years, there usually was no Monday edition. Over the whole period under study, the Korea Herald published six newspaper editions each week. 31 This information was obtained from editors or other representatives of the newspa-

pers. 32 Originally, the dataset contained 8132 entries: 3406 for Korea, 2168 for Thailand, and 2558 for Indonesia. They still included multiple entries for a single protest event as well as entries that lacked clarity and specificity regarding protest demands and protest dates. The data collection, cleansing, and preparation process that led to the final dataset are described in more detail in the chapters ahead and the Appendix.

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wave started in 1986 with the democratization of the Philippines and it can be said to have ended roughly 20 years later in 2004 when Indonesia entered an advanced stage of democratic consolidation. In each of the countries, data was collected for a full 20-year period, starting in 1986. In Korea, data collection went a little further back in time, namely to 1985, because this was when political liberalization started in this country. Appendix A discusses various methodological challenges of collecting and coding data in the protest event analysis tradition by addressing both general issues and issues specific to this study. Collecting and coding data on protest events in geographically and sometimes temporally remote and authoritarian settings posed particular challenges. The political context in which the selected protests took place can be characterized as scarcely institutionalized and quickly changing. In addition, they were not well known to the coders. Special efforts were needed to ensure appropriate sampling strategies and inter-coder reliability. Moreover, censorship was an issue that could not be neglected: it raised concerns regarding various types of biases, such as selection and description biases. The use of English-language newspapers, to which less censorship was applied, rebalanced to a certain extent potential problems in this regard. 2.3.2

Methods of Analysis: A Combination of Qualitative and Quantitative Research

The analysis of the data is carried out primarily on the basis of descriptive statistics. An important part of the data presentation in the result sections takes the form of frequency tables and graphs that are shown separately for each country (univariate analysis). Frequency tables are used to summarize data on protest mobilization across the whole transition period. These tables provide information on the overall level of protest or more partial aspects of protest that are of interest. The same kind of descriptive statistics, but in a dynamic perspective, are shown in graphs. They display the development of protest across time (by year). Only in selected instances are smaller time units employed. Whereas the whole 20-year period is covered in the graphs, the time period considered in the tables only includes the transition period, which is where the main focus of this study lies. Cross-country comparisons are mainly discussed in terms of relative frequencies shown in frequency tables. When a development within a country is examined based on a graph, reference is made to both absolute

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and relative levels of protest indicators. In addition to simple frequency tables, cross-tables are employed to analyze the relationship between two variables (bivariate analysis). For cross-tables, a measure of association indicating the size of association between the variables (Cramer’s V), along with a measure of significance of this association (p-value), is included. In the last analysis chapter, we will go beyond bivariate analysis and estimate the determinants of repression based on a multivariate logistic estimation model (multivariate analysis). For a more complete picture, we combine the information contained in the protest data with detailed country- and context-specific information, obtained from qualitative studies. For all topics covered in the various chapters of this book, we conducted a literature review and consulted secondary sources. In addition, we also conducted a number of expert interviews with regard to some specific issues that were of interest to this study. The information gained through qualitative research helped us interpret our protest data in a meaningful way and put the findings from our quantitative evaluations into context.

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Marco G. Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly, 125–45. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998. Goldstone, Jack A., and Charles Tilly. “Threat (and Opportunity): Popular Action and State Response in the Dynamics of Contentious Action.” In Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics, edited by Ronald R. Aminzade, Jack A. Goldstone, Doug McAdam, Elizabeth J. Perry, William H. Sewell, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, 179–94. Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Goodman, Roger, Gordon White, and Huck-Ju Kwon, eds. The East Asian Welfare Model: Welfare Orientalism and the State. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. Haggard, Stephan, and Robert R. Kaufman. Development, Democracy, and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. Harymurti, Bambang. “Challenges of Change in Indonesia.” Journal of Democracy 10, no. 4 (1999): 69–83. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.1999.0065. Hewison, Kevin, ed. Political Change in Thailand: Democracy and Participation. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. ———. “Political Oppositions and Regime Change in Thailand.” In Political Oppositions in Industrialising Asia, edited by Garry Rodan, 72–94. London: Routledge, 1996. ———. “Political Space in Southeast Asia: ‘Asian-Style’ and Other Democracies.” Democratization 6, no. 1 (March 1, 1999): 224–45. https://doi.org/10. 1080/13510349908403604. Hewison, Kevin, and Kengkij Kitirianglarp. “‘Thai-Style Democracy’: The Royalist Struggle for Thailand’s Politics.” In Saying the Unsayable: Monarchy and Democracy in Thailand, edited by Soren Ivarsson and Lotte Isager, 179–202. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2010. Hewison, Kevin, and Garry Rodan. “The Ebb and Flow of Civil Society and the Decline of the Left in Southeast Asia.” In Political Oppositions in Industrialising Asia, edited by Garry Rodan, 40–71. London: Routledge, 1996. Hicken, Allen. “Party Fabrication: Constitutional Reform and the Rise of Thai Rak Thai.” Journal of East Asian Studies 6, no. 3 (2006): 381–407. Hicken, Allen, and Erik Martinez Kuhonta, eds. Party System Institutionalization in Asia: Democracies, Autocracies, and the Shadows of the Past. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Honna, Jun. Military Politics and Democratization in Indonesia. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Horowitz, Donald L. Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

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Human Rights Watch Asia, and Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights. “Indonesia: Tough International Response Needed to Widening Crackdown.” A Human Rights Watch Short Report 8, no. 8 (C) (August 1996). Huntington, Samuel P. “Democracy’s Third Wave.” Journal of Democracy 2, no. 2 (1991a): 12–34. ———. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991b. Hutter, Swen. “Exploring the Full Conceptual Potential of Protest Event Analysis.” Sociological Methodology 49, no. 1 (August 1, 2019): 58–63. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0081175019860239. ———. “Protest Event Analysis and Its Offspring.” In Methodological Practices in Social Movement Research, edited by Donatella Della Porta, 335–67. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Indrayana, Denny. Indonesian Constitutional Reform, 1999–2002: An Evaluation of Constitution-Making in Transition. Jakarta: Kompas Book Publishing, 2008. Ivarsson, Soren, and Lotte Isager, eds. Saying the Unsayable: Monarchy and Democracy in Thailand. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2010. Jung, Hae Gu, and Ho Ki Kim. “Development of Democratization Movement in South Korea.” Working Paper. Stanford, CA: FSI Stanford, July 2009. Jung, Jai. “Disentangling Protest Cycles: An Event-History Analysis of New Social Movements in Western Europe.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 15, no. 1 (February 2010): 25–44. Karl, Terry Lynn, and Philippe C. Schmitter. “Modes of Transition in Latin America, Southern and Eastern Europe.” International Social Science Journal 128 (1991): 269–84. Kim, Sunhyuk. The Politics of Democratization in Korea: The Role of Civil Society. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. Kingsbury, Damien. Power Politics and the Indonesian Military. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. ———. The Politics of Indonesia. Vol. 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Kohli, Atul. State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Kokpol, Orathai. “Electoral Politics in Thailand.” In Electoral Politics in Southeast and East Asia, edited by Aurel Croissant, Gabriele Bruns, and Marei John, 277–97. Singapore: Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung, Office for Regional Cooperation in Southeast Asia, 2002. http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/013 61009.pdf. Koopmans, Ruud. “Appendix: The Newspaper Data.” In New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis, edited by Hanspeter Kriesi, Ruud

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Koopmans, Jan Willem Duyvendak, and Marco G. Giugni, 2nd ed., 253–73. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. ———. “Protest in Time and Space: The Evolution of Waves of Contention.” In The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, edited by David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, 19–46. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470999103.ch2. ———. “The Dynamics of Protest Waves: West Germany, 1965 to 1989.” American Sociological Review 58, no. 5 (October 1, 1993): 637–58. https://doi. org/10.2307/2096279. Koopmans, Ruud, and Dieter Rucht. “Protest Event Analysis.” In Methods of Social Movement Research, edited by Bert Klandermans and Suzanne Staggenborg. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. Koopmans, Ruud, and Paul Statham. “Political Claims Analysis: Integrating Protest Event and Political Discourse Approaches.” Mobilization 4, no. 2 (1999): 203–221. Kriesi, Hanspeter. “Political Context and Opportunity.” In The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, edited by David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, 67–90. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470999103.ch4. Kriesi, Hanspeter, Swen Hutter, and Abel Bojar. “Contentious Episode Analysis.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 24, no. 3 (September 1, 2019): 251–73. https://doi.org/10.17813/1086-671X-24-3-251. Kuhonta, Erik Martinez. “The Paradox of Thailand’s 1997 ‘People’s Constitution’: Be Careful What You Wish For.” Asian Survey 48, no. 3 (2008): 373–92. https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2008.48.3.373. Liddle, R. William. “Indonesia’s Democratic Opening.” Government and Opposition 34, no. 1 (January 1, 1999): 94–116. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14777053.1999.tb00473.x. Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Mahoney, James, and Richard Snyder. “Rethinking Agency and Structure in the Study of Regime Change.” Studies in Comparative International Development 34 (1999): 3–32. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02687620. Malley, Michael. “Beyond Democratic Elections: Indonesia Embarks on a Protracted Transition.” Democratization 7, no. 3 (September 1, 2000): 153–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510340008403676. ———. “Indonesia in 2001: Restoring Stability in Jakarta.” Asian Survey 42, no. 1 (February 1, 2002): 124–32. https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2002.42.1.124. McAdam, Doug, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. Dynamics of Contention. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

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McCargo, Duncan. “Network Monarchy and Legitimacy Crises in Thailand.” The Pacific Review 18, no. 4 (December 1, 2005): 499–519. https://doi. org/10.1080/09512740500338937. Merkel, Wolfgang. Systemtransformation: Eine Einführung in die Theorie und Empirie der Transformationsforschung. 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010. Mietzner, Marcus. Military Politics, Islam, and the State in Indonesia: From Turbulent Transition to Democratic Consolidation. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009. ———. The Politics of Military Reform in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Elite Conflict, Nationalism, and Institutional Resistance. Washington, DC: East-West Center Washington, 2006. http://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/politics-mil itary-reform-post-suharto-indonesia-elite-conflict-nationalism-and-institut. Murray, David. Angels and Devils: Thai Politics from February 1991 to September 1992—A Struggle for Democracy? Bangkok: White Orchid Press, 1996. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003154640. O’Donnell, Guillermo A., and Philippe C. Schmitter. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Oh, John Kie-chiang. Korean Politics: The Quest for Democratization and Economic Development. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. Olivier, Johan L. “Causes of Ethnic Collective Action in the PretoriaWitwatersrand Triangle, 1970 to 1984.” South African Sociological Review 2 (1990): 89–108. ———. “State Repression and Collective Action in South Africa, 1970–84.” South African Journal of Sociology 22, no. 4 (1991): 109–17. Olzak, Susan. “Analysis of Events in the Study of Collective Action.” Annual Review of Sociology 15, no. 1 (1989): 119–41. https://doi.org/10.1146/ann urev.so.15.080189.001003. Przeworski, Adam. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. ———. “The Games of Transition.” In Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective, edited by Mainwaring Scott, Guillermo A. O’Donnell, and J. Samuel Valenzuela, 105–52. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992. Sachsenröder, Wolfgang. “Party Politics and Democratic Development in East and Southeast Asia—A Comparative View.” In Political Party Systems and Democratic Development in East and Southeast Asia, edited by Wolfgang Sachsenröder and Ulrike Elisabeth Frings, Volume I: Southeast Asia, 1–35. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1998.

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Samudavanija, Chai-Anan. “Old Soldiers Never Die, They Are Just Bypassed: The Military, Bureaucracy and Globalisation.” In Political Change in Thailand: Democracy and Participation, edited by Kevin Hewison, 42–57. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. ———. “Thailand: A Stable Semidemocracy.” In Politics in Developing Countries: Comparing Experiences with Democracy, edited by Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, 2nd ed., 323–69. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995. Santasombat, Yos. “The End of Premocracy in Thailand.” Southeast Asian Affairs, January 1, 1989, 317–35. Schmitter, Philippe C. “The Consolidation of Democracy and Representation of Social Groups.” American Behavioral Scientist 35, no. 4–5 (March 1, 1992): 422–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/000276429203500406. Schneider, Carsten Q. The Consolidation of Democracy: Comparing Europe and Latin America. London: Routledge, 2008. Schneider, Carsten Q., and Philippe C. Schmitter. “Liberalization, Transition and Consolidation: Measuring the Components of Democratization.” Democratization 11, no. 5 (December 1, 2004): 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/135 10340412000287271. Schrodt, Philip A., and David Van Brackle. “Automated Coding of Political Event Data.” In Handbook of Computational Approaches to Counterterrorism, edited by V. S. Subrahmanian, 23–49. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2013. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5311-6. Schwarz, Adam, and Jonathan Paris. The Politics of Post-Suharto Indonesia. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1999. Slater, Dan. “Democracy and Dictatorship Do Not Float Freely: Structural Sources of Political Regimes in Southeast Asia.” In Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis, edited by Erik Martinez Kuhonta, Dan Slater, and Tuong Vu, 55–79. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008. Snyder, Richard, and James Mahoney. “The Missing Variable: Institutions and the Study of Regime Change.” Comparative Politics 32, no. 1 (1999): 103–122. Subianto, Benny. “Abdurrahman Wahid: The Maverick Dissident Democrat.” In Dissident Democrats: The Challenge of Democratic Leadership in Asia, edited by John Kane, Haig Patapan, and Benjamin Wong, 165–88. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Tarrow, Sidney. Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965–1975. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Tilly, Charles, and Sidney Tarrow. Contentious Politics. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2007.

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Tomsa, Dirk. Party Politics and Democratization in Indonesia: Golkar in the Post-Suharto Era. New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. Ufen, Andreas. “Herrschaftsfiguration Und Demokratisierung in Indonesien (1965–2000).” Institut für Asienkunde, 2002. U.S. Department of State. “Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1985: Republic of Korea.” Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, February 1986. http://www.ecoi.net/local_link/238775/347963_en.html. Van Dijk, C. “The Partai Demokrasi Indonesia.” Bijdragen Tot de Taal-, LandEn Volkenkunde/Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia 153, no. 3 (January 1, 1997): 397–430. Woo-Cumings, Meredith. The Developmental State. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. World Bank. World Development Indicators, 1960–2014. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014. http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?sou rce=world-development-indicators. Zhang, Han, and Jennifer Pan. “CASM: A Deep-Learning Approach for Identifying Collective Action Events with Text and Image Data from Social Media.” Sociological Methodology 49, no. 1 (July 19, 2019): 1–57. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0081175019860244.

CHAPTER 3

Contrasting Protest Dynamics in Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand (1985–2005)

This chapter prepares the ground for the following chapters. It presents the overall protest dynamics observed in democratizing Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia. It shows that levels of protest in all countries during transition were high. However, protest underwent a highly dynamic development in Korea and Indonesia, but not in Thailand. This chapter aims at providing a first overview of the intensity of contention which protesters were able to mount and which power holders were confronted with in the countries and episodes under study. For this overview, protest is measured in terms of the number of protest events, as well as in terms of their geographic diffusion. Factors explaining the observed protest dynamics and their potential interaction with changes in the regime will be the subject of the remainder of this book.

3.1 The Challenge of Measuring Protest Patterns In choosing the indicator for the intensity of protest mobilization, several options are at hand. The measure closest to the data structure as collected in the protest event analysis approach is the number of protest events. It indicates how many protests are organized at a given moment in a given place. Once the presence of a protest event is established, further measures that capture the intensity of this event can be applied. The most common © The Author 2020 L. Maduz, Contention and Regime Change in Asia, Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49220-5_3

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among them is crowd size, i.e., the number of participants engaging in protests (Ortiz et al. 2005, p. 398). Other indicators found in the literature include the duration of events and the presence of violence (both on the side of the protesters and the security forces), or also the presence of damage (ibid., p. 399). Sometimes, several indicators (or combinations thereof) are employed in a study to measure the intensity of protest (e.g., Beissinger and Sasse 2014). The validity of an indicator measuring protest intensity is closely linked to the type of action forms considered. In protests where physical presence is needed, such as street demonstrations and sit-ins, the number of participants reflects the strength of protesters and organizers. The large-scale student protest organized in Indonesia ahead of Suharto’s resignation in 1997 drew its power from the sheer number of participants: the tens of thousands of daily protesters managed to create a sense of chaos and uncontrollability that decisively weakened the authoritarian regime. The industry-wide “labor struggle” in Korea in the month following the announcement of free elections in 1987 is another case in point. Another dimension of intensity which shows the power and determination of protesters is captured by the duration of protest events. This measure is useful for extended sit-ins or camping campaigns, as observed in the three-month camping campaign in Thailand in early 1997, organized by the “Assembly of the Poor”. Other protest forms that involve only a few actors may be equally intense and powerful in terms of their impact on politics. Examples are politically motivated acts of terrorism aimed at maximum damage in terms of people’s lives or property. These actions gain their power from the violence employed. But violence is not a necessary condition for a few people to make an impact. Established actors, such as intellectuals, or leaders of large organizations, such as trade unions, or also opposition politicians and dissidents, typically choose more moderate forms of protest action that are accepted by a broader public. In this scenario, it is the question of “who” and “when” that determines the impact of a protest. For example, Thailand’s political activist Chalard Vorachat engaged in hunger strikes in the early and mid-1990s and played an important role in pushing for a new constitution (Suchit Bunbongkan 1999, pp. 57–59; McCargo 1998, pp. 11–13). However, also single actions by people not known to the broad public deserve consideration: suicide protests in Korea, as committed by workers or students ahead

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of democratization, which attracted people’s attention for their plight, proved to be powerful means of influencing political events.1 This study is interested in capturing as many of the above facets of protest intensity as possible. Consequently, the number of protest events, as the most encompassing measure, is chosen as the main indicator of protest mobilization for this study. Other indicators, such as crowd size or duration, will occasionally be used to give additional perspectives on countries’ protest patterns. This chapter will present a dynamic overview of the protest intensity that power holders in democratizing Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia faced in terms of the overall number of events. In addition, a measure of diffusion of protest will be included. Social movement research suggests that the geographic spread of protest is a characteristic feature of periods of intensive mobilization (see McAdam et al. 2001, pp. 331–340; Tilly and Tarrow 2015, pp. 125–127 on “scale shift” and “diffusion”). This measure of geographic spread will, however, only be taken up again in the last analytical chapter. Other aspects of protest intensity will be looked at in subsequent chapters. Chapter 4 will examine the radicalness of protest on the basis of protest forms . Chapter 5 will take a similar approach and analyze the radicalness of protest based on protest goals that protesters advocate. Chapters 6 and 7 will assess the intensity of protest from the angle of the actors that participate in mobilization during regime change.

3.2 Stylizing Protest Dynamics: Opportunities for Protest in the Course of Regime Change Our expectations about how protest develops along the democratization process are deduced from the protest cycle model, as introduced in Chapter 2. Knowing about the limits of a purely structural view (limited role to agency, etc.), the advantage of the model is that it is very clear about how opportunities may develop in a dynamic perspective and what this involves for protest(ers). The protest cycle model will thus be used as a useful starting point and adapted to the authoritarian context. We expect to observe deviations from the model, since protest action is expected to play a role that is independent from structural conditions and to create its own opportunities.

1 On suicide protests in Korea, see, e.g., Biggs (2005).

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At the outset of a cycle of contention in an authoritarian setting, potential protesters find themselves confronted with an authoritarian state that has proven in the past its capacity and willingness to repress its challengers. An authoritarian regime by definition does not allow free political participation. Strict restrictions and repression of political actions apply. In a completely repressive authoritarian state, mobilization is not possible or very limited. With the onset of political liberalization, an opening of the political space becomes visible to all citizens. Changes in the regime open up opportunities for mobilization. People may take these opportunities to actually take their protest to the streets. Mobilization may quickly increase and even escalate. What happens once a critical point of protest has been reached and power holders have, in reaction, agreed to concessions? At this point, the political environment is still characterized by a high level of uncertainty. The holding of free elections, for example, does not make a full democratic system yet and major institutional issues will only be settled in the following period. Concessions made by power holders could still be reversed. At the same time, the state is still in a weakened position and opportunities are widely open. Among the protesters who have successfully pushed their interests, some may content themselves with the concessions made while others see the door open for more radical demands. This double process of institutionalization and radicalization has been described in the literature (see Karstedt-Henke 1980; Koopmans 1993; Tarrow 1989). Generally speaking, the social movement literature is less conclusive with regard to demobilization as compared to mobilization (see Tarrow 2011, pp. 201ff.). But all protest cycles have in common that they eventually come to an end (Koopmans 2004). It is suggested that only once a country reaches the phase of democratic consolidation and the state has overcome its temporary weakness do political opportunities close again. To sum up, with the visible expansion of the political space during liberalization, we expect to see the start of a protest cycle in the still authoritarian state. Protest that has previously been repressed can now develop and gain momentum. With regard to demobilization dynamics the following is hypothesized: after the holding of the first free elections, i.e., when a democratic regime is officially introduced, levels of protest will decline. Protest activity will remain at higher than usual levels during the period of democratic institutionalization and early consolidation. When a stage of advanced consolidation is reached, protest will settle at low levels.

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3.3 Fast-Changing Protest Dynamics in Indonesia and South Korea, Steady Patterns in Thailand The figures in this section (see Figs. 3.1 and 3.2) present the levels and dynamics of protest in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia during their democratic transition process between the mid-1980s and mid-2000s. The

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vertical lines correspond to the different phases of each country’s critical episode.2 The vertical solid line in the graphs indicates the year in which the first free elections took place. It constitutes regime change in the narrow sense, i.e., the moment when a country moves from authoritarian to democratic rule. As a general note, all notions used to describe the period under study (e.g., regime change, transition, democratization) can also designate the specific moment when democratic rule is introduced, i.e., the holding of free elections. The vertical dashed line to the left marks the start of political liberalization. It has been defined as the moment when open and tolerated political opposition first becomes visible. The second vertical dashed line marks the closure of the transition period when the country’s newly democratic regime reaches a state of (first) consolidation. As discussed earlier, this moment is defined as having been reached when a newly elected head of government comes into power, once substantial democratic institutions have been put in place, and elections under the new constitution have been held. In democratizing Korea and Indonesia, protest followed a cyclical pattern. Once political liberalization started (vertical dashed line to the left in Fig. 3.1), the level of protest quickly rose and sharply increased ahead of the moment of transition. The peak in both countries was reached at the time when regime change was announced. In Korea, the announcement of regime change on 29 June 1987 fell in the same year as the founding elections, which—according to the definition used here— marked the start of the democratic institutionalization phase (vertical solid line). In Indonesia, by contrast, a year passed between Suharto’s stepping down and the first free elections in 1999. After the peak, a clear drop in the protest level was observable in the countries and the descent with some smaller ups and downs continued until they entered a more advanced stage of democratic consolidation (vertical dashed line to the right). In Korea, long-time opposition leader Kim Dae-jung was sworn in as president in early 1998, after substantial institutional reforms had been implemented earlier in the 1990s (see Chapter 2). In Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono became president in October 2004 after the revision of the constitution had been completed in 2003 (see Chapter 2). In Thailand, no protest cycle is discernible: protest dynamics and changes in the regime seem unrelated with each other. The only visible

2 For the definition of countries’ critical episode, see Chapter 2.

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parallel between the Thai experience and the two other cases is that there was an increase in protest mobilization shortly ahead of the moment of transition (vertical solid line in Fig. 3.1) from low levels to somewhat higher levels of protest. In Thailand, it was only after the founding elections in 1992 that protest activity picked up and remained at higher levels throughout the period of democratization and early consolidation. This period saw the adoption of the constitution in 1997 and the first elections under the new constitution in 2001, which brought Prime Minister Thaksin into power (see Chapter 2). The number of protests fell again afterwards. But unrest in the Southern region, a political development that is difficult to relate to the events of regime change, brought the number of protest events in 2004 and 2005 to an unprecedentedly high level. It erupted, however, only after initial consolidation was reached. In addition to the general protest level, another measure of protest intensity, namely the geographic expansion of protest, reveals the cyclical nature of protest mobilization in Korea and Indonesia that contrasts with the less dynamic Thai experience. Quantitative studies in social movement research (e.g., Davenport et al. 2011; Walker et al. 2008) use place dummies, such as capital or city or region dummies, to capture the geographic dimension of protest. Figure 3.2 compares protest that took place in the countries’ capital (solid line) to protest that was organized outside the capital (dashed line). The expansion of protest outside the countries’ political centers can be interpreted as an indicator of how much protest spread and diffused across space. In Korea and Indonesia, when protest reached its peak, the number of protest events outside the capital exceeded the protest level in the capital and, thus, contributed significantly to the high overall level of protest at this key moment of transition. The finding on the geographic expansion of protest buttresses what has been uncovered in the graphs in Fig. 3.1, i.e., that protest in Korea and Indonesia has developed into a full protest cycle, while protest in Thailand has not. If at all, some of these dynamics in Thailand were again only seen after regime change (vertical solid line in Fig. 3.2) between 1992 and 2001, i.e., during democratic institutionalization and early consolidation. From 2004 on, the Southern insurgency shifted the main place of protest away from Bangkok to the South. This political development is, however, outside of the focus of this book. To sum up, and with reference to the difference in protest dynamics observed in the three countries, we can introduce a classification, according to which the Korean and Indonesian democratization processes

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qualify as highly dynamic transitions , while the democratization process in Thailand qualifies as a non-dynamic transition. While in Thailand protest activity increases only a little once democratic institutionalization starts, we see a clear time connection between the unfolding of protest actions and the transition process in Korea and Indonesia. In these two countries, the level of protests increases with the start of political liberalization. A sharp rise in protests ahead of transition follows. After transition, we see a relatively rapid demobilization. Protests are, then, at a relatively low level when countries enter the phase of advanced democratic consolidation. The purpose of this chapter has been to set the stage for the analyses in the following chapters. It has given an overview of the general protest dynamics in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia during their transition period. While the political transition in all three countries was accompanied by high levels of protest, contention escalated to severely uncontrollable levels only in Korea and Indonesia. Protests in these two countries, at the moment when regime change was announced, were not only most intensive in terms of the number of events organized and their geographic spread, but also with regard to the duration of single events (not shown here). Moreover, in Indonesia it was at this time that protests attracted the highest number of participants (not shown here). In these highly dynamic transition contexts, people were in a position to successfully pressurize their authoritarian rulers. What are the mechanisms and conditions behind popular mobilization during regime change? Why did we see highly dynamic transitions in Korea and Indonesia—and not in Thailand? Answering these questions, which is the goal of the remainder of this book, will help us better understand how protest and regime change relate to, and influence, each other.

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Davenport, Christian, Sarah A. Soule, and David A. Armstrong. “Protesting While Black? The Differential Policing of American Activism, 1960 to 1990.” American Sociological Review 76, no. 1 (February 1, 2011): 152–78. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0003122410395370. Karstedt-Henke, Sabine. “Theorien Zur Erklärung Terroristischer Bewegungen [Theories for the Explanation of Terrorist Movements].” In Politik Der Inneren Sicherheit [The Politics of Internal Security], edited by Erhard Blankenburg, 198–234. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1980. Koopmans, Ruud. “The Dynamics of Protest Waves: West Germany, 1965 to 1989.” American Sociological Review 58, no. 5 (October 1, 1993): 637–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/2096279. ———. “Protest in Time and Space: The Evolution of Waves of Contention.” In The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, edited by David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, 19–46. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470999103.ch2. McAdam, Doug, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. Dynamics of Contention. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2001. McCargo, Duncan. “Alternative Meanings of Political Reform in Contemporary Thailand.” The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 13, no. 1 (1998): 5. Ortiz, David G., Daniel J. Myers, N. Eugene Walls, and Maria-Elena D. Diaz. “Where Do We Stand with Newspaper Data?” Mobilization 10, no. 3 (2005): 397–419. Tarrow, Sidney. Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965–1975. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Tilly, Charles, and Sidney Tarrow. Contentious Politics. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015. Walker, Edward T., Andrew W. Martin, and John D. McCarthy. “Confronting the State, the Corporation, and the Academy: The Influence of Institutional Targets on Social Movement Repertoires.” American Journal of Sociology 114, no. 1 (July 1, 2008): 35–76. https://doi.org/10.1086/588737.

CHAPTER 4

Where Does the Power of the People Lie? Organization and Forms of Protest During Regime Change

Under authoritarian rule, political mobilization and organization are severely limited. Seeing mass protest rise in such a context seems, therefore, unlikely. But this is, paradoxically, exactly what we see in some countries that make their transition to democracy. Social movement research suggests that some forms of protest are tolerated even in authoritarian contexts (Boudreau 2004, pp. 153–154; Tilly 2006, p. 75). However, these are very limited and usually restricted to specific groups of actors. Independent organization is not tolerated under authoritarian rule (Przeworski 1992, pp. 107ff.). If organization outside authoritarian power structures exists, it can be expected to be at best semi-oppositional and confined within clear limits.1 How do we get from here to a situation of high mobilization? Does protest organize spontaneously or do organizations take the lead? Depending on the respective importance of organized and less organized forms of mobilization, how radical is protest going to get? By what means is protest taken to a critical point? Two interrelated questions are at the center of this chapter. One is about the organization in protest. Organization is needed to raise sustainable, large-scale protest. At the same time, less organized protest is known 1 See Hewison and Rodan (1996, p. 41), who suggest that some formal or informal acceptance on the part of the power holders is necessary for autonomous organization to exist under authoritarian rule.

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for its disruptive power, a valuable quality to put pressure on the regime. What is the respective role of organization and spontaneity in protest during political transition? The second question follows from the first one and concerns the forms of protest chosen. What type of protest actions do people choose when mobilizing in authoritarian and transitory regimes? What are their initial strategies and how do these strategies change along the course of political transition? Do early protesters break the boundaries of tolerated forms of mobilization and engage in new, more radical protests or do they try to stay within the boundaries? How important is it to bring in the masses, a purpose for which certain types of actions are more suitable than others? People in authoritarian Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia all had to overcome the challenge of organizing and mobilizing in a repressive environment. Their experience is thus insightful with regard to the above questions. The analysis of this chapter shows that spontaneous forms of protest play an important role in contention during regime change. Where protest during transition escalated, namely in Korea and Indonesia, we observe a clear pattern over time in terms of actors’ organization and form of protest: spontaneously organized protesters initiated early protest and were responsible for the majority of actions at the high point of protest just before democratic rule was introduced. They were also behind radicalization trends; spontaneously organized protesters were more likely to employ confrontational and violent actions than their organized counterparts. The most used strategy was, however, a more moderate form of protest, namely demonstrations. This is also true for organized actors. Demonstrations, as a protest form that appeals to the masses, were particularly popular at early stages of the transition process.

4.1

Social Movement Theories Put to Test

In social movement research, two basic views exist on the role of organization in protest (see Tarrow 2011, p. 123). Some scholars argue that organizations provide the leadership needed to successfully raise, diffuse, and sustain contention. This position is mainly supported by researchers of the so-called resource mobilization strand of social movement theory, such as Gamson and Schmeidler (1984) and Gamson (1990). By contrast, other scholars see the major power of people in the spontaneity and disruption of protest related to the absence of organization. Piven and Cloward (1979) make this point very explicitly, arguing that protest is

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“not created by organizers and leaders”. These scholars highlight the power of “mass protest” and its highly dynamic nature, “well(ing) up in response to momentous changes in the institutional order” (ibid., 1979, p. 36). The issue of organization of protest is closely linked to the issue of power (Piven and Cloward 1984, p. 588). In the perspective of resource mobilization scholars, power lies in the possession of assets, tangible and intangible ones, that form the central basis for movements (Jenkins 1983, p. 533). Money, facilities, and means of communication are examples of tangible assets, and human time and effort are intangible assets.2 Such resources are considered necessary to engage in social conflict (McCarthy and Zald 1977, p. 1216). By contrast, the scholars emphasizing the disruptive potential of protest conceive power as interactional. They are interested in the question why those with no or few resources sometimes make others do what they want and argue that it is possible for the leverage they have through institutionalized patterns of interdependence that exist between them—as workers, consumers, or citizens, they may withhold their contributions to social life (Piven and Cloward 1984, pp. 588–589). The question of what constitutes the basic power available to protesters can also be discussed in terms of the forms of protest action chosen, since they are closely linked to the organization of protest, as will be discussed further below. Three main qualities of protest have been highlighted by a significant number of researchers. They are the size, the novelty, and the militancy of protests. This threefold categorization was suggested by Rochon (1990) and further elaborated by Koopmans (1993); it summarizes much of the previous and following research. According to this categorization, broad groups of protest forms can be identified which display distinct characteristics making them suitable for different types of actors and organizations with distinct tactical purposes. Actors who engage in demonstrative protests call upon the power of numbers (DeNardo 1985; Koopmans 1993, p. 653); the moderation in tactics opens the door for large protest participation. In many regards, a logic opposite to the one for more radical forms of protest, especially violent ones, applies. Instead of acting from the margins of

2 On the different types of resources, see also Edwards and McCarthy (2004).

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society and in direct confrontation with the establishment, actors organizing demonstrative action want their actions to be seen as legitimate and representative. The awareness and respect of certain legal boundaries ensures mass support. Given these characteristics and the fact that this form of protest requires the most effort from its organizers with regard to internal coherence and resources, this strategy is suitable for established, more professionally organized actors, such as social movement organizations (on the organizational capacity required to collect resources, see Edwards and McCarthy 2004; McCarthy and Zald 1977). Another source of power at protesters’ disposal, in addition to large size, is the power of novelty, which is usually associated with disruption (Piven and Cloward 1979; Tarrow 1989b). Confrontation is another term used to describe the same thing.3 Confrontational action is more radical than demonstrative action in that it more radically breaks with routine and aims at disturbing public order. It is less radical than violent action in that it refrains from the use of violence. Rather, it constitutes the threat of violence (Tarrow 2011, p. 101). It is the “threat to burst through the boundaries of the accepted limits of social behavior” (Tarrow 1989b, p. 7). The logic behind confrontational action is much at the heart of social protest, as the resource of the powerless: through innovative, flexible strategies, and unexpected action, protesters challenge the usually inert political establishment (Koopmans 1993, p. 653; Tarrow 2011, pp. 101ff.). Often, this new action type is associated with new actors. By resorting to violence, protesters use the power of “militancy” (Rochon 1990, p. 108) to push their claims and to influence politics in their interest. It constitutes the most open and direct challenge to authorities. It implies the disturbance of public order up to a point where the state’s monopoly on the use of violence is seriously challenged. This strategy guarantees media attention and forces the state to (re-)act (Koopmans 1993, p. 653). Since it shows and requires determination, as well as the willingness and capacity to employ militant force, this strategy will generally be used by small numbers of people (Tarrow 2011, p. 99) and not appeal to the masses (Koopmans 1993, p. 655). Violence is expected to occur at later stages of political contention. Internal and external factors, such as increasing competition among protesters 3 Piven and Cloward (1979) and Tarrow (1989b) use the term “disruptive”, while Koopmans (1993, 1998) prefers the term “confrontational”.

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and state repression, respectively, have been identified to explain the occurrence of violent action.4 Demonstrative, confrontational, and violent actions are commonly categorized as unconventional forms of protest as compared to conventional forms of protest (Koopmans 1993, 1998). The latter category refers to actions also known as “institutional” actions (McAdam et al. 2001, p. 7), for which channels are provided in the existing institutional setting. It includes actions like letter campaigns directed toward politicians, public statements, or also lawsuits.5 Unconventional or noninstitutional actions, by contrast, are forms of protests that go intentionally beyond established and institutional means of claim-making and thus pose a more open challenge to power holders. The advantage of the categorization into conventional and unconventional protests, with the additional sub-categories of demonstrative, confrontational, and violent actions, is that it proposes a typology that is universal and easy to compare across countries. While the boundary between conventional and unconventional protest forms is well-recognized and widely applied in empirical research,6 variants to and criticism of this categorization exists. A similar, but more flexible distinction of protest types was more recently introduced by McAdam et al. (2001, pp. 7–8). The authors distinguish between contained and transgressive actions, referring to the idea that in every polity there are permitted and more tolerated forms of collective action and others. This shifts the focus of interest to the question of how and when innovative, unprecedented protest actions developed from more routinized, established forms of action. McAdam et al.’s categorization tends to be more contingent on place and time. A certain form of protest does not deploy its effect as a consequence of its inherent characteristics, but as a consequence of its historical standing within a polity. In this perspective, the radicalness of protest is defined in terms of the departure of the known and common.

4 For a more detailed explanation of the respective arguments (introduced in Sect. 3.2), see Tarrow (1989a) and Karstedt-Henke (1980). 5 See, e.g., Koopmans (1998, p. 267). 6 The distinction is made in major research projects in the field of protest event analysis,

such as “New Social Movements in Western Europe (NSM)” by Kriesi et al. (1998), “The Transformation of Political Mobilization and Communication in European Public Spheres (Europub.com)” by Koopmans (2007), and “National Political Change in a Globalizing World (NPW)” by Kriesi et al. (2008, 2012).

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These two different categorizations of protest actions, which evaluate radicalness differently, may often overlap. However, the views of the proponents of each approach are not compatible in certain instances. Demonstrations and traditional union strikes in today’s Western Europe are considered unconventional according to the first categorization, but they have become contained over time (Tarrow 2011, pp. 111–113). Even violent actions, if held regularly, lose their transgressive character eventually. By contrast, in contexts in which protest action is restricted, even very conventional forms of protest, where they are not commonly used, may appear radical. This is the case with open speeches or letter campaigns in highly repressive authoritarian contexts. The perceived radicalness of a protest action makes a type of action a more or less suitable choice for protest actors, both organized and non-organized ones. Social movement scholars disagree on how organization and forms of protest action are related with one another. According to Tarrow (1989a), radicalization happens due to increased competition among organizations over mass support. In this view, organization and radical forms of protest are positively associated. By contrast, scholars such as Koopmans (1993) see moderate actions, such as demonstrations, as the preferred means of organized actors. In the perspective adopted by Koopmans, established organizations are identified with more moderate means of action, while disruptive action is associated with none or loose organizational structures. Arguments suggesting a moderating effect of organization hinge on the nature of organization itself. Social movement scholars from the resource mobilization strand emphasize the capacity of organizations to coordinate with other actors, such as the authorities, the media, and other parties (McCarthy and Zald 1977). This coordinating and networking capacity puts actors in a position from which they can access and influence political decision-making. Early resource mobilization scholars (McCarthy and Zald 1973, 1977) first got attracted to the question of the organizational bases for mobilization when confronted with a continuing professionalization of social movements in the United States—a fact they related to the increasing availability of resources such as money, time, and human effort. Parallels have been drawn between the rising phenomenon of professionalized social movement organizations and interest group politics (McAdam et al. 2001, p. 15). Depending on what one considers most politically effective, the moderating attributes of organization can be seen positively or negatively.

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Scholars for whom radicalness is a fundamental source of power in protest find that “in the largest part organizers tended to work against disruption because, in their search for resources to maintain their organizations, they were driven inexorably to elites, and to the tangible and symbolic supports that elites could provide” (Piven and Cloward 1979, p. xxii). In this perspective, organization is considered to limit the opposition potential of protest actors. If organizations sustain at all, they do so by giving up their oppositional stance (ibid., pp. xx–xxi). Organizations are portrayed as vulnerable to internal oligarchy, stasis, and co-optation by ruling elites (ibid., p. xv). A view similar to Michels’ thesis of the iron law of oligarchy (1962) is suggested (Piven and Cloward 1979, p. xvi). The different perspectives on organization and how they are linked to forms of protest are a reflection of a more fundamental difference in how scholars from different research traditions value the role of structure and agency. Social movement scholars interested in the organizational basis of protest usually take an agency-oriented perspective. In resource mobilization research, the concept of organization is closely linked with the concept of leadership and strategic decision-making (Edwards and McCarthy 2004, p. 136). Leaders can be seen as strategic decision-makers who “inspire commitment, mobilize resources, create and recognize opportunities, devise strategies, frame demands, and influence outcomes” (Morris and Staggenborg 2004, p. 171). In a more structure-oriented perspective, organizations cannot create moments of mass mobilization (see Piven and Cloward 1979, p. xxi) nor can they sustain them. 4.1.1

Two Basic Perspectives on the Role of Structure and Agency in Protest

In a structural perspective, protest is a reaction to social conditions. People mobilize when opportunities open up (see Chapter 2). Protest, here, takes a spontaneous character in that it is “not planned and executed by formal organizations” (Piven and Cloward 1979, p. 26). Social conditions create the opportunities, but also set the limitations for mass protest (ibid., pp. 36ff.). In this perspective, the agency of actors is very limited. Organizations and leaders “can only try to win whatever can be won while it can be won” (ibid., p. 37). In a more agency-oriented perspective, actors’ source of power is not conceived as given nor limited by social conditions. Power lies, according to the resource mobilization model, in the organizational strength of actors. Leadership and organization are

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important to understand protest, i.e., its beginnings, its expansion, and duration. Both scenarios on the role of organization and forms of protests which social movement scholars have developed based on mobilization in Western countries are plausible also in an authoritarian and transitory setting. If organizational capacity is emphasized, we can expect that the limited, tolerated organizations that exist will lead mobilization during regime change.7 In this perspective, spontaneously organized actors are expected to follow later on once more organized actors have opened up the space for protest. But we can also argue to the contrary, i.e., that all existing organizations are controlled by the authoritarian state so that if contention arises at all, it is as a consequence of structural changes, such as a political opening, as observed during the liberalization phase of regime change. In this case, protest will be spontaneous and we can then argue with Koopmans (1993) that more formal, established organizations engage in protest at later stages. It is the purpose of this chapter to find out which of the two scenarios finds empirical support in the (South) East Asian context. A corresponding logic to the one used for organization in protest applies to forms of protest action. If organized actors dominate the early phases of the contentious period, more moderate forms of protest are expected. Especially demonstrative actions are an interesting strategy as they allow for large participation of the population. This is considered to be particularly important in the context of democratization, where opposition leaders seek broad support. In keeping with scholars of cycles of contention (Koopmans 1993; McAdam 1982; Tarrow 1989a, b) and the structuralist argument, early protests are expected to be of a disruptive nature. Confrontational actions, such as strikes or occupation of sites, are expected to dominate during this phase. More moderate forms of action, such as conventional and demonstrative actions, are expected to set in and become prevalent in later stages of contention. With regard to violent actions, a similar reasoning as to disruptive actions could be applied. However, protest cycle scholars suggest that

7 A common feature of all authoritarian regimes is that they “cannot and do not tolerate independent organizations” (Przeworski 1992, p. 107). Independent organizations, where they exist, are either incorporated under the centralized control or repressed (ibid.). Thus, under authoritarian rule, capacity for organization, which is needed for large-scale protest, is severely restricted.

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violent actions only occur at an advanced stage of protest mobilization, when a dual process of institutionalization and radicalization sets in (Koopmans 1993). As described in Sect. 3.2, a dual trend resulting in a demobilization of overall protest can be understood either as the result of actions by the government reacting to protest by repression and concession (Karstedt-Henke 1980), or as a consequence of increasing competition of protest actors over mass support (Tarrow 1989a). In the context of regime change, the moment of transition constituting a major concession to pro-democracy protesters is expected to be a turning point in mobilization dynamics (see Chapters 2 and 3). In a dynamic perspective, what is the relationship between organization and forms of protest? Here, preference is given to a view that closely associates moderate forms of action with organized types of actors. Radical actions, by contrast, are linked to less organized types of actors. This relationship is widely supported in the literature. But as mentioned above, some social movement scholars (Tarrow 1989b) suggest an opposite relation. It is also possible that these two protest characteristics are only weakly associated with one another. For the sake of completeness and to be able to make sense of results that would not conform to this expectation, which here will be treated as a working hypothesis, the empirical analysis also includes a test of this connection between organization and forms of protest.

4.2

Design of the Analysis

Comparing protest dynamics across the three countries under study allows us to analyze the above hypotheses. In Korea and Indonesia, protest during regime change escalated into a full protest cycle (see Chapter 3). In Thailand, where the regime conceded early to democratization demands, this did not happen. The empirical analysis of this chapter thus provides a basis to evaluate if the same lower-scale mechanisms and processes are at play in highly dynamic transitions, like in Korea and Indonesia, as compared to non-dynamic transitions, like in Thailand. More specifically, we would like to evaluate what role the organization of actors and their choice of protest forms play in this context. The comparison between Korea and Indonesia further allows us to examine if the existing similarities in overall mobilization can be traced back to similarities in these smaller-scale mechanisms and processes.

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To assess the overall importance of organized versus non-organized actors8 in protest during regime change, the results section starts with an evaluation of the total share of protests held by organized as compared to non-organized actors during the period of regime change. This comparison is established based on a frequency table. Additional insights are gained by analyzing the development of protest by organized and non-organized actors over time with the help of graphs. In the analysis, different measures of organization, reflecting different variants of organizational structure in protest, are taken into account (see operationalization below), as they are considered to be insightful in the context of this chapter. Questions with regard to forms of protest are, first, analyzed separately and in the same way as organization, i.e., based on frequency tables and graphs. In a further step, cross-tabulation is used to examine the connection between organization and forms of protest. The roles of organization—and analogously forms—of protest are assessed in terms of how much protest is organized and when organized protest, i.e., protest held by organized actors, takes place. Rather than in the general importance of organized actors, the interest lies in who, i.e., organized or non-organized actors, is important at certain moments. Who mobilizes first? Do organized or non-organized actors dominate at the peak of mobilization? Studying mobilization at these two critical moments allows us to understand what “powers” they resort to. Analyzing protest at an early stage of mobilization helps us understand who starts contention. In a next step, the examination of the protest that follows up until the peak tells us something about who pushes contention to its highest point. Protest after reaching its peak can also provide valuable information, but is not our main focus of interest. The dynamic perspective also allows us to see how organized and non-organized protest are related to each other. Do organizations take the lead or do they follow? 4.2.1

Variables

Within the overall dataset discussed in Chapter 2, specific variables were created to capture how actors organized in protest. The primary goal was to distinguish more organized forms of protest from less organized 8 See Sect. 4.2.1. on how organized and “non-organized” actors are defined and operationalized.

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ones. Any protest needs some form of organization. However, different kinds of organization exist. Piven and Cloward (1979) make the distinction between “organized” and “mobilized”. Based on their definition (p. 284), “organized” refers here to a more formal type of organization where members are affiliated with an organization and engage in regular participation. Our terms “non-organized”, “not organized”, and “spontaneously organized” refer to the idea of Piven and Cloward’s term “mobilized”, designating people’s engagement in protest action without a continuing basis. This latter type of organization is more spontaneous. The most basic information obtained from the raw data was whether an actor was organized or not (1 and 0). Based on this information, two different variables were created: one variable is based on the main actor only and takes on four different values and the other is a binary variable capturing if any of the present actors were organized (see below). Any indication in the newspaper article pointing to the presence of a group of actors existing already before the protest event and acting as a collective actor during the event was taken as the basis to code an actor as “organized”. All other protest was coded as “not organized”. A relatively small number of actors would not easily fit into this binary classification, namely extremists and influential individuals. Extremists, such as ethnonational or leftist terrorists, even when reported to act on their own and without an instantly communicated affiliation, were assumed to act on behalf of a bigger collective.9 Influential individuals, such as well-known intellectuals, by contrast, had to be empirically separated from unspecified masses of non-organized individual actors.10 A variable with four values 9 Various forms of extremism, terrorism, and violence were considered in the coding scheme. Ethno-nationalist and separatist groups were the most important among extremist actors in Thailand and Indonesia. A general category of extremists captured all actors that could not clearly be classified into the sub-categories. In Indonesia, where the number of extremists engaging in contention was highest, another important type of actor was religious extremists. This type of actor did not exist or were not active in Korea and Thailand. The same is true with conservative, vigilant groups, such as paramilitary groups. They were most active in Indonesia. In Korea, however, militant nationalist or racist actors mobilized at some moments. Less than a handful of acts were committed by militant socialist or communist actors in Korea and Thailand, respectively. 10 Among influential individuals we find experts, i.e., intellectuals and academics, as analyzed in Chapter 6 of this study. Well-known artists or government critics also fall into this category of actors. Other influential individuals can be found in political circles. Individual politicians with no clear affiliation and no formal office are also counted as influential individuals. The distinctive trait of this category of actors is that they are

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was created to capture these different modes of actor organization. Since up to five actors could be coded per protest event, a dummy variable was created to separate protests where at least one of the actors was organized from all other protest. Two dummy variables, a coalition variable and a campaign variable, were created that capture an additional dimension of organization of protest actors. Even where, according to our definition of an organized actor, no obvious organizational structure was present, some organization was needed for protest to emerge, a fact that is also acknowledged by critics of organized forms of protest. With reference to spontaneous forms of protest that take a disruptive form, Piven and Cloward (1984, p. 595) suggest that they “are best mobilized by cadre organizations that activate preexisting networks”. Such looser forms of organization were not expected to show up as “organized” in the data. It was, however, considered to be possible that actors engaged in cooperative efforts. This cooperation could be restricted to one specific protest event, which was then referred to as a coalition, or extend over time when people engaged in a campaign over a specific issue. The most basic form of coalition is established “any time two or more social movement organizations work together on a common task” (Dyke and McCammon 2010, p. xiv). A coalition can involve two actors or a network of actors and it may be limited to a single project (or even event) or be set up as or turned into a more long-lasting arrangement (ibid., pp. xiv–xvii). The coalition variable is a proxy variable that captures if more than one actor type was present (1) at a protest event or not (0). The definition of different actor types is the subject of subsequent chapters, where they will be explained in detail. For the construction of the coalition dummy nine different types of actors were considered, namely workers, farmers, middle-class professionals, students, political organizations, social organizations, individuals from civil and political society, and a category that captures all other actors. A campaign is “a sustained, organized public effort making collective claims on targeted authorities” (Tilly and Tarrow 2007, p. 119). The campaign variable indicates if a protest event was part of a campaign (1) or not (0). We found this information in the newspaper article. Coalitions known to a broad public (even before they engage in protest). The motivation for and the effect of their political actions need to be understood in light of the position these actors hold within society.

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and campaigns are empirically distinct concepts: one does not constitute a sub-category of the other. An event may be organized by a single actor but be part of a larger campaign. Campaigns may encompass events that take place simultaneously or events that extend over time, or both. Different degrees of coordination may exist within different campaigns. For the present study, even loosely connected events were counted as being part of campaigns. For example, protests in Indonesia in 1998 demanding a lowering of prices of basic food commodities were considered to be part of a campaign. Nevertheless, a clear connection between actors must exist to qualify as a campaign (or coalition); the simultaneity of actions alone did not suffice.11 An elite support variable capturing if an elite actor was present at a protest was also included into the analysis. The arguments, presented above, in favor of a leading role of organization in protest emphasize agency and leadership. Organizations exert their influence on politics thanks to their established position and networks. To test how similar or different our conceptualization of organization is from the notion of elite, a variable was introduced capturing the presence of elite actors. Elites can be defined as “persons who are able, by virtue of their strategic positions in powerful organizations, to affect national political outcomes regularly and substantially” (Burton et al. 1992, p. 8). A related concept to which social movement scholars like to refer is the concept of “influential allies” who “can act as friends in court, as guarantors against repression, or as acceptable negotiators on their behalf” (Tarrow 2011, p. 166). Our elite support variable is also a binary variable taking on the value 1 if the protest event was supported by elite actors. The definition used for its operationalization borrows from the definitions above and is both broad and narrow. It includes regime actors, such as government officials, as well as politicians of the ruling camp. As a reminder, actions by these actors were only coded if they took an oppositional stance and challenged power holders. But also outside this inner power circle, established elite actors existed and were counted among the elite. Examples are established oppositional political forces, representatives of established religious institutions, leaders of tolerated peak labor unions, as well as members of the business community. Influential individuals, such as well-known intellectuals, were also counted among elite actors. A protest event was coded as 11 In the latter case, protests would be counted as two different events that are not part of a campaign.

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supported (1) when it was organized or co-organized by members of this elite. Empirically, the concept of elite actors is more exclusive than the concept of organized actors, but there are intersections. Among the actor types included in both variables, peak labor unions, opposition parties in parliament, and religious organizations are most numerous in all countries. Among elite actors with no clear organizational affiliation, experts and intellectuals constitute the most important actor category; other examples include dissident voices in the ruling camp or in the government. In the perspective adopted here, elite actors are established political actors12 with (relatively) direct access to decision-making. External actors, such as political parties outside the parliament, NGOs, and civil society organizations, which can also be considered as elite actors (see analysis in Chapter 6) are not included in the elite support variable since their access to power is held to be less direct. These actors make up a considerable part of the actors that were coded as organized, but non-elite, actors. Among them, we also find workers organized outside peak labor unions and student and farmer organizations. As introduced in the theory Sect. 4.1, four basic categories of protest actions were considered for the analysis: conventional actions, demonstrative actions, confrontational actions, and violent actions. An additional sub-category was used to distinguish between actions of light and heavy violence. The categorization reflects a stepwise increase in radicalness (following Koopmans 1993, p. 639) and is in large parts based on categorizations applied in major research projects in the area of protest event analysis.13 Conventional protests include verbal statements, such as press conferences or public speeches, but also petitions and letter campaigns. Politically motivated legal actions also fall into this first category of protest actions. Among demonstrative actions, we counted actions such as public rallies or street marches. They are typically open to and defined by a larger number of participants.

12 See Koopmans (1993, p. 640). 13 The coding schemes of the following research projects served as a reference in the

construction of the dataset: “New Social Movements in Western Europe (NSM)” by Kriesi et al. (1998), “The Transformation of Political Mobilization and Communication in European Public Spheres (Europub.com)” by Koopmans (2007), and “National Political Change in a Globalizing World (NPW)” by Kriesi et al. (2008, 2012).

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Confrontational actions, much like the demonstrative ones, are usually characterized by their visibility and presence in public space. Among them, we find strikes, occupations of buildings, street blockades, or disturbances of meetings. While avoiding violence, confrontational actions aim at disrupting public order; breaching the law may be a consequence. The criterion of legality to distinguish actions such as legal demonstrations that were subsumed under demonstrative actions from illegal demonstrations counted as confrontational actions was difficult to apply in the context of repressive authoritarian and transitory regimes. Violent actions encompass forms of limited violence, such as breaking windows, but also more heavy forms, such as arson attacks or political murders. Demonstrations were coded as violent (e.g., form of light violence) if the violence was reported to be initiated by the protesters.

4.3 The Role of Organized vs. Spontaneous Protest and Moderate vs. Radical Protest in Contention During Regime Change 4.3.1

Organization in Protest: Organized vs. Spontaneous Protest

Table 4.1 shows the different modes of actor organization in a crosscountry comparison. In all three countries, a significant proportion of the protests could be traced back to organized actors. In Korea, they were responsible for roughly half of all protests during the period of regime change. Here, the role of organized and non-organized actors in protest was rather well-balanced. Extremists contributed less than 1% Table 4.1 Modes of organization in protest during regime change (%) Modes of organization of actors (1st actor)

Korea

Thailand

Indonesia

Organized Not organized/spontaneous Other (1): extremists Other (2): influential individuals Total N

49.2 46.3 0.8 3.7 100.0 1938

34.8 56.0 1.4 7.8 100.0 1053

32.0 51.6 10.3 6.1 100.0 1681

Cramer’s V = 0.19*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

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to overall mobilization and influential individuals less than 4%. In Thailand and Indonesia, organized actors were behind a third of all protests. The share of non-organized protest in these countries was clearly more substantial, accounting for more than half of all protests. In Thailand and Indonesia, the relative importance of influential individuals in protest was a little higher than in Korea, but their share in total protests was well below 10% in all countries. What sets the Indonesian experience somewhat apart from the other two countries is the relatively high proportion of protests organized by extremists, which was over 10%. The graphs on protest development over time shown in Fig. 4.1 allow us to gain a more differentiated picture of the respective role of organized and non-organized protest in the three countries. For the case of Korea, the finding that organized actors (solid line in Fig. 4.1) played a key role in mobilization can also be confirmed in a dynamic analysis of events. Organized forms of protest quickly went from low levels at the start of the liberalization period in 1985 to their highest level at the moment of regime change in 1987. The dominance of organized actors at key moments of the democratization process, as observed in Korea, lends support to the agency-oriented approach to protest: organization and leadership are needed to successfully raise, diffuse, and sustain contention. According to Fig. 4.1, organized actors in Korea were active early on in the process, quickly expanded their activity, and dominated contention

100 50

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Fig. 4.1 Modes of organization in protest: organized vs. non-organized actors, 1985–2005 (Note Vertical solid line: founding elections, vertical dashed lines: start and end of the transition period)

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from that point on. This does not correspond to the scenario in the structuralist perspective, where protest erupts and develops spontaneously in reaction to changes in the political environment. The mobilization of non-organized actors in Korea (dashed line in Fig. 4.1) developed very much in parallel with the mobilization of organized actors. It was very high during the moment of regime change, when it peaked. By comparison, their mobilization was higher in the very early phase of transition and dropped more quickly after regime change, to eventually reach very low levels in the mid-1990s. Demobilization of protests by organized actors went at a slower pace and with some smaller ups in-between. After the mid-1990s, organized protests settled at a lower level of mobilization (but were still more frequent than protests that lacked organization) and went up a little during the advanced consolidation phase after 1998. At this later stage of the Korean transition process when overall protest was in decline both organized and non-organized protests developed as expected; social movement scholars suggest that spontaneous protest is short-lived, while protest by organizations can be sustained. This view is supported by scholars who advocate a strong role of organizations in protest, as well as by those who see organization as an impediment to successful protest. While the overall shares of organized and more spontaneous forms of protest were relatively similar across Thailand and Indonesia, their development over time was clearly different (Fig. 4.1). In Thailand, spontaneous protest dominated most of the times, but at some moments organized protest took over. By contrast, in Indonesia, organized protests were first at a very low level and then steadily rose until the moment of transition and beyond during early democratic institutionalization. They reached their highest level two years after the founding elections in 1999 and decreased afterward. The “explosion” of protests ahead of the transition, however, can be clearly attributed to the mobilization of nonorganized actors. The fast mobilization, during which protest quadrupled from 1997 to 1998, was followed by a relatively fast demobilization. The Indonesian case so far fits best the predictions by structuralist social movement scholars, according to whom the power of the people lies in the disruption and spontaneity of protest related to the absence of organization. How much organization is needed to raise large-scale protest and what is the role of spontaneous protest? In democratizing Korea, as well as in democratizing Indonesia, protesters managed to push protest into a

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full protest cycle. The level to which organized actors contributed to mobilization varied, however, considerably. In Korea, organized actors equally contributed to the quick and extensive rise of protest leading up to regime change, as non-organized actors. After transition, organized actors remained largely involved and even increased their relative importance visà-vis less organized actors. In Indonesia, mobilization of organized actors occurred at a much slower and steady pace and their involvement did not exceed a certain level of mobilization. This comparison shows that in countries with a similar outcome in terms of levels of mass protest and escalation dynamics, the organizational structure for mobilization can vary considerably: high levels of protest do not necessarily require a particularly extensive organizational basis. However, interesting parallels exist between the Korean case and the Indonesian case with regard to patterns of mobilization of less organized actors. Figure 4.1 shows that, in Indonesia, non-organized protests prevailed in the authoritarian and the early liberalization period. In the mobilization phase leading up to the highest point of escalation, spontaneous protest preceded organized protest. The case was less obvious in Korea. Examining the development of protest in smaller time units, i.e., year-halves (Fig. 4.2), reveals, however, a very similar pattern. The finegrained analysis shows that, in an early phase and at a low general level of mobilization, non-organized protest dominated at first. It was later overtaken by a more quickly increasing number of organized protests. Non-organized actors as compared to organized actors were not only

Year Organized Not organized

Fig. 4.2 Modes of organization in protest per half-year: organized vs. nonorganized actors, 1985–2005 (Note Vertical solid line: founding elections, vertical dashed lines: start and end of the transition period)

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faster to mobilize once liberalization started, but were also ahead in the demobilization phase. All this suggests that protest action by nonorganized actors is key to understanding overall protest dynamics during regime change. Non-organized actors not only started mobilization that developed into a protest cycle, but they substantively contributed in both countries, i.e., in Korea and in Indonesia, to the explosive increase in protests at the critical moment in the transition process shortly ahead of the start of democratic transition. In Indonesia, democratic transition started with the stepping down of President Suharto on 21 May 1997. In Korea, the announcement of regime change, introducing democratic transition, took place on 29 June 1987 (see definition of key moments in the transition process in Chapter 2). This was when the presidential candidate of the ruling party, Roh Tae-woo, presented a democratic reform plan in which he conceded to the demands of the pro-democratic oppositional forces, such as by announcing elections (Lee 2010, p. 139; Nahm 2004, p. xlii). These important transitional events in the respective countries were preceded by exceptionally high levels of mobilization by non-organized actors. In Korea, where protests by organized actors also experienced a fast rise to unprecedentedly high levels, this organized type of protest only peaked after non-organized protest had peaked, i.e., after the critical transitional event (Fig. 4.2). The experiences of Indonesia and Korea highlight the relevance of structural explanations of protest, for which the detailed analysis in smaller time units has been highly insightful because it has revealed a more concise picture of the dynamics at play: in both countries, spontaneous protest has been found to decisively shape overall dynamics during regime change. Spontaneous protest immediately emerged when the political system started to open and was to a large extent responsible for the overall escalation observed in these countries. While this spontaneous, uncontrolled form of protest critically challenged the authoritarian power holders up to the point at which authoritarian leaders stepped down, this type of protest quickly dropped again once the authoritarian regime conceded to democratic elections. This is in line with the structuralist view that this spontaneous reaction to changes in external conditions is limited in time. Do organized and non-organized protests influence each other? A strictly separate analysis of organized and non-organized actors would be limited. A connection between the two different types of actors whose

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respective relevance has been highlighted by different sub-strands of social movement research seems given in the case of Korea and Indonesia. Organized protest followed non-organized protest when contention started. Then, once organized forms of protest reached a certain level, the explosive increase of spontaneous protests started. In Korea, this was followed by a similarly steep increase in organized protests. This step in the escalation process did not take place in Indonesia. These dynamics between organized and non-organized actors were very fast in Korea and somewhat slower in Indonesia. They are illustrative of the short-term dynamics emphasized in protest cycle research. In transitions marked by such high dynamism as in Korea and Indonesia, protest actions do not happen independently of each other. The experience of Thailand is insightful as it contrasts with the experience of the two other countries. In Thailand, protest levels were also high during regime change. However, different dynamics were at play here. The empirical evidence suggests that not much connection between individual actions existed. This could be established based on the timing of actions by organized and non-organized actors (lagged peaks) (Figs. 4.1 and 4.2), but also based on goals and actors of protest, studied later on in this book. Due to the lack of clear mobilization patterns it is difficult to assess if structure- or actor-oriented approaches to protest have any validity in the Thai context. The analysis of organized and non-organized protest over time provides a first possible explanation as to why protest escalated in Korea’s and Indonesia’s transition, but not in Thailand’s. In the former, people with no formal affiliation to organizations started protest in reaction to external changes, namely a political opening. It was this type of spontaneous protest that quickly rose to very high levels and was responsible for much of the escalation ahead of regime change (and quickly dropped afterward). Such a dynamic, and thus the related bottom-up pressure, was missing in Thailand. It was this spontaneous, non-organized protest that substantially contributed to the clear peak in overall protest mobilization at a decisive moment during regime change, which was observable in Korea and Indonesia. Through the new dimension that protest in these countries took on, which clearly cannot be explained by structural conditions alone, the people were able to actively shape the process of democratization and bring about political change. In Thailand, the timing and extent of protest was not such that we could attribute to protesters the same agency.

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In Korea and Indonesia, non-organized protest and organized protest influencing each other is seen as having had an impact on overall mobilization. Organized actors only got more involved in protest once spontaneous protest had already picked up pace and reached considerable levels. But from that point on, the organizational basis was important to support the fast increase in spontaneous protest ahead of regime change and to sustain protest afterwards. Such dynamics, which were important for the escalation process and for overall high levels of protest, could not be observed in Thailand. 4.3.2

Varieties of Organization in Protest

Comparing different conceptualizations of organization (as presented in Table 4.2 and Fig. 4.3) allows us to explore, in more detail, the role of organization in protest in the three countries under study and how it relates to more spontaneous forms of mobilization. As a general observation, the variation of the variables indicating the different kinds of organizational and cooperative arrangements was small across countries (see Cramer’s V and p-value in Table 4.2)14 and did not vary much across Table 4.2 Organization and cooperation among protest actors during regime change (%) Protest organization and cooperation Organized actor present (first or additional actor) Elite support (elite actor is present) Coalition (multiple actor types present) Campaign (protest is part of larger campaign) N

Korea

Thailand

Indonesia

Cramer’s V and p-value

50.6

38.7

35.1

0.14***

24.9

13.4

15.2

0.13***

8.6

10.6

9.6

0.03 (p = 0.171)

40.0

29.7

35.6

0.08***

1938

1053

1681

*** = significant at the 0.001 level Source Own data

14 The correlation coefficient Cramer’s V ranging from 0 to 1, with 1 indicating perfect association, suggests that the correlation between some organization and cooperation measures shown in the rows of Table 4.2 and the country variable (shown in the columns)

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Fig. 4.3 Organization and cooperation in protest during regime change, 1985– 2005 (Note Vertical solid line: founding elections, vertical dashed lines: start and end of the transition period)

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time (Fig. 4.3). The only exception was the steady increase of the relative importance of organized actors in Korea. This trend can, however, not be easily associated with the democratization process. It rather suggests a steady gaining of capacity for organization over time; in the late 1990s more than 80% of the protests in Korea were held by organized actors. The first indicator in Table 4.2 largely corresponds to the mode of organization variable discussed above. The difference is that not only the organizational mode of the main, i.e., the first mentioned, actor is considered, but of all actors present at a given protest event. A protest was counted as organized if any of the up to five protest actors was organized. The proportion of organized protest according to this new operationalization was in each country between 2 and 4 percentage points higher than the proportion of organized protest according to the previous operationalization (compare Table 4.2 to Table 4.1). Cases in which the first actor was non-organized and paired up with an organized actor were, thus, rather rare. Using this broader conceptualization of organization does not change the big picture provided by the analysis so far. Comparing the development of events where an organized actor was present with events where elite actors were present provides us with an understanding of how closely these two concepts have been related in the democratization processes of the three countries under study. Protests in which elite actors were present were clearly fewer in number (a little less than half the share) than protests with organized actors present (Table 4.2). The level of elite involvement was higher in Korea than in the other two countries. Organized and elite actors engagement in protest developed in all three countries at certain moments of the transition period in parallel (Fig. 4.3), such as in the early phase of transition. Later in the transition process, the two concepts of organization and elite started diverging (see Fig. 4.3): new organizations emerged and became more numerous that had fewer elitist traits. Among these emerging organizations were civil society organizations, NGOs, and organized labor outside peak unions (see Chapters 6 and 7). These actors’ growing presence also helps explain why campaigns (see below), often organized by them, tended to become more regular in later phases of

is very low, i.e., below 0.10. The correlation between the coalition variable and the country variable is not even significant (with a p-value of over 0.1). The correlation coefficient for the other three variables is significant at the 0.001 level, which is indicated by the three asterisks in the table notes.

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the transition process. The biggest overlap between the concepts of organization and elite, thus, existed in the early stages of regime change. Among the actors active at this early stage, we find established political organizations and leaders of religious organizations (see Chapter 6). This finding highlights the important role of these actors at the beginning of the transition process. The social movement literature gives insights into why and when collaborations between actors are likely. From a protester’s perspective, the strategic rationale behind engaging in collaborations is to gain strength when faced with a more powerful counterpart. Coalitionbuilding and campaign formation help resourceless actors to overcome weaknesses, such as the lack of legitimacy and influence, as well as problems of small numbers and unity (Hathaway and Meyer 1997; Tarrow 2011, p. 191). It would be plausible if these options were particularly interesting for non-organized actors. This expectation finds some limited support in Thailand and Indonesia, where the proportion of nonorganized protest was higher than in Korea. When the percentage of protests by organized actors hit its lowest point during transition in Thailand in the mid-1990s, a peak in campaign formation was observable (compare first and last row in Fig. 4.3). In Indonesia, campaign activities were the highest during the rapid mobilization ahead of transition in Indonesia, where the relative share of organization was low. As shown in Table 4.2, protesters formed coalitions with other types of actors in roughly 10% of the protests in each of the three democratizing countries: coalitions between students and workers or farmers and social organizations were common examples. In all three countries, the proportion of protests being part of a campaign (as opposed to a coalition) was found to be markedly higher and slightly increasing over time. In Korea, the participation in campaigns was less subject to fluctuation and at higher levels (around 40%) than in the other two countries (30% in Thailand and 36% in Indonesia). In general, however, cross-country and withincountry variation in coalition and campaign formation occurred within a certain range. Thus, coalition-building and the formation of campaigns did not seem to be a strategic tool employed by actors during the process of regime change. At this point, studying them does therefore not add much to our knowledge of varying protest dynamics as observed in the countries under study.

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Choice of Protest Actions: Moderate vs. Radical Forms

Table 4.3 and Fig. 4.4 show the five distinct strategic actions as employed by protesters in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia during regime change: conventional, demonstrative, confrontational, slightly violent, and strongly violent actions. In Korea and Indonesia, a bigger variation existed among the forms of action chosen as compared to Thailand. This is true in terms of the overall use of different action types considered over the whole period (Table 4.3), as well as their employment across time when considering each of the action types individually (Fig. 4.4). A sequencing of forms of protests is also more evident in these two countries. However, the sequencing in Korea went at a faster pace than in Indonesia so that it is only discernible when protest is examined over smaller time units than years (Fig. 4.5). The differentiation in timing and sequencing of protest actions in Korea and Indonesia suggests the strategic use of different forms of protest. This is less the case in Thailand, as will be shown in more detail below. Table 4.3 presents the different forms of protest action employed by protest actors during regime change for each of the countries. In all three countries, demonstrations were clearly the most used protest action. In Thailand, the share of demonstrations of all protest actions reached almost 50%. The second most used action type in this country was conventional actions, amounting to more than a third of all protest. Compared to the other two countries, the proportion of violent actions was very low. Patterns of protest actions in Indonesia diverged from those in Thailand mainly with regard to the use of violence. In a country comparison, the Table 4.3 Protest forms during regime change (%)

Protest forms

Korea

Thailand

Indonesia

Conventional Demonstrative Confrontational Violent (light) Violent (heavy) Total N

25.1 35.5 26.1 10.0 3.4 100.0 1938

34.7 48.6 11.8 3.3 1.6 100.0 1053

27.8 43.8 10.7 8.3 9.4 100.0 1681

Cramer’s V = 0.19*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

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Fig. 4.4 Protest forms: conventional, demonstrative, confrontational, light, and heavy violence, 1985–2005 (Note Vertical solid line: founding elections, vertical dashed lines: start and end of the transition period)

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4 WHERE DOES THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE LIE …

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Fig. 4.5 Protest forms per half-year, 1985–2005 (Note Vertical solid line: founding elections, vertical dashed lines: start and end of the transition period)

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proportion of actions of high violence, which was a little higher than the proportion of actions of light violence and reached close to 10%, was particularly noteworthy in Indonesia. Korea was the country where the shares of confrontational and slightly violent actions were the highest: the former made up 25% of all protests. What source of power did protesters employ? The high level of demonstrative action, constituting the favorite strategy in all three countries, can be interpreted as the importance protesters attributed to gaining the support of the masses. Bringing the masses behind a purpose is a key aim in the context of democratization. The considerable amount of conventional protest action in all three countries suggests that this strategy is also a viable and valued way to express dissent under authoritarian and transitory rule. Contrasting the proportion of conventional and demonstrative actions to the proportion of more radical actions, Thailand stands out as the country where protesters chose the most moderate forms of action during democratization. In over 80% of the cases, protesters opted for moderate means. In Indonesia, the corresponding number was around 70% and in Korea around 60%. Hence, in all countries the clear majority of protests took moderate forms. While moderate protest tactics have prevailed everywhere, differences in the overall level of radicalness are very obvious and suggest that the powers of militancy and disruption have not been employed to the same extent in the three countries. Indonesia is the most radical country if acts of heavy violence are considered. Here, the power of “militancy” has been much more than a marginal strategy. If we examine acts of heavy violence jointly with acts of light violence, more than 17% of all actions were violent in Indonesia and more than 13% in Korea. The corresponding number in Thailand was below 5%. This again emphasizes the moderation in tactics in Thailand, which contrasts with what we observe in the other two countries. In Korea, a very high number of protesters resorted to the power of disruption. Strikes and sit-ins were particularly popular among this confrontational type of protest form. How these differences in strategies and radicalness between countries are related to the development of overall protest over time and how they are related to the types of actor using them will be discussed in the remainder of this chapter. Our hypotheses based on the protest cycle model suggest a clear sequencing of types of actions. The prediction is that we will see disruptive actions at the beginning of a period of high contention, first followed by more moderate actions and then by violent

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actions. The use of disruptive strategies early on is what we need to establish to further bolster structuralist explanations of protest mobilization. In a first step, we established above that protest dynamics drastically changed with non-organized actors quickly becoming the dominant actors shortly ahead of regime change in Korea and Indonesia. Will we also find a sequencing of protest types in Thailand, where we are not in the presence of a protest cycle? In a dynamic perspective, the most outstanding feature in Korea is the similarity of the temporal deployment of different strategies (Fig. 4.4): demonstrative, confrontational, and violent actions reached their peak in the same year, which was the year of the country’s transition to democracy (1987). The parallel use of different strategies extended over the whole period under consideration. Starting from low levels of mobilization at the time when the regime started liberalizing in the first half of 1985, we observe a rapid mobilization with regard to each of the forms up to the year of transition, where protest events tripled. Particularly high was the increase from 1986 to 1987 levels of protest. After the transition, we see a clear drop in protest mobilization that started the demobilization phase, which went at a slower pace than the previous mobilization. Only in the case of high-violence actions was there no immediate drop. Importantly, it was mobilization in the form of conventional actions that peaked first and ahead of all other forms of protest. The development of the different types of protest actions in Thailand also went in parallel and, thus, reflect the overall dynamics: there were no high peaks and the period with the most protest activities in terms of conventional, demonstrative, confrontational, and violent actions was the period after the democratic regime was introduced in 1992 until the year when initial consolidation was reached in 2001 (between the dashed lines in Fig. 4.4). High-violence actions were a special case. With the exception of a few violent actions right after regime change, they concentrated in the years after 2004, when insurgency in the south of Thailand broke out. Ahead of regime change, hardly any violent protest actions (neither light nor heavy violence) took place. Conventional actions went up a little at the moment of transition, as did demonstrative actions. In Indonesia, an immediate increase in protest activities, including demonstrative, confrontational, and mildly violent forms, is observable with the start of the liberalization period. The moment of transition was preceded by a sharp rise in demonstrative actions, comparable to the Korean experience. Demonstrative tactics, as well as acts of light violence,

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peaked in 1998, the year when longtime authoritarian leader Suharto stepped down as president. Heavy violence peaked a year later in 1999, and confrontational strategies again reached their highest level only in 2001. There was a clear trend of demobilization, but it occurred at a slower pace than the previous mobilization. The time from 1998 until 2004, when the first elections under the revised constitutions took place (our definition of initial consolidation), was an agitated period. Breaking down the protest actions into smaller time units (Fig. 4.5) allows us to get a clearer picture of the cross-country similarities and dissimilarities in protest tactics. The analysis by year reveals a clear sequencing of actions for Indonesia, but in Korea, data does not indicate a temporally differentiated employment of protest action. A look at the development of protest over smaller time units, such as half-years, reveals a more differentiated use of protest action in Korea: here, like in Indonesia, demonstrative and mildly violent protest action peaked not at the moment of the founding elections but before, when the regime change was announced (June 29 declaration, 1987). Confrontational protests, by contrast, peaked a little later. The more detailed analysis confirms the observation that heavy violence was a little lagged: it rose with demonstrative and mildly violent protests, but remained at an elevated level for some time after transition. We observe a clear sequencing of protest actions in Korea and Indonesia that can be linked to important moments of regime change, but not in Thailand (Fig. 4.5): noteworthy is the choice of moderate protest actions early in the transition period. In Korea and Indonesia, moderate actions were the preferred initial strategies of actors engaging in protest. Mobilization taking the form of the most established, conventional type of actions, such as oral and written forms of protest, started right when the liberalization period began and peaked early. Next, mobilization by demonstrations followed. The fast mobilization ahead of transition in Korea and Indonesia occurred in large parts in the form of this action type. In Thailand, where mobilization did not escalate, but was accommodated early, moderate forms of action dominated over the whole period, including the early phase. The evidence from Korea and Indonesia shows that actors in the two countries started from a more tolerated, less radical form and moved toward protest action outside the boundaries set by the authoritarian state. More radical forms of protest became more important only at later stages of contention after the transition to democracy was achieved.

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This is true for confrontational and high-violence actions. Forms of light violence, however, went in parallel with demonstrative actions. This suggests they are related: demonstrative action escalating into violent action is a possible explanation. These are dynamics that are likely during a time of increased contention, as we observe it in Korea and Indonesia. It helps explain why the proportion of actions of light violence was as high as 10% in Korea and over 8% in Indonesia. The sequencing of protest actions, as observed in Korea and Indonesia, does not conform to the ideal-typical sequencing suggested by protest cycle research, at least not in the early phases of mobilization ahead of regime change. According to the protest cycle model, which has been developed based on the experience of protest in Western democracies, protesters break the routine and launch a cycle of contention by using disruptive, i.e., confrontational, actions. This is not what we see in authoritarian Korea and Indonesia. Here, protesters rather chose moderate actions at the start of contention. The pattern of confrontational action also diverges from what the protest cycle model would predict. In Korea, this action type peaked shortly after demonstrative action and in Indonesia even later in the process (during democratic institutionalization). While this type of action seems to follow its own, maybe country-specific logic, it may also be interpreted as part of a radicalization trend. Acts of high violence, by contrast, followed the pattern suggested by protest cycle research very well. The hypothesis of a double trend toward radicalization and institutionalization at later stages in the process finds support in both countries where protest escalated: in Korea and Indonesia, heavy violence rose shortly ahead of transition and stayed at the level for one to two years. While small in number and only lasting for a short period, these actions have a great political impact since they are of the highest level of radicalness. Whereas in Korea actors previously active in protest, such as students, radicalized, in Indonesia the heavy violence action has to be attributed in large parts to the emergence of new actors, i.e., extremist groups. In Thailand, no trend toward radicalization that is related to the democratization process has been found. Regime change, and thereby the concession to protesters, came very early in the mobilization process (see Chapter 3), at a point in time when in a crosscountry comparison, but also compared to later mobilization, pressure on the government was very low. Two insights from our cross-country comparison of how protest actions develop over time are particularly worth highlighting at this

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point. First, the sequencing of protest actions in an authoritarian context is different from the sequencing in a democratic context. Considering the experience of democratizing Korea and Indonesia as representative cases of transitions with high protest dynamics, it can be suggested that protests in authoritarian settings do not start off with disruptive tactics as observed in Western democracies of the twentieth century. Actors rather choose moderate forms of protest, mostly demonstrative actions, in the beginning. More radical forms of protest are observed only later in the escalation process. Second, it is mostly short-term escalation dynamics (rather than country-specific conditions) that account for the overall radicalness in protest. This finding is based on contrasting Thailand’s experience, where protest for the most part remained moderate, with the ones of Korea and Indonesia in a dynamic perspective. 4.3.4

Organization and Forms of Protest During Regime Change

The finding that early protest in Korea and Indonesia took moderate forms does not match the previous finding that early protest in these countries was dominated by non-organized actors. Our working hypothesis has been that actors who are part of spontaneous, less organized protest rather resort to more radical strategies. Thus, an analysis of the relationship between the organization of actors and the forms of protest they choose is needed. Tables 4.4a, 4.4b, and 4.4c show how forms of protest are associated with the mode of organization of actors and confirms the general expectation that organization has a moderating effect on the choice of protest actions with an important exception. The findings are very similar across countries. This suggests that the escalation dynamics, as found in Korea and Indonesia, but are missing in Thailand, do not change this basic association between organization and form of protest. The majority of organized actors chose conventional actions, in Thailand and Indonesia in more than 50% of the cases. Compared to non-organized actors, the times organized actors resorted to violent actions were few(er). The same is true for confrontational actions in the case of Thailand and Indonesia. The high proportion of confrontational actions among organized actors in Korea constitutes in this sense an anomaly. In line with our expectations are the findings that extremists mainly resorted to violent actions while influential individuals, such as intellectuals, focused on moderate forms of action.

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Table 4.4a Protest forms in democratizing Korea by mode of organization of first actor (%) Protest forms

Modes of organization (first actor) Organized

Not organized/ spontaneous

Extremists

Influential individuals

Total (all types)

35.4 28.1 32.0 3.4 1.2 49.2

10.5 45.6 21.7 17.0 5.2 46.3

0.0 0.0 0.0 53.3 46.7 0.8

77.8 13.9 8.3 0.0 0.0 3.7

25.1 35.5 26.1 10.0 3.4 100.0

953

898

15

72

1938

Conventional Demonstrative Confrontational Violent (light) Violent (heavy) Total protests (all forms) Total N

Cramer’s V = 0.30*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level)

Table 4.4b Protest forms in democratizing Thailand by mode of organization of first actor (%) Protest forms

Conventional Demonstrative Confrontational Violent (light) Violent (heavy) Total protests (all forms) Total N

Modes of organization (first actor) Organized

Not organized/ spontaneous

Extremists

Influential individuals

Total (all types)

57.1 35.3 6.0 1.6 0.0 34.8

16.3 61.5 16.4 4.8 1.0 56.0

6.7 6.7 6.7 6.7 73.3 1.4

72.0 23.2 4.9 0.0 0.0 7.8

34.7 48.6 11.8 3.3 1.6 100.0

366

590

15

82

1053

Cramer’s V = 0.48*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level)

What does not fit the picture of an overall moderating effect of organization on the form of protest is that demonstrations were by far the most popular protest actions employed by non-organized actors. The expectation was that non-organized protesters preferably opt for radical means. Based on previous research, demonstrations were, along with

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Table 4.4c Protest forms in democratizing Indonesia by mode of organization of first actor (%) Protest forms

Modes of organization (first actor) Organized

Conventional Demonstrative Confrontational Violent (light) Violent (heavy) Total protests (all forms) Total N

Not organized/ spontaneous

Extremists

Influential individuals

Total (all types)

52.8 36.3 7.4 2.8 0.7 32.0

10.3 59.5 14.1 10.5 5.7 51.6

6.9 8.10 5.2 19.1 60.7 10.3

80.6 10.7 8.7 0.0 0.0 6.1

27.8 43.8 10.7 8.3 9.4 100.0

538

867

173

103

1681

Cramer’s V = 0.47*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

conventional actions, considered as moderate forms of action. This categorization thus has to be questioned in the context of the democratizing countries under study. If we redefine demonstrative actions as radical forms of protest our working hypothesis suggesting a close connection between organization and forms of protest action would work much better. It is plausible that in a democratic context, even demonstrative action is considered to be transgressive, i.e., not yet contained. An alternative conclusion would be that this link between type of actor and type of protest action is not that close or automatic. Instead, non-organized actors act strategically and are capable of adapting their tactics: they choose moderate forms of action if this serves their purpose. Further insights into the connection between organization and forms of protest action can be gained by examining how protest actions are related to different arrangements of organization and cooperation among actors (Tables 4.5a, 4.5b, and 4.5c). The comparison of the first two columns of Tables 4.5a, 4.5b, and 4.5c tell us to what extent the established moderating effect of organization can be traced back to the organization holding an elite position. In protests where elite actors were present, means of protests were even more moderate, i.e., mostly conventional, and except for Indonesia the use of violence was at very low levels. The comparison between the related, but not completely congruent

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Table 4.5a Protest forms in democratizing Korea by type of organization and cooperation among actors (%) Protest forms

Conventional Demonstrative Confrontational Violent (light) Violent (heavy) Total protests (all forms) Total N (% of all protests) Cramer’s V

Organization and cooperation among actors (various dummy variables: present = 1) Organized actor (=1)

Elite support (=1)

Coalition (=1)

Campaign (=1)

Total (all)

34.9 28.6 31.5 3.8 1.2 100.0

54.9 26.5 18.0 0.6 0.0 100.0

19.9 59.0 9.6 10.8 0.6 100.0

19.5 41.9 24.6 10.7 3.4 100.0

25.1 35.5 26.1 10.0 3.4 100.0

981 (50.6)

483 (24.9)

166 (8.6)

776 (40.0)

1938

0.34***

0.42***

0.17***

0.13***

Table 4.5b Protest forms in democratizing Thailand by type of organization and cooperation among actors (%) Protest forms

Organization and cooperation among actors (various dummy variables: present = 1) Organized actor (=1)

Conventional Demonstrative Confrontational Violent (light) Violent (heavy) Total protests (all forms) Total N (% of all protests) Cramer’s V

Elite support (=1)

Coalition (=1)

Campaign (=1)

Total (all)

55.3 37.4 5.9 1.5 0.0 100.0

63.8 27.7 7.8 0.7 0.0 100.0

41.1 48.2 8.9 1.8 0.0 100.0

28.1 54.6 14.1 2.6 0.6 100.0

34.7 48.6 11.8 3.3 1.6 100.0

407 (38.7) 0.36***

141 (13.4) 0.24***

112 (10.6) 0.07 (p = 0.261)

313 (29.7) 0.12 (p = 0.007)

1053

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Table 4.5c Protest forms in democratizing Indonesia by type of organization and cooperation among actors (%) Protest forms

Organization and cooperation among actors (various dummy variables: present = 1) Organized actor (= 1)

Conventional Demonstrative Confrontational Violent (light) Violent (heavy) Total protests (all forms) Total N (% of all protests) Cramer’s V

Elite support (=1)

Coalition (=1)

Campaign (=1)

Total (all)

50.3 38.3 7.8 2.9 0.7 100.0

55.1 30.1 10.9 3.1 0.8 100.0

18.6 67.7 6.8 5.0 1.9 100.0

16.2 52.3 10.0 9.7 11.7 100.0

27.8 43.8 10.7 8.3 9.4 100.0

590 (35.1)

256 (15.2)

161 (9.6)

598 (35.6)

1681

0.41***

0.27***

0.16***

0.20***

*** = significant at the 0.001 level Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

concepts helps explain why in Korea organized actions were relatively more radical (i.e., the percentage of confrontational actions was particularly high here and the percentage of conventional actions was lower compared to the other two countries). It is due to labor organizations that were not affiliated to peak organizations (as the latter counts as an elite actor) that played an important role in Korean protests. The variation of protests in dependence of the coalition variable and campaign variable was not very marked in any of the three countries. In Thailand, the association between coalition-building and choice of protest form is not even significant (Tables 4.5a, 4.5b, and 4.5c). Interestingly, however, protests organized in coalitions and campaigns turned out to consist to a large extent of demonstrations. In other words, demonstrations, which were often organized spontaneously with no organized actor present, constituted a type of protest action suitable for coalitions and campaigns. This can be interpreted as follows: the large number of non-organized individual actors participating in demonstrations counter-balance their lack of organization and resources by using the organizational platforms provided to them by the organizers of coalitions and campaigns.

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93

Conclusion

How much organization does protest in an authoritarian context need? This chapter has shown that in Korea and Indonesia where protest was taken to very high levels of mobilization during the transition period, spontaneously emerging protest had an important role to play: at the beginning of political liberalization when contention started to take off, spontaneous protest spread more quickly and preceded more organized protest. When protest rose to the highest level shortly ahead of regime change, this less organized form of protest was the dominating form of protest. These findings on the organization in protest during regime change are in line with structuralist explanations of mobilization (Piven and Cloward 1979). In this perspective, protest erupts as a reaction to institutional change, such as observed early in the transition process when the political system opens up, and increases and drops quickly. In Korea as well as in Indonesia, it was demonstrations that mainly accounted for the exceptionally high levels of protest peaking at the moment when regime change was announced, which was the case in Korea in June 1987 and in Indonesia in May 1998. Actions of light violence followed a similar pattern, but were less important in numbers. In both countries, most actions of heavy violence took place only after regime change, indicating a trend toward radicalization. This radicalization was momentary and did not last long. At the onset of the mobilization, moderate forms of protest action dominated: mobilization at a very early stage was led by conventional actions and was then followed by demonstrative actions. Protesters in these countries, thus, started off with less radical forms, staying within set boundaries, before resorting to more radical actions. Based on the findings of this chapter, the role of demonstrative actions as means for mobilization is worth highlighting. It emphasizes the importance of the power of the numbers (DeNardo 1985). In the context of political transition, this type of action, which allows for broad public participation and mobilization of the masses, has been found to be a preferred strategy of protest actors. Demonstrations were widely employed already during political liberalization and were used when protest reached its highest point of escalation ahead of regime change. More specifically, demonstrative actions were the preferred means of protest by non-organized actors who were involved in protest at key moments during regime change. The finding of the widespread use of

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demonstrative actions in the democratizing countries under study matches findings from recent conflict research (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Teorell 2010), attributing nonviolent tactics a positive effect on bringing about and maintaining democratic rule. In the social movement literature spontaneous forms of protest are often associated with more radical forms of action. The empirical evidence from the countries under study has confirmed this connection between organization and forms of protest action in large parts. The most disruptive and violent actions were conducted by less organized actors, whereas organization had a moderating effect: conventional actions were primarily carried out by organized actors. The finding that does not fit this overall picture is that demonstrative action, which was seen as a moderate means of protest, was the preferred strategy of non-organized actors. This does not conform to the argument we have deduced from structuralist accounts, according to which the outbreak of protest in reaction to institutional change is generally spontaneous (which is the case) and disruptive. The comparison to Thailand reveals the usefulness of a dynamic analysis. In Thailand, demonstrations were also the most used protest actions. Spontaneously emerging protest was the most dominant form of the entire transition period. The relationship between organization and forms of protest was also similar when compared with the Korean and Indonesian experience. In Thailand, however, we have not found a clear sequencing of protest organizations and forms nor clearly definable peaks. Protest patterns with regard to organization and protest type were rather steady. Non-organized and organized actors did not seem to affect each other in their actions. The same can be said with regard to the protest repertoire. The spontaneous outbreak of protest following the start of political liberalization that triggered the following mobilization in Korea and Indonesia did not take place in Thailand. Either the break from the authoritarian regime might not have been big enough or perceived as such, or alternatively, actors were not willing or capable of mobilizing; this latter point will be analyzed in later chapters. Strategic choices of protest actors during regime change do not only concern types of protest actions and forms of cooperation with other actors. An important question is what claims protesters make when they mobilize. The study of protest goals, which is the subject of the next chapter, will contribute to our understanding of the general dynamics of contention as observed in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia.

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CHAPTER 5

What Are They Shouting About? Protest Demands During Regime Change

What do people ask for when engaging in protest in authoritarian or transitory regimes? The analysis of protest goals is important to understand interaction dynamics between power holders and their challengers, and more specifically the level and type of pressure that the latter is willing and able to mount on the former at different stages of the transition process. In the scope of this study, protest goals are analyzed with regard to their strategic dimension. The focus will hence be on the timing and sequencing of protest goals: when, in the democratization process, do protesters engage in directly challenging power holders by demanding regime change and when do they ask for other things? When do they choose to break the boundaries of tolerated contention and ask for more? How is the timing of highly political demands related to the timing of other demands? Protest goals promoted in democratic contexts, which is the focus of the established social movement literature, are very different from the ones used in non-democratic contexts. The present study uses the experience of democratizing Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia to analyze and conceptualize protest claims in non-democratic contexts. Starting from the basic idea, following the protest cycle model (see Sect. 5.1), that protest will start moderately, radicalize, and then de-radicalize at one point, the approach followed in this chapter was to identify, in a first step, protest goals with varying degrees of radicalness and to see, in a second © The Author 2020 L. Maduz, Contention and Regime Change in Asia, Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49220-5_5

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step, how they develop along the democratization process. The results in this chapter show that protest goals during regime change were highly interconnected and dynamic (with a clear peak in radicalness at critical moments) in democratizing Korea and Indonesia, but not in Thailand.

5.1

Concepts for the Study of Protest Demands During Regime Change

Social movement research suggests that protest goals may change over time and even within a protest cycle. In interaction with the political process, protest actors will broaden and narrow their claims and sometimes reverse them (Alimi 2006; Lipsky and Olson 1976; Snow and Moss 20141 ). According to Tarrow (2011, p. 215), “few movements ‘succeed’ in achieving their demands in anything like their original form”. Claims put forward during mass mobilization may be uncoordinated and multi-faceted. Different protest groups may support different claims. Particularly during a period of high contention, more often than not, protest actors will lack unity and precision in the formulation of their goals (Tarrow 2011, p. 217). This highly contingent view of protest goals does not allow us to make predictions about the exact content, the relative importance of a specific protest goal vis-à-vis other goals, or its development over time. On the sequencing of claim-making, Tarrow (2011, p. 202) reminds us that while episodes of high mobilization “are usually remembered for big, bold, and system-threatening claims”, what we see at the start of these episodes are usually narrow demands, specific to the actors who formulate them. To illustrate this point, Tarrow refers to the revolutionary events in Western Europe in 1848, when protests in France began with limited demands: the middle class asked for the expansion of suffrage. Adapting this argument to the current context, we could argue that more radical demands only occur later in the contentious period after less radical demands initiated contention, suggesting a radicalization along the process. This argument is also in line with the protest cycle model, introduced in Chapter 2. In Chapter 4, we have seen that moderate forms of action preceded more radical actions. It is, thus, not far-fetched to expect 1 The development of protest claims is often studied in close association with forms of action. Snow and Moss (2014) highlight the role of spontaneity in protest, of which the spontaneous (re-)formulation of claims constitutes one aspect.

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that protest goals will develop in parallel: protesters are likely to formulate more modest goals at early stages of mobilization, before raising more substantial claims. While all types of protest during regime change are considered important, actions directly targeting issues concerning the political regime are of special interest to this study. By these actions, protesters openly challenge their authoritarian rulers. Among these protests that target the political regime, sub-types exist that may vary in their radicalness. Democratization research based on transition processes in Western democracies suggests a gradual development of the political regime, where citizens first are accorded civil liberties, before they receive their full political rights (see Levitsky and Way 2010; Zakaria 1997). In such a perspective, demands concerning civil liberties can be considered to be less radical than demands for political rights. Formulating demands in terms of liberties and rights is revealing of protesters’ capacity and willingness to differentiate and moderate their claims. In the context of regime change, demands constituting an even more direct, and thus more radical, challenge to the regime, such as demands for resignation or broader anti-government claims, are expected to be common. In the studies of transitions from authoritarian rule, both changes in the regime and changes in the state have been discussed. The concept of state is usually more broadly defined. It refers to a “more permanent structure of domination and coordination” than the concept of regime (Fishman 1990, p. 428). For the purpose of this study, demands that go beyond the question of regime change and touch upon questions of the state are defined as more radical. A concrete variant of such demands are stateness issues: democratization scholars agree that challenges to the rightfulness of the territorial unit in which democracy is to be established will negatively impact a country’s chances of democracy (Linz and Stepan 1996). A stateness problem can be said to be present when some severe disagreement exists over the territorial boundaries of the state of a political community and as to who has the right of citizenship in this state (ibid., p. 16). The transition from authoritarian to democratic rule requires the settling of basic questions regarding the organization of a polity and the (re-)definition of power relations between government and citizens. The settling of these questions may open the door to other fundamental questions, such as stateness issues. In addition to regime-related demands that are obvious issues to be raised in the context of democratization,

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issues of social and economic concern (or, more generally, redistribution) will also play a role in the discussion about the new political future. A successful transition involves an accommodation of these demands as well. However, compared to stateness issues—considered to be the most radical demands—and regime change demands, economic and social demands are here held to be more moderate in the sense that they do not directly or openly touch upon existing political power structures. With regard to stateness issues, Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia are interesting cases to study since they are similar in certain aspects, but dissimilar in important other aspects. Important differences between the countries relevant to the stateness question are obvious: according to various measures of ethnic and linguistic fractionalization, such as the indicator developed by Fearon (2003), Korea is among the most homogeneous countries in the world,2 whereas Indonesia is located nearer to the other end of the spectrum. Thailand assumes a middle position, with some indicators attributing it a degree of fractionalization which is relatively close to Indonesia’s.3 While Korea’s stateness is generally positively assessed, the country faces a particular problem, namely its unsolved relationship with North Korea (see South Korea Country Report by Bertelsmann Stiftung [2018b] on the “specific Korean issue”). Consequently, formulating hypotheses with regard to the relevance of stateness demands in the three countries is not a clear-cut matter. Interesting similarities and differences among the three countries also exist with regard to their socioeconomic structure, which potentially affects claims in this subject area. Similarities include the fast economic development over the past decades and the experience of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997/1998, by which they were all strongly hit.4 Differences concern the overall level of economic development reached, 2 Korea holds this position together with North Korea and Japan. 3 Alesina et al. (2003), who have provided another well-known indicator of ethnic

fractionalization, calculate Thailand’s ethnic fractionalization as 0.634. The indicator’s values for Korea (0.002) and Indonesia (0.735) are more similar to Fearon’s. 4 From 1965 to 1995, Korea experienced an annual real per capita income growth rate of 7.5%. The annual growth rates of per capita income in Thailand and Indonesia were 7 and 5.7%, respectively (UNESCAP 2002, pp. 7–9). The massive crisis came unexpectedly (ILO 1998, p. 12). It shook the economies of a whole region. The countries most hit by the crisis were the three countries under investigation: they were most strongly affected in terms of real per capita income contraction and rise of unemployment. For an account of the politics of the Asian Economic Crisis, see Pempel (1999).

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as measured by GDP per capita, which is highest in Korea and lowest in Indonesia.5 The countries are also dissimilar in terms of the timing of the economic crisis vis-à-vis their transition process. According to Haggard and Kaufman’s (1997) definition, Indonesia is a case of crisis transition, whereas the other two countries are not. Again, what this implies for the claims people make during protest is not easy to determine. The interest of the analysis lies not primarily in the overall level of different types of protest demands, but in their development vis-à-vis each other and vis-à-vis the democratization process. Therefore, while the structural conditions outlined above, such as the ethnic composition of the population or the level of economic wealth, are regarded as important factors in influencing claims of protesters, the focus is here on how claims develop and change along the process of democratization, when which type of claim dominates, and when demands radicalize. This perspective highlights the contingency of outcomes. No explicit hypotheses are formulated. The only general expectation concerns the radicalization over time in situations in which contention escalates. This expectation is deduced from Tarrow’s (2011, p. 202) considerations on the revolutionary events in Western Europe in 1848 (above) and the findings in Chapter 4 on the radicalization of forms of protest action. The protest cycle model further suggests that protest radicalization is followed by de-radicalization (for details, see Chapter 2).

5.2

Design of the Analysis

Frequency tables will be used to assess the composition of protest demands during regime change for the three countries under study. In addition, graphs are employed to examine the development of these various demands which people made in the democratizing countries. With the help of cross-tables, we will inquire, in a last step, into the connection between protest demands and the organization in protest.

5 (Socio-)economic conditions in the countries are discussed in more detail in Chapter 7.

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5.2.1

Variables

The coding of protest goals constituted one of the most important and most challenging steps in the coding process. Along with the form of action, the protest goal helped determine if an action met the requirement of a protest event. It enabled us to distinguish, in particular, between politically6 motivated acts qualifying as protest events on the one hand and pure criminal acts on the other hand. If no sufficient information on the goal of a protest was provided in the newspaper article, nor could it be established based on the context, a given event was not coded or deleted later on during the data cleansing process. Leaving aside the possibility of intentional misrepresentation of an event, the definition of the protest goal leaves more room for interpretation (first by the writer, then by the reader of a newspaper article) than other “harder” characteristics of a protest, such as the form of protest or the type of actor participating. Protest goals turned out to be much more time- and place-specific than other protest characteristics. Like most non-numerical protest features in this study, goals were coded according to predefined categories. Based on theoretical considerations, six main categories were identified. Roller (2005) distinguishes four major domestic policy areas: domestic security policy, economic policy, social policy, and environmental policy. A more general category, encompassing issues at the heart of domestic politics, such as civil rights and basic institutional questions, was added: national politics. In addition, domestic political issues had to be separated from issues with a mainly international focus: the category of “international politics” primarily concerned countries’ relationship with other countries. At the most detailed level, 94 different goals were coded. These detailed categories were first elaborated based on the codebooks for major research projects, such as New Social Movements in Western Europe (NSM) by Kriesi et al. (1998) and National Political Change in a Globalizing World (NPW) by Kriesi et al. (2008, 2012). Adjustments were made at several points in the coding process to ensure that categories were both

6 Political is here defined in a broad sense referring to the existence of a public dimension.

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theoretically sensible and capable of adequately capturing the empirical reality.7 The recoding of the data on protest goals was a complex but essential step in the coding process: goals were recoded to better suit the context of the study situated in democratizing Asia. The above summary categories according to the original coding scheme proved valuable in a first step. However, the present book analyzes protest mobilization in the context of regime change. The most interesting protests, from such a perspective, are protests in which people directly ask for regime change. These highly political, regime-related demands constitute the first category of protest goals considered in this book. As the literature suggests, unsolved stateness questions may decisively hamper a country’s transition to democracy. Protests challenging the rightfulness of a state were, therefore, grouped into a second important new category, called stateness demands (see details further below). Stateness demands are composed of protests previously summarized under “national politics” and “international politics”.8 A third new key category was formed to capture demands in the fields of economic policy and social policy, which were collapsed into socioeconomic demands (see details further below). All other protests, i.e., with protest goals that did not fit in any of the three categories, formed a rest category (“all other”). Regime-related demands for political change, i.e., our first category of protest goals, are composed of three different sub-categories (see also previous section on theory). They are demands addressing civil liberties, demands for more or improved political rights, and demands concerning 7 Adjustments were made in consideration of the conditions present in the countries and period under investigation. Goal categories were changed to be less detailed regarding New Social Movement issues (such as the peace or international solidarity movements) and more detailed regarding civil and political rights, considered to be important during the democratization process. First adjustments were made before the coding process started based on preliminary knowledge of the countries. In the first phase of coding, coders discussed problems with the categorization of goals to make additional adjustments where necessary. Later on when an event was clearly a protest event, but none of the suggested goals fit, a category “new/other” was at the coders’ disposition. Once the coding was completed, the validity of the predefined goals was again examined. Certain goal categories had remained (almost) empty. In order to integrate the “new/other” category and to improve the overall categorization of the goals, the categories were further adjusted. These changes were made based on the titles of the protest if information was sufficient or otherwise in re-consultation of the newspaper article. 8 The international dimension is particularly important in the case of Korea.

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other key political issues of a more general nature. This latter category included protests with explicit anti-government content, protests targeting key institutional questions (such as the role of the military or religious institutions within the regime), and protests with general demands for democratization. For the authoritarian period, demands for political reform were also defined as regime-related demands. The operationalization of political rights and civil liberties were effectuated according to Freedom House’s definition of democracy9 (Freedom House, various years). According to the methodology employed by Freedom House (various years), political rights include rights related to the electoral process, political pluralism and participation, and the functioning of government. Civil liberties are composed of freedom of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights (including workers‘ rights to organize), rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights (including women’s and minority rights). Our operationalization of regime-related demands was rather restrictive in that it excluded certain demands on political rights and civil liberties, such as demands concerning the functioning of government (including accusations of corruption in the political system) and minority or women’s rights. These claims, while being relevant to the regime, were considered to less directly challenge the authoritarian nature of the regime. Stateness issues typically arise when the territory of a democratizing state has not been congruent with the nation-building process (Linz and Stepan 1996, pp. 24ff.). The typical case is a multinational state at risk of disintegration. For this scenario, applicable in Thailand and Indonesia, three major sub-categories of claims were distinguished. First, people from certain regions may ask for (more) autonomy from the center. Mobilization against such demands was also counted in the stateness category, since it was motivated by unsolved stateness issues. Second, mobilization against ethnic and religious groups was also coded as targeting the stateness question. Protests for ethnic and religious rights would also be part of 9 Compared to other democracy indicators, such as the indicators of Polity IV or the Economist Intelligence Unit, measures of Freedom House take a clear demand-side perspective to politics, which is useful for the analysis of protest goals in democratizing context. Moreover, Freedom House provides concise information on how to operationalize individual elements of composite measures of democracy. Details on the methodology are available at: https://freedomhouse.org/report/met hodology-freedom-world-2019. For a comparison of the different democracy indicators, see the codebook for Teorell et al. (2011).

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this sub-category, but were already covered under civil liberties (above). A third sub-category subsumed all protests that can be described as acts of terrorism. These acts of high violence aimed at disrupting the political system as a whole and for this reason qualified as stateness protests. This last sub-category is not exclusive to states with a risk of disintegration. Problems with stateness also emerge when the democratizing state covers only part of what its citizens consider to be their nation. In such a scenario, as we find it in Korea, the stateness problem has an international dimension. Here, people may mobilize in favor or against reunification or at least in favor or against cooperation with the other country. Both pro and contra arguments were counted as stateness demands for the present dataset. A topic related to the division of the Korean peninsula is Korea’s relationship with the United States, which has constituted another source of protest (Kim 2010; Oh and Arrington 2007). Having been strongly involved in the formation of the Korean nation-state of today (see, e.g., Brazinsky 2007, Chapter 1), the United States has ever since assumed the role of a tutelary power. Anti-U.S. protests, in which the role of the US (military) in Korea was challenged, also touched upon sovereignty issues and therefore were coded as protests raising stateness demands. Socioeconomic demands encompass a broad range of demands. They consist of three major economic policy and two major social policy subcategories. Among the economic policy claims, we find protests about the government’s economic performance and policies. Protests for active economic policies, such as protests for market intervention and protection by the government, constituted a second sub-category. More specifically, such protests were about the restructuring or opening of the market, but also about price guarantees for products, etc. These demands were separately coded from a third sub-category of claims in the area of economic policies, namely protests by workers on labor issues, which could be on similar topics, but usually revolved around wages and working conditions; these issues are specific to employed labor. Workers’ protests on labor rights (like their rights to strike and form trade unions) were not considered, because they were already coded as civil liberties (see above). With regard to social policy claims, coders made a broad distinction between two types of demands. The first referred to protests for active social policy measures, e.g., protests, in which people asked for broader and better social security or for social assistance. More general demands for redistribution, welfare, and against poverty also fell into this subcategory. A separate sub-category was formed to include other important

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social policy demands, namely demands concerning the education and the health system.

5.3

The Role of Regime Relevance and Radicalness in Protest Demands During Regime Change

In our empirical analysis, we will give special attention to regime-related demands, which we consider to be of central relevance in the context of regime change. After a first overview, we will compare the development of protest during which regime-related claims were made to the development of all other protest, i.e., protest during which other claims were made. To assess how radical protest was at a specific point in the transition process, we will then compare how regime-related demands developed vis-à-vis two other important types of demands, i.e., socioeconomic and stateness demands. In a further step, we will analyze the detailed composition of regime-related demands. In a last step, we will examine whether the radicalness in protest goals is related to the organization of protest actors. Table 5.1 presents the major types of claims which protesters advanced during regime change in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia. In all countries, the share of political regime-related demands was substantial (see Table 5.1). These demands constituted the most important claims category in democratizing Korea and Indonesia, i.e., they were more Table 5.1 Protest demands during regime change (%): varying degrees of radicalness Protest demands

Korea

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Indonesia

Regime-related demands Socioecon. demands (excl. labor rights) Stateness demands All other demands (rest) Total N

52.7 25.2 8.3 13.7 100.0 1938

21.8 33.0 1.0 44.4 100.0 1053

40.0 19.8 14.5 25.8 100.0 1681

Cramer’s V = 0.25*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

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numerous than socioeconomic or stateness demands. In Korea, protesters raised regime-related demands in more than half of all protest events. In Indonesia, people made such claims in as much as 40% of the protests. In Thailand, by contrast, the corresponding figure was only just over 20%. Here, this type of demand, which touches on key issues of democratization, was less widely used than, for example, socioeconomic demands or other demands (see Table 5.1). During the period of democratization, stateness issues played the most significant role in Indonesia (Table 5.1). Here, this type of protest made up almost 15% of all protest claims. In Thailand, by contrast, the proportion of stateness demands did not exceed 1%. Korea held the middle position in this regard with a proportion of around 8%. However, in all three countries, a major motivation to mobilize was related to people’s socioeconomic interests. In Thailand, a third of all protests fell into this category. Moreover, in Thailand, a high percentage of protests focused on infrastructural and environmental issues. They made up 20% of all protests. This explains the high proportion of the “rest” category in Thailand (Table 5.1).10 Socioeconomic demands were also important in the other two countries, constituting around 25% of all protests in Korea and around 20% of all protests in Indonesia. 5.3.1

Political Demands Directly Targeting the Authoritarian Regime vs. Other Demands

As a first step, Fig. 5.1 shows protest demands in a dynamic perspective, contrasting regime-related demands, our key category of protest claims, with all other protest demands (solid vs. dashed line in Fig. 5.1a). The latter category here also includes stateness and socioeconomic demands, which will be analyzed separately in a next step (see section below). The number of protests in which people raised regime-related claims increased before, and peaked at the moment when regime change was announced and decreased again afterward (Fig. 5.1a). In Korea and Indonesia, the increase in this type of protest was particularly marked. At the critical moment of regime-change announcement, regime-related demands 10 In Thailand, as much as 7% of protests during regime change targeted regime-related issues more broadly defined, including mobilization against corruption or mobilization in favor of minority or women’s rights (see Sect. 5.2.1). This type of protest is also subsumed under “All other demands”.

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constituted the largest proportion of total protests, exceeding all other demands in absolute numbers. In all countries, regime-related demands were most important in relative terms shortly ahead of the announcement of the regime change (see Fig. 5.1b, where protest demands are shown as percentage of all demands). Across the whole transition period, protest goals in Korea and Indonesia exhibit a clearer pattern, i.e., a stronger variation in time, than in Thailand (Fig. 5.1). Regime-related demands in Korea and Indonesia, having been up at high levels, dropped quickly once democratic rule was introduced. After the question of regime change had been solved, other demands became more prevalent. Protest dynamics in these two countries developed somewhat differently at the beginning of transition, though. In Korea, regime-related claims dominated and were at high levels right from the beginning when political liberalization started. In Indonesia, other demands were more important during early political liberalization, but regime-related claims then quickly took over. In Thailand, the increase in

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regime-related demands ahead of transition was only small. In addition, the total number of other protests remained at every point in the process higher than regime-related demands and at a relatively steady level during political liberalization. 5.3.2

Varieties of Radicalness in Protest Demands

How do demands of varying degrees of radicalness develop along the transition process? The three types of demands considered here, i.e., regime-related, socioeconomic, and stateness demands, followed a rather similar pattern in Korea and Indonesia (despite some differences in the timing of regime-related demands) and a distinct pattern in Thailand. Figure 5.2a shows that in Korea and Indonesia, socioeconomic demands relative to regime-related demands only became (more) important at a later stage of transition. Before, political regime-related demands clearly dominated in these countries. A rise in socioeconomic demands at the peak of the mobilization suggests that during such a moment of exceptionally high contention, protest from one issue area spreads to another area. This connection does not exist in Thailand. Here, the timing of socioeconomic and regime-related demands were less connected to one another (no common peaks) and each type followed its own pattern. Raising political and economic demands at the same time, as happened at the peak of protest in Korea and Indonesia, was not only a tactical choice of protest actors to increase leverage, but also a consequence of their composition. In Korea, socioeconomic demands were primarily pushed by workers. Labor issues, such as wages and working conditions, made up 20% of all protests during transition. In addition, over 6% of all protests revolved around workers’ rights. The latter claims were particularly important around the time of regime change. Workers in Korea were part of a broad democracy coalition (Koo 1993, pp. 142–147). During mobilization, political and economic rights were promoted at the same time. In Indonesia, workers were also the actors most involved in mobilization on socioeconomic issues. Ahead of regime change, however, students, who were also severely affected by the Financial Crisis, took the lead in this issue area. They combined calls for thorough political reform with calls for economic reform (see Aspinall 2005, pp. 222–223). Figure 5.2b compares stateness demands (dashed line) with regimerelated demands (solid line). Indonesia is the most straightforward case:

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with the beginning of the democratic era following the first free elections in 1999 (vertical solid line), questions around unsolved stateness issues became more important. The number of protests in which stateness was the main issue peaked when regime-related demands were already in clear decline. Challenges to Indonesia’s stateness have been multifold (Bertelsmann Stiftung, various years): the state’s monopoly on the use of force had to be achieved and maintained against the backdrop of strong separatist movements as well as major ethnic and religious conflicts. When state capacity decreased as a consequence of regime change, these challenges temporarily intensified. Among the different stateness claims, the most prominent claim in Indonesia was about regional interest. In the provinces of Aceh and Papua,11 separatist movements continued to mobilize for independence in the early democratic era as they had been doing for decades. Partial autonomy accorded in 2001 could not stop them. The mobilization for independence in East Timor, which was achieved in May 2002 (UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 2006, p. 19), was also included in our data.12 In Indonesia in the early 2000s, when democracy had just been introduced, stateness was also challenged by violent religious conflicts on the Moluccas (between Christians and Muslims) and in Sulawesi; ethnic conflicts, like in Kalimantan, further added to the strong mobilization during this period, which generally was marked by high violence (see Chapter 4 on highly violent protests). Acts of terrorism aiming at the disruption of the political system also gained momentum around this time. Some high-profile attacks that could be traced to religious extremists left their mark on politics. Comparing the Indonesia Country Report 2014 (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2014a) with its 2003 version, however, shows the positive development the country has undergone in solving stateness issues ever since.13 Key policies in this regard, such as the decentralization process initiated in 1999 and the abandonment of discriminatory citizenship laws against ethnic minorities, such as ethnic Chinese,

11 Formerly: Irian Jaya. 12 Counter-mobilization, i.e., against regional interests, also constituted more than 1%. 13 In the most recent years, the country experienced a democratic downturn, also

negatively affecting stateness issues (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2018a).

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were launched early in the democratic period. As our data shows, radicalization in the context of regime change was a temporary phenomenon (Fig. 5.2b). In Thailand, no obvious link between demands on stateness and demands on regime change is discernible. Mobilization around stateness issues was almost nonexistent during the transition (Table 5.1), but exploded in 2004, three years after the initial consolidation of democracy was achieved (vertical dashed line in Fig. 5.2b). The Thai state has faced a number of stateness issues of varying seriousness.14 Given the heterogeneity of Thailand’s society, the absence of stateness demands during critical moments of the transition period is striking. Over the years, the state’s monopoly on the use of force has been most openly challenged by Malay-Muslim insurgents in the far South and ethnic militia along the border with Myanmar (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2012, 2014b).15 The people inhabiting the three most southern provinces of Thailand constitute a minority in ethnic and religious terms, which also pursue regional interests.16 The sudden increase in radicalness in the form of protest actions (see Chapter 4) and protest goals (Fig. 5.2b) in 2004 cannot easily be related to the country’s democratization process. Since then, the conflict in the south has led to a death toll of almost 7000 people (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2018c, p. 7). In Korea, like in Indonesia, stateness demands were most prominently promoted in the early phase of the democratic period (Fig. 5.2b). In both countries, this radicalization in protest goals can be related to the overall dynamics of contention. Radicalization would not have occurred without the previous escalation and the weakening of the state power around the critical moment of transition. Differently from the other two countries, stateness demands in Korea did not concern regional, religious, or ethnic interests and did not involve new types of actors. The temporary rise of

14 “Ambiguous boundaries, numerous minority ethnicities and religions, and a complicated citizenship process have made identity building in Thailand complicated” (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2012, p. 5). 15 Stateness is also an issue with hill tribe people in the north of the country, constituting an ethno-political group of its own. They face discriminatory policies and often lack citizenship. 16 “(A)ttempts at ‘Thaification’ (have) produced over a century of violence between southern Malay-Muslims of Thai citizenship and the government” (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2014b, p. 6).

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stateness demands at the end of the 1980s rather reflects the further radicalization of an actor type who was at the vanguard of the broad democracy movement ahead of transition, namely students. After mass protests in Gwangju were brutally repressed in 1980, students began to radicalize during the 1980s (Park 2012, pp. 134ff.): they adopted leftist ideologies, such as Marxism-Leninism and North Korea’s Juche ideology. With the newly opened political space, Korean students faced increasing competition by various interest groups and civil society organizations in the early years after transition, between 1987 and 1991 (Park 2012, pp. 137ff.). Moreover, a “unifying appeal of a struggle against military dictatorship” no longer existed (ibid., p. 139). Part of student activism turned to societal, cultural, and electoral realms. Part of the movement radicalized and alienated ordinary students and citizens. A split in the movement into two broad camps with diverging ideologies contributed to this trend. Students aligned to the “National Liberation” continued to adhere to the North Korean Juche ideology and held the United States responsible for the original and continued division of the Koreas. Their campaigns on reunification and against the US presence, e.g., outside US diplomatic and military facilities, are reflected in the peaks of stateness demands shown in Fig. 5.2b. Korea-specific stateness issues added up to 8% of total protests in Korea during the transition period: pro-North Korea and anti-US claims were made in over 4 and 3% of the protests, respectively. While stateness issues are still present in Korean politics of today, radical actions concentrated in this specific time period early in the democratic era.17 How radical was protest in democratizing Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia in terms of the claims that protesters advocated? The above cross-country comparison of stateness, regime, and socioeconomic demands shows a picture similar to the one that was established in the

17 Today, government policy is still influenced by this threat to stateness emanating from pro-North Korea left-leaning activism. NGOs assessing Korea’s democracy progress criticize the 1948 national security law and its strict interpretation (Freedom House 2013, 2019). This mostly affects civil liberties (freedom of media, organization of labor), but can also have an effect on political rights going as far as to disbanding political parties (Choe 2014). “Minor radical splinter groups continue to pay allegiance to North Korea” (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2018b, p. 6). Their demands, however, were more mainstream during the transition period.

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last chapter based on the forms of protest action.18 Thailand constitutes the least radical country with a high proportion of socioeconomic and other demands that were not defined as radical here. Indonesia is the most radical country if we consider the proportion of the most radical protest claims, i.e., demands concerning stateness. In Korea, the proportion of these demands was not negligible either. Importantly, the mobilization around this highly radical protest claim occurred in both countries at a defined moment in the transition process, namely at the beginning of democratic rule. Conflict researchers point out that democratic transitions may be particularly dangerous at the beginning stages of transitions, when the risk of conflict outbreak is high (Mansfield and Snyder 2005, pp. 2ff.).19 The fact that radicalization only occurred after protest escalated supports a contingent perspective on protest goal development. Other than stateness demands, political regime-related demands are also regarded as rather radical demands during a transition process as they go to the core of the power struggle defining the transition process. Their strategic importance can be seen by the fact that they were particularly prominent during the phase leading up to the first free elections of the democratizing countries. The pressure built up through this type of protest goal is a little less obvious (i.e., less numerous) in Thailand than in Korea or Indonesia. The Korean case is particularly noteworthy in this context. As shown above, Korean protesters demanded changes in the regime in over 50% of the cases and chose the rather risky strategy of making wide use of regime-related demands early in the transition process. A more detailed analysis of regime-related demands (see below), which, in turn, may also be of various levels of radicalness, can provide further insights into protest dynamics in the countries under study. 5.3.3

Detailed Analysis of Political Regime-Related Demands

Table 5.2 provides a more detailed picture of regime-related goals and highlights the similarities that existed among the countries with regard 18 Not surprisingly, the radicalness in goals and forms of protest are linked: a significant proportion of people raising stateness issues do resort to violent actions (not shown here). 19 Vorrath et al. (2007, p. 9) convincingly show how the process of democratization can lead to shifts in government capacity, i.e., from high to low capacity, and trigger conflict by providing “certain incentives and opportunities for political actors that can have a destabilizing impact”.

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Table 5.2 Protest demands during regime change (%): detailed composition of regime-related demands Protest demands

Korea

Thailand

Indonesia

General regime-related demands Demands for political rights Demands for civil liberties Total N

42.3 6.7 51.1 100.0 1022

39.3 17.5 43.2 100.0 229

38.3 15.6 46.1 100.0 673

Cramer’s V = 0.11*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

to the composition of regime-related protest demands. As explained in Sect. 5.2.1 above, regime-related protests can be divided into general regime-related demands, demands for political rights, and demands for civil liberties. In all countries, demands for more or improved civil liberties were the most numerous among regime-related protests. In Korea, they were followed by more general regime-related demands. Here, demands for political rights were just over 6%. The order of importance was the same in Thailand and Indonesia, but with a somewhat more equal distribution among these three sub-goals. The relative importance of the sub-types of regime-related goals was very similar across countries, the biggest exception being the relatively low number of demands for political rights in Korea. In all three countries, it was broad regime-related demands, such as general anti-government and pro-democracy claims, that were promoted at critical moments of the transition process (Fig. 5.3). During moments of exceptionally high mobilization in Korea and Indonesia, claims were in large parts made up of these types of demands. In Thailand, it was also these types of claims that were used to ensure the continued democratization process ahead of transition and up to the adoption of the new constitution during the 1990s. The timing of claims concerning the protection of civil liberties, which were more numerous than general regime-related demands, was more country-specific. In Indonesia, these claims rose immediately when political liberalization started and stayed at a higher level until the end of the transition period. In Korea, such claims had a clear peak: they were highest at the moment of regime change and were almost as numerous at this point as general regime-related demands.

L. MADUZ

Year Gen. regime-related demands Political rights Civil liberties

2005

2000

Gen. regime-related demands Political rights Civil liberties

Year Gen. regime-related demands Political rights Civil liberties

60 40 20 2005

0 2000

2005

0

80

1990

20

100

1985

Number of protest events

40

2000

2005

2000

0

60

1995

20

80

1990

40

1995

1985

2005

2000

0

Year

100

1985

60

1995

50

Gen. regime-related demands Political rights Civil liberties

Number of protest events

80

1990

100

Year

100

1985

150

1995

Year

1995

0

Number of protest events

50

1990

2005

2000

1995

1990

0

100

1985

50

Number of protest events

100

Gen. regime-related demands Political rights Civil liberties

Percent of total protest

Indonesia

Thailand 150

1990

Korea 150

1985

Number of protest events

118

Year Gen. regime-related demands Political rights Civil liberties

Fig. 5.3 Detailed composition of regime-related protest demands, 1985–2005 (Note Vertical solid line: founding elections, vertical dashed lines: start and end of the transition period)

They were a little lagged with regard to the latter, which started off faster, but claims on civil liberties remained prominent throughout the early phase of democratic institutionalization until the mid-1990s. The analysis shows that general regime-related claims, as defined in Sect. 5.2, were more radical than the more differentiated claims on political rights and civil liberties, concentrated at specific moments in time. Protests on general regime-related issues, such as those calling for the replacement of the head of government, would fade quickly once these demands were fulfilled. Mobilization for civil liberties was more equally spread across time, as was mobilization for political rights. In Korea and Indonesia, mobilization for political rights was most important ahead of regime change; in Thailand, a first small peak is observable a little later, i.e., at the moment of transition, followed by another one later. In contrast to claims on political rights, claims on civil liberties showed a

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more continued presence also during the phase of democratic institutionalization and early consolidation. Abuse of power and excessive violence by the police or the military were recurrent themes in this context.20 Mobilization around claims for civil liberties turns out to be a key factor in explaining trends in overall mobilization during regime change, more specifically trends in overall mobilization that cannot easily be foreseen. In Korea, the great mobilization wave in 1987 found its origins in January 1987 when a student died in police custody after being tortured. He had been questioned about alleged anti-government activities. This incident, together with later revelations of an official attempt to cover up information about the incident, was the cause of much protest (U.S. Department of State 1988). Protest escalated when a student was critically injured through fragments of a tear gas bomb on June 9. What followed was the “June Popular Uprising”, which was only ended when the chairman of the ruling party made a democratization declaration (Kim 2000, pp. 92–93, 2002, pp. 92, 96–97). In Indonesia, the fall of the authoritarian regime was also triggered by an incident of state violence against students. “The long-awaited climax finally occurred at Jakarta’s Trisakti University” where four students were killed by troops on 12 May 1998 (Aspinall 2005, p. 232). Riots followed, before Suharto stepped down. The detailed analysis of regime-related demands increases our knowledge of protest dynamics in important ways. General regime change demands and claims concerning political rights were in all countries made at critical moments of the transition process, as one could expect. This suggests the strategic use of these types of demands. With regard to regime-related demands, escalation dynamics were not main explanatory factors, as was the case for stateness demands discussed earlier. Interestingly, the most important sub-category of regime-related demands, namely claims concerning civil liberties, followed its own pattern and was more country-specific. This is related to the fact that this type of claim was most contingent on single (sometimes unexpected) events, such as the killing of students. Like the other regime-related demands, demands

20 Issues were manifold. Early during political liberalization, Korean students mobilized against the campus stabilization act and against military campus training and conscription. In Indonesia, the closure of the weekly news magazine Tempo was a major cause for mobilization. Violence and crackdowns on labor organizations and activists motivated people to mobilize in all three democratizing countries.

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for civil liberties can be understood in terms of the interaction dynamics between power holders and their challengers. However, through the, often unanticipated, suddenness and virulence with which this type of mobilization emerges, it provides a somewhat independent, and therefore important, input to these dynamics. 5.3.4

Radicalness in Protest Demands and Organization of Protest During Regime Change

In Chapter 4, we have seen that the radicalness in forms of protest action is related to the mode of organization of actors. Tables 5.3a, 5.3b, and 5.3c allows us to assess if regime-related demands are linked to the forms of organization and cooperation of actors. This does not seem to be the case, suggesting that regime-related demands were made by actors in all forms of organizational and cooperative arrangements. The correlations between the goal variable and the organization and cooperation variables are in all three countries generally low with a Cramer’s V of below 0.10 and not statistically significant (see p-value). Only elite actors in Korea and Thailand were found to have a special interest in regime-related issues. Table 5.3a Protest demands in democratizing Korea by type of organization and cooperation among actors (%) Protest demands

Regime-related demands Other demands (rest) Total protests (all demands) Total N (% of all protests) Cramer’s V

Organization and cooperation among actors (various dummy variables: present = 1) Organized actor (= 1)

Elite support (= 1)

Coalition (= 1)

Campaign (= 1)

Total (all)

52.4

71.2

57.2

55.0

52.7

47.6

28.8

42.8

45.0

47.3

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

981 (50.6)

483 (24.9)

166 (8.6)

776 (40.0)

1938

−0.01 (p = 0.762)

0.21***

0.03 (p = 0.225)

0.04 (p = 0.099)

Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

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Table 5.3b Protest demands in democratizing Thailand by type of organization and cooperation among actors (%) Protest demands

Regime-related demands Other demands (rest) Total protests (all demands) Total N (% of all protests) Cramer’s V

Organization and cooperation among actors (various dummy variables: present = 1) Organized actor (= 1)

Elite support (= 1)

Coalition (= 1)

Campaign (= 1)

Total (all)

26.8

38.3

19.6

22.4

21.8

73.2

61.7

80.4

77.6

78.3

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

407 (38.7 )

141 (13.4)

112 (10.6)

313 (29.7 )

1053

0.10 (p = 0.002)

0.16***

−0.02 (p = 0.568)

0.01 (p = 0.752)

Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

Table 5.3c Protest demands in democratizing organization and cooperation among actors (%) Protest demands

Regime-related demands Other demands (rest) Total protests (all demands) Total N (% of all protests) Cramer’s V

Indonesia

by

type

Organization and cooperation among actors (various dummy variables: present = 1) Organized actor (= 1)

Elite support Coalition (= 1) (= 1)

Campaign (= 1)

Total (all)

47.1

48.1

47.2

37.6

40.0

52.9

52.0

52.8

62.4

60.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

590 (35.1) 0.11***

256 (15.2) 0.07 (p = 0.004)

161 (9.6) 0.05 (p = 0.051)

598 (35.6) −0.04 (p = 0.134)

1681

Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

of

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The same is true for organized actors in Indonesia. Who these actors are will be seen in the following chapters. Overall, the association between goals of protest and organizational structure is very weak. When the dataset for this book was presented in Chapter 2, mention was made of potential bias problems due to censorship: for the early phases of the period under study, radical protest, especially in terms of radical goals,21 is likely to have been understated. The radicalization of protest over time, as found in the analyses of Korean and Indonesian protest in the previous and the current chapter, thus may also be, to some extent, a reflection of the more liberal reporting practices in the countries. However, radicalization happened very quickly, i.e., much faster than reporting practices are expected to change, and, if regimerelated demands in Korea are considered, very early. Together with the observation that radical protest was also quick at demobilizing when the democratic era started, these short-term trends observed in the data suggest that our findings cannot fully be accounted for by possible changes in censorship. To what extent the censorship problem, potentially understating radical protests, affects the relationship between radical forms and goals on the one hand and organization on the other is difficult to assess. The findings of our analysis in Chapter 4 and the present chapter on how radical actions and goals are related to organization would have to be seriously questioned if radical protests had systematically under-reported when a certain organization form, i.e., the lack or presence of organizational structures, had been present. However, we do not have any information at hand that would suggest so. For the time being we thus consider the results of the analyses on the connection between radical protests and organization forms as valid: organization has a moderating effect on radical protest actions, which, however, is not the case with radical goals.

5.4

Conclusion

For the cases of Korea and Indonesia, political regime-related demands have been found to be by far the most important type of protest claim during regime change. The escalation into a full protest cycle was driven by protests targeting these questions concerning the regime. In 21 This is what could be observed when coding protest events reported in the Bangkok Post.

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Korea, once political liberalization started, protesters began right away to strongly push for regime change. This is a surprising finding since the literature on protest cycle dynamics rather suggests that protesters start off with more moderate demands. This is what we observed in Indonesia: early in the political liberalization phase, demands other than the ones related to the regime dominated, but the latter quickly caught up and took over. Additional insights into protest dynamics were gained by the analysis of sub-categories of regime-related demands. General regime-related claims, such as calls for the removal of the head of government, and claims on political rights were advocated at critical moments of the transition process shortly before major political concessions were made by the authoritarian rulers. In all three countries, it was demands for civil liberties that were most numerous among the regime-related demands, though. The study of this type of claim was particularly insightful for our cases of highly dynamic transitions—Korea and Indonesia—since it accounts for unexpected escalation dynamics observed in these countries, taking protest to high and sometimes unprecedented levels. A finding that goes well with the results of Chapter 4 is that the most radical forms of protest peaked once a critical moment in contention was reached: demands related to stateness issues, which were particularly relevant in Indonesia, and of some importance in Korea, reached their highest point when overall demobilization started. Conflict research and democratization studies suggest that this period right after the introduction of democratic rule is a key moment in the transition process. It is a moment when state capacity is weakened. As suggested by different approaches within social movement studies, radicalization at a larger scale was temporary. It constituted a transitory phenomenon on the countries’ path to democratic rule. In Thailand, the different types of claims developed very independently of each other. Here, no discernible protest cycle existed and consequently no spreading of conflicts and issues from one topic area to others could take place. Different types of claims put forward during democratization (except for stateness issues that were hardly existent) had a relatively steady presence over the whole period of regime change. This is in contrast with the experiences of Korea and Indonesia, where mobilization on political topics was also translated into the economic sphere or vice versa, or both. Workers’ roles in Korea are an illustrative example in this context. They mobilized for more democracy in the political arena as

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well as in the workplace. Socioeconomic demands in Korea and Indonesia peaked when regime-related demands peaked, namely at the moment when regime change was announced. What type of claims people make during protest is to a large extent a strategic choice. The same is true for forms of protest action studied in the previous chapter. The purpose of these last two chapters has been to relate actors’ strategies to the overall level of mobilization. Another interest has lain in the question of how the mode of actor organization shapes these strategies. Based on the findings so far, the organization of actors matters with regard to the choice of protest actions, on which they have a moderating effect, but not with regard to the choice of protest goals. More specifically, claims related to the political regime have been found to be raised both in organized and spontaneous protest. For a deeper understanding of “who” asks for “what” in mobilization during regime change, a more detailed examination of actors is necessary. What types of actor are behind protests during democratization? Who makes explicit demands related to the political regime? These are the questions that will be the subject of the next two chapters.

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Kim, Hakjoon. “A Brief History of the U.S.-ROK Alliance and Anti-Americanism in South Korea.” In Working Paper, Vol. 31. Stanford, CA: Shorenstein APARC, 2010. Kim, Sunhyuk. “Civil Society and Democratization.” In Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy, and the State, edited by Charles K. Armstrong, 92–108. London: Routledge, 2002. ———. The Politics of Democratization in Korea: The Role of Civil Society. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. Koo, Hagen. “The State, Minjung, and the Working Class in South Korea.” In State and Society in Contemporary Korea, edited by Hagen Koo, 131–62. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993. Kriesi, Hanspeter, Edgar Grande, Martin Dolezal, Marc Helbling, Dominic Höglinger, Swen Hutter, and Bruno Wüest. Political Conflict in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Kriesi, Hanspeter, Edgar Grande, Romain Lachat, Martin Dolezal, Simon Bornschier, and Timotheos Frey. West European Politics in the Age of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Kriesi, Hanspeter, Ruud Koopmans, Jan Willem Duyvendak, and Marco G. Giugni. New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Lipsky, Michael, and David Olson. “The Processing of Racial Crisis in America.” Politics & Society 6 (1976): 79–103. Mansfield, Edward D., and Jack Snyder. Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. Oh, Chang Hun, and Celeste Arrington. “Democratization and Changing AntiAmerican Sentiments in South Korea.” Asian Survey 47, no. 2 (April 1, 2007): 327–50. https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2007.47.2.327. Park, Mi. “South Korea: Passion, Patriotism, and Student Radicalism.” In Student Activism in Asia: Between Protest and Powerlessness, edited by Meredith Leigh Weiss and Edward Aspinall, 125–51. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Pempel, T. J., ed. The Politics of the Asian Economic Crisis. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. Roller, Edeltraud. The Performance of Democracies: Political Institutions and Public Policy. Translated by John Bendix. Comparative Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10. 1093/0199286426.001.0001/acprof-9780199286423.

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CHAPTER 6

Opposition from Within? Mobilization and Organization of Civil and Political Society During Regime Change

The following chapters are concerned with the actors who engage in protest during regime change. Opposing the regime under authoritarian rule involves a high risk of repression and prosecution. Engaging in open protest remains risky or becomes even riskier once a country enters a transitory phase when the political survival of old and new elite actors is at stake and the general sense of insecurity is high. So who are the “people” that rise during “popular upsurge” and who are the “masses” that mobilize in “mass protest”? During the transition from authoritarian to democratic rule, many “diverse layers of society may come together… (t)rade unions, grassroots movements, religious groups, intellectuals, artists, clergymen, defenders of human rights, and professional associations all support each other’s efforts toward democratization and coalesce into a greater whole which identifies itself as ‘the people’” (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986, pp. 53–54). Two basic perspectives can be taken in studying opposition against the authoritarian regime. First, opposition can arise within the establishment. Second, opposition may also arise from outside the establishment: people who have previously been excluded from power start claiming it and thereby challenge the established actors. We find both perspectives in the

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various sub-strands of democratization research.1 Which of the perspectives is taken also depends on the analytical focus that researchers choose: oppositional forces within the established elites are seen to be particularly relevant by agency-oriented scholars (focus of this chapter), while oppositional forces outside the establishment are considered to be the main drivers of change by structure-oriented researchers (see the next chapter). The relevance of both approaches and their explanatory power for overall protest dynamics during regime change will be the subject of the present chapter and the next. A basic assumption of the present study is that, in the context of a breakdown of old power structures, established and emerging elite actors will seek to position themselves mainly in the protest arena, rather than in other arenas,2 and try to gain new constituencies. Analyzing mobilization dynamics ahead of and during regime change is thus considered to be important to increase our knowledge about (potential) new oppositional leaders. Independently from where it originates, organization and leadership that is visible and autonomous from authoritarian power structures quickly poses a threat to the latter as it opens the floor for more open oppositional political activism. “What is threatening to authoritarian regimes is not the breakdown of legitimacy but the organization of counter-hegemony: collective projects for an alternative future. Only when collective alternatives are available, political choice becomes available to isolated individuals” (Przeworski 1992, p. 107). The present chapter analyzes the opposition potential of actors from within the establishment; particular attention is given to oppositional elites. Based on the comparison of democratizing Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia in this chapter, a main challenge to the ruling elite is found to emanate from political society, more specifically from opposition parties where they exist. Established civil society actors, such as religious organizations or NGOs, also played an important role in that they pushed the 1 Explaining the social composition of protests is not a main focus of social movement studies, which we have referred to in the previous chapters. For this reason, we will turn to theoretical arguments developed in democratization studies to analyze the question of who engages in protest during regime change and why. 2 Kitschelt (2003) distinguishes three different institutional arenas for interest intermediation and political mobilization: protest politics, pressure politics, and electoral politics. Due to severe restrictions—especially on institutionalized channels—we assume protest to be a main channel for the people to voice their political opinion in authoritarian and transitory regimes.

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opening of the public space. In Thailand, opposition from within could not properly build up since political opposition was weak, religion was and still is a source of power rather than of opposition, and actors, including NGOs, were generally less political than in other countries. These findings help explain why protest in Thailand did not escalate and reach a critical point in the course of the democratization process, as was the case in Korea and Indonesia (see also previous chapters).

6.1

Moving Beyond Actor-Centered Democratization Theories

Who among the established actors will openly oppose authoritarian rulers—maybe even lead the opposition—and how and when during regime change will they do it? In the previous chapters, we have discussed the relevance and role of leadership, organization, and elite (support) in mobilizing against authoritarian rule and how these concepts are related. For the purpose of this analysis, established actors are actors with some sort of formal organizational structure that are politically active, widely known, and visible to the public.3 While we assume that independent organizations do not exist in an authoritarian regime, certain forms of protest will always be tolerated and so will certain organizations (see Chapter 4). Established actors will accommodate with the authoritarian regime and be at most semi-oppositional. How such actors may further evolve and counter-balance authoritarian state power and why this is important is the subject of this chapter. 6.1.1

Re-Focusing from Individual Elite Action to Elite–Mass Linkages

How opposition from within can challenge authoritarian rule is a central topic in the actor-centered democratization literature,4 which emphasizes the role of (individual) elite actors as the most important players in the transition process (see Bos 1996, p. 88). In this perspective, democracies do not inevitably emerge from certain conditions—be it of an 3 For the distinction between organized and non-organized actors, i.e., actors with no organizational affiliation, see Chapter 4. 4 See, e.g., O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986) on the distinction of two key groups typically present in authoritarian regimes, “hard-liners” and “soft-liners”.

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economic, social, or also cultural origin—but they are put in place by actors. Democratization is seen as being “ultimately a matter of political crafting” (Di Palma 1990, p. 8, referring to Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan). In contrast to the determinism we find in economic, cultural, and socio-structural explanations (see Chapter 7), actor-centered theories emphasize the uncertainty of political action with regard to the course and outcomes of regime change (Merkel 2010, p. 84). While the oppositional elite—along with the ruling elite5 —is accorded a central role in the transition process, research on it has not been as systematic and detailed as one could expect. Actor-centered approaches typically treat actors, i.e., individual elite actors, as isolated from social structures (Mahoney and Snyder 1999, p. 10). This emphasis on individuals, on uncertainty and contextspecificity, makes these approaches very versatile. This is their strength, but also their weakness: the identification of relevant actors in transitions is possible only retrospectively (see Bos 1996, p. 104). Systematic cross-country comparison and accumulation of knowledge on the opposition potential in a society are difficult to achieve. In addition, while widely applied ever since, the arguments and analytical tools of early actorcentered democratization scholars (e.g., O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986) work best in their original context, namely in Southern European and Latin American transitions in the 1970s and 1980s. Given the diversity of actor constellations and conflict lines in authoritarian and transitory regimes, the suggested categorizations (i.e., the military as a key actor and the split in the military as key moment initiating transition) will not easily fit different world regions and time periods. An action-based analysis of regime change, as adopted here, allows us to be more open about the actors to consider. Emerging leaders can be identified early on. What counts is that their actions are visible and political in nature. Such an approach has the advantage of being flexible and potentially applicable in different historical and cultural contexts. By increasing our knowledge about mass dynamics, we will be in a better position to determine where the opposition potential in each society lies

5 In the literature, it is suggested to categorize each elite bloc into radical and moderate forces depending on the goals and strategies they pursue, such as their position toward democratic rule (see Przeworski 1992, pp. 117–122). A key condition for a successful regime change would then be an alliance between the moderate forces in each power bloc.

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and who is likely to be leading the opposition and thereby shaping the transition and the future political system. Instead of narrowly focusing on individual elite action, the approach of the present analysis is to study mass action, such as expressed in protest mobilization, and to examine how it is linked to elite action. This involves a shift in attention to elite– mass dynamics and more specifically to the constituencies that eventually allow leaders to take on their leadership roles. 6.1.2

Opposition Potential of Civil and Political Society During Regime Change

While being open about the main leaders and drivers of opposition, the focus of this chapter is on already existing, organized actors that are somehow part of the authoritarian system—or are at least tolerated by it. Based on the theoretical considerations outlined below, we consider actors from an independent civil society or political society, or both, as the pool from which alternative elites can emerge within an authoritarian political system. According to Bos (1996, p. 88), oppositional forces are usually composed of intellectuals, artists, human rights groups, and religious actors, such as church circles. These are types of actors considered in civil society studies, an important sub-strand in the democratization literature. Civil society actors may later in the democratization process be joined by political parties, trade unions, and other interest groups (ibid.). Civil society can be defined as “the arena, outside the family, the government, and the market, where people associate to advance their interests” (Malena and Heinrich 2007, p. 340). According to Rueschemeyer et al. (1992, p. 6), civil society has an importance for democracy as it establishes a counterweight to (modern) state power. A “free and lively” civil society has, thus, been positively associated with a successful consolidation of democracy (Linz and Stepan 1996, p. 7), but also with a successful transition in the first place. The growth of formally autonomous organized actors allows them to create a “counter-hegemonic culture and more explicitly political organization, which begin to change the balance of class power in society” with positive effects on democracy (Rueschemeyer et al. 1992, p. 274). State–society relations, and therefore a country’s chances for democratization, are also influenced by transnational power relations: if and how much room is

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given to a civil society to emerge is also determined by a country’s economic, colonial, or religious ties to other countries (ibid., pp. 277ff.).6 Linz and Stepan (1996) argue that civil society can at best “destroy a non-democratic regime. However, a full democratic transition, and especially democratic consolidation, must involve political society” (Linz and Stepan 1996, p. 8). Civil society’s concern is public, but not political: winning power over the state apparatus or holding office is in the interest of actors of the political sphere, not of the civil society (see Diamond 1994, pp. 5–7). For a full transition and the consolidation of a democratic regime, an “autonomous and valued” political society is necessary (Linz and Stepan 1996, p. 7). Political society means “in essence, the party system” (Diamond 1994, p. 7). The establishment of democratic institutions, such as the party system, but also the electoral system and the legislatures, as well as political leadership and inter-party cooperation, falls into the political arena (Linz and Stepan 1996, p. 8). Political parties can, and according to some scholars should, be understood as “‘prime movers’ of democratization” and “crucial actors on the democratization stage” (Capoccia and Ziblatt 2010, pp. 949 and 958). These scholars promote a perspective in which the role of political parties is not restricted to translating social structural pressures into institutional outcomes. According to their argument, parties and their ideologies and strategies matter. Parties’ interests and relationships to other actors play an independent role; their support or lack thereof to democratic reform decisively shapes the overall transition to democracy. As a consequence, the role of parties is crucial in determining if a democracy comes into being and whether it lasts. Importantly, civil society actors and political parties are not seen in the literature as intrinsically inclined toward democracy nor are there clearly defined mechanisms as to how they help bring about democracy. The studies cited above focus on the institutional level and consider civil or political society as a whole rather than specific actor groups and their political interests. Going beyond the level of individual (elite) actors (see Sect. 6.1.1), however, makes sense as this provides the basis for a more systematic analysis of mass–elite linkages. Factors such as a free and lively civil society and an autonomous and valued political society are in general 6 For example, Rueschemeyer et al. (1992) relate the positive impact of British colonialism on democratization, which was established by certain scholars, back to the fact that it provided “room for the emergence of civil society” (ibid., p. 281).

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seen as conducive to democracy (Linz and Stepan 1996, pp. 7ff.). If such conditions were present in the democratizing countries under study, if and how they were translated into protest, and what this may tell us about the opposition potential of certain actor groups is the subject of the empirical analysis of this chapter.

6.2

Design of the Analysis

The analyses in the present chapter and the next are an empirical evaluation of the respective relevance different actor types assume in (protest) politics during regime change. To evaluate the relevance of these actors, three criteria are applied, namely actors’ overall involvement, the goals they put forward, and the timing of their actions. For the purpose of the study, relevant actors are defined as actors who organize a large proportion of all protests, but more importantly intervene at key moments of the democratization process. In a dynamic perspective, actors affecting (and affected by) regime change are expected to show a bigger variation in mobilization along the democratization process. Actors’ relevance is also assessed in terms of how directly they challenge the authoritarian regime. Mobilization in which protesters make regime-related claims is considered to be particularly important. Various lines of comparison exist that are applied in this chapter. First, the comparison between the mobilization by societal actors and the mobilization by political actors is valuable to analyze the respective roles they play in counter-balancing authoritarian state power. Societal and political actors may complement or substitute each other in this function. Furthermore, contrasting organized to non-organized actors in civil and political society may help reveal differences in their protest activities, with organized actors being expected to assume a leadership role (see Chapter 4). Finally, the comparison across countries allows us to see if protest behavior by societal and political actors was similar across Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia during their democratization and how their protest behavior was related to institutional conditions in the countries; the ultimate question being if results are potentially generalizable to other contexts and settings. As in the previous chapters, the results are obtained and presented based on frequency tables and graphs. Frequency tables were used to assess the proportion of protests by actor type. Table 6.1 provides a first overview of the different actor categories considered in this chapter

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Table 6.1 Protest actors during regime change (%): all types of actors

Protest actors

Korea

Thailand

Indonesia

Societal actors Political actors Farmers Workers Middle-class professionals Students All other (rest) Total N

18.3 17.7 3.0 19.3 6.0 32.9 2.9 100.0 1938

46.6 8.3 11.9 14.3 5.2 6.5 7.3 100.0 1053

31.6 12.3 0.9 9.0 5.3 26.5 14.5 100.0 1681

Cramer’s V = 0.30*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

and the next. The choice of actor categories discussed in the analysis is theoretically driven and not exhaustive (as indicated by the actor category “all other”). The actors in the selected categories made up more than 90% of all protests in Korea and Thailand and around 85% in Indonesia.7,8 Frequency tables were also used to evaluate the topics on which a given actor type protested (in %), with the basic distinction being made between “regime-related topics” and others. Graphs, then, were employed to analyze the timing of protests, by a given actor, vis-à-vis the democratization process. Interpreting the overall protest involvement by a certain type of actor, such as civil or political society actors, is not straightforward since a 7 In Indonesia, more than 10% of protests during regime change were conducted by extremists, a type of actor that is not analyzed in detail in the scope of this study. The biggest group among Indonesian extremists were ethno-nationalist separatist actors, such as those active in Aceh or Papua. They were followed by religious extremist groups and a category of violent extremist groups that could not clearly be categorized, mostly due to lack of information. Conservative vigilant actors constituted a smaller, i.e., less active, group of extremists. 8 Other actors that were not specifically analyzed in the scope of this study on protesters include employers and business representatives as well as government actors. Government actors and sometimes also employers can be seen as part of a regime. Events organized by them were only coded as protests if they were directed against the establishment that forms the power center of the regime. Examples are local governments publicly challenging the central government or groups of employees in a ministry or government agency openly criticizing the head of government, etc. Employer organizations displaying their disagreement with the government in public would be another example.

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relative indicator (% of total) is used: theoretically, the strength of a specific actor group may just be the reflection of the weakness of all other actor groups considered (see, e.g., the large proportion of protests initiated by civil society actors in Thailand). Therefore, context knowledge and insights from other studies are essential and will be integrated into the analysis (see also the discussion section further below). In the next chapter, other actor categories will be analyzed, namely workers, farmers, middle-class professionals, and students, also using relative frequencies. Two different sets of theoretical arguments will be applied in the two chapters. But protest activities by a given actor type will always be assessed as a share of total protest, where all protest actors will be considered. The results for all the actors can, therefore, be compared and placed in a common context. 6.2.1

Variables

Actors were coded into 75 detailed categories.9 These categories provided the basis on which actor groups considered in this analysis were formed. For an event to qualify as a protest, the actor had to be known and explicitly stated in the article. Exceptions to this rule were possible in the case of terrorist attacks when they were clearly politically motivated. As mentioned earlier, up to five actors could be coded per protest event. As a general rule, actors were entered into the coding scheme in the order they were mentioned in the newspaper article.10 If several actors of the same type were mentioned in the newspaper and clearly distinguishable, they were entered separately. Most protests (i.e., in around 85% of all coded protest events) were organized by a single actor. Below, “first” actor refers to the first-mentioned actor and “additional actors” to any of

9 For this purpose, the actor categories used in the Europub project (Koopmans 2007) served as a reference (see http://europub.wzb.eu/). The Europub project is one among several major research projects in the field of protest event analysis for which the data, as well as information on data collection, are publicly available (Hutter 2014, p. 340). The original categories were adapted to the conditions in the countries under study. If these categories were still too broad or imprecise to adequately capture the observed data, the categories were further refined and used accordingly in the process of recoding the data. The 75 categories mentioned in the text are the refined categories. 10 Sometimes, actors were not listed one after the other, but rather brought into a logical order with each other. Farmers led by NGO networks, as observed in Thailand in the 1990s, are a case in point.

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the following actors. The first actor is considered to be the main protest actor.11 The focus of this chapter is on actors from civil and political society; civil society actors will alternatively be referred to as “social actors” or “societal actors” and political society actors will also be referred to as “political actors”. The main interest lies in organized actors from civil and political society (see paragraphs below), since they are considered here to be established actors with leadership potential. But leaders do not exist without followers. Less organized groups can be found among societal as well as political actors and will here be referred to as followers. While the link between non-organized and organized political actors was most of the time clear, a great diversity existed among non-organized societal actors, making it more difficult to categorize them. Examples of actor categories which non-organized societal actors are composed of are “consumers”, “homosexuals”, “Muslims”, “women”, and “youth”.12 In addition, a residual category called “individuals” encompasses entries such as “people” and “protesters”.13

11 Distinguishing and classifying actors based on the categories in the coding scheme was not always clear-cut. Actors may have multiple identities. Students who form or become part of environmental groups, of women’s organizations, or NGOs are a case in point. Youth groups which are affiliated with religious organizations are another example. The general rule was that actors’ socioeconomic identity, such as workers, farmers, or students, trumped institutional affiliations, such as their religious or political identities or NGO memberships. The latter, in turn, trumped broader identities, such as women or youth. Thus, the more compelling identity was generally given preference. The basic idea here is that groups vary in how extensive their common identity is (see, e.g., Tilly 1978, pp. 62ff.). However, if the mobilization of an actor could only be understood in terms of an identity, defined here as second- or third-level identity, this identity was retained for the coding. For such an assessment of the motivation of a protest, protest goals were also considered. Importantly, the categorization of actors was kept as close to the wording in the newspaper article as possible. And even if the reporting of a given actor varied, efforts were made to keep the categorization consistent, unless the change in reporting reflected a change in a given actor over time. 12 Further examples include “residents”, “migrants”, “disabled people”, “Christians”, and “Buddhists”. If these actors had an organizational affiliation, they would figure among civil society organizations or religious organizations. 13 Also included in this category were actors reported as “citizens”, “voters”, but also “family members” and “relatives”, “squatters“and “homeless people”, and more specifically “Seoulites”, “Bangkokians”, “Jakartans”, and “islanders”. It is a rest category in the sense that protesting people lacking any other affiliation were counted as “individuals”. The terms “housewives” and “park users”, included in this category, illustrate this point. It

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Four mutually exclusive actor categories were used for the coding of organized societal actors, i.e., societal actors with a formal organization structure, namely civil society organizations (CSOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), experts or intellectuals, and religious organizations. The category of CSOs encompasses groups and organizations that do not take the form of formal NGOs. It is a broad and diverse category, referring to “informal and ephemeral forms of collective actions” to do justice to the fact that most CSOs outside the West are informal and not registered (see Malena and Heinrich 2007, p. 340). As opposed to NGOs, it includes actors who represent their own interests.14 The term NGO is more specific: actors were coded as NGOs if labeled as such in the text. This category also includes other formal organizations that are mainly concerned with representing interests of others, i.e., mostly weaker members of the population, such as the poor.15 A third societal actors’ category, labeled “experts”, was introduced to capture the group of individual public intellectuals who engage in critical thinking or debate. These experts or intellectuals could be trained in an academic discipline or have another field of special expertise, including religion, and address from time to time a broader audience in written or spoken form on current societal or political topics (see, e.g., Gattone 2006; Lightman 1999). They do not act as representatives of an institution or professional organization, but independently and on their own.16

was originally named “the general public”, but the term “individuals” was found to better reflect the actors of this category for its broad applicability. 14 Nine basic categories were subsumed into the summary category “civil society organizations”, namely “Consumer organizations and groups”, “Youth organizations and groups”, “Community/resident organizations and groups (not mainly pol./ethnic.)”, “Women organizations and groups”, “Groups and organizations of disabled people”, “Groups and organizations of homosexuals”, “Migrant organizations and groups”, “Other specific civil society groups (non-NGO)”, and “Artist(s)”. 15 “Solidarity and human rights organizations”, “(Non-state) welfare organizations (Red Cross etc.)”, “Peace movement organizations and groups”, “Environmental organizations (incl. single-issue movements)”, and “Other specific non-governmental organizations” are the basic categories which the summary category “NGOs” consists of. 16 University professors, for example, could fall into either category, depending on

whether they were speaking or acting as university representatives or not. Generally speaking, the following actors were counted as experts if they addressed a broader public on a relevant political or social issue and did not act as representatives of their institutions: “intellectuals”, “experts”, “social critics”, “academics”, “scholars”, “lecturers”, “scientists”, “economists”, “analysts”, “observers”, “commentators”, and “advisers”.

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In addition, the category of religious organizations constitutes the fourth actor category used to study civil society actors in protests during regime change. It includes state church-like institutions, but also sects, as well as religious organizations with a less formalized organizational structure, such as Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadyiah (on the latter, see Barton 2006, pp. 223–229). Eight different mutually exclusive actor categories were employed to capture political actors. Four of them were of a more formal nature, namely ruling parties, opposition parties in parliament, extraparliamentary opposition parties, and other formal political actors. The latter referred to general, not specified political parties and individual politicians. Other groups and actors existed that were in a first coding categorized as societal actors since they did not take the form of a formal political party. However, as they all had a clearly political orientation and purpose, they were recoded as “political actors”. Among them, we find dissidents, pro-democracy activists, ethno-political actors, and supporters or opponents of individual politicians. Actors in each category could either be organized or non-organized, except for the supporters or opponents of individual politicians, who all lacked formal organization.

6.3 The Role of Civil and Political Society Actors in Contention During Regime Change 6.3.1

Actors from Civil Society: Mobilization Potential and Actual Mobilization

The state, where it had existed in the past, had dominated state–society relations in Asia (see Schak and Hudson 2003, p. 3). Before the start of industrialization and even the development of nation states, which are relatively recent phenomena, individuals and groups were granted no basic set of rights vis-à-vis their absolutist rulers. In East Asia, the strength and centralization of states prevented any social group from challenging their hegemony. In Southeast Asia, the transitory nature of states, which basically was “only a series of weak, short-lived city-states” kept civil society from developing (ibid.). Civic activities in Asia generally concentrated at the local and village levels. However, Alagappa (2004) concluded in an important comparative volume that against assertions

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that the concept is alien and inapplicable to the Asian context, civil societies in Asia do exist and have significantly grown since the mid-1980s (pp. 456ff.). The development of Asian societies as distinct and independent spheres from the state has been found to be helped by anti-colonial struggles in the twentieth century (see Alagappa 2004, pp. 459–460; Frings 1998). In Korea, an “oppositional and highly militant civil society (…) has its origins in the resistance to Japanese colonial rule” from 1910 to 1945 (Kim 2004, pp. 139ff.; see also Park 2012, pp. 126–128). An “explosive expansion” of civil society followed once the colonial rulers retreated after World War II. In Indonesia, local elites emerged around the time when the Dutch established full control over the territory in the early twentieth century (Frings 1998, p. 49).17 The society became deeply politicized during the country’s revolutionary period preceding its independence, namely between 1945 and 1949.18 Centered on political parties, networks of mass organizations (“aliran”) emerged, which would thenceforth constitute the basis for societal organization (Aspinall 2004, pp. 63ff.).19 As an exception in the Southeast Asian context, Thailand has never been under colonial rule and consequently lacks the related historical experience of mass opposition building. As Anderson (1998, p. 162) put it: “The heroes in Thai children’s schoolbooks have not been journalists, union leaders, teachers and politicians who spent years in colonial jails, but above all the ‘great kings’ of the ruling house”. In Korea and Indonesia and other countries in the region, the struggle for independence from 17 This was a consequence of a policy introduced by the Dutch, which emphasized European-style education with the aim to “train a small native elite to be useful as civil servants in the Dutch colonial system” (Frings 1998, p. 49). 18 See Vu (2007, pp. 41ff.) on how Indonesia’s elites developed under the Japanese. 19 So-called aliran are clusters of nationally based, voluntary social organizations, such

as women’s and youth groups and religious societies with a political party as its nucleus (Geertz 1959, p. 37). Geertz (1959) identified four of such “streams” (see Ufen 2008) sharing a common ideology, i.e., nationalists, communists, modern Moslems, and Orthodox Moslems. During the revolutionary period, we could observe a proliferation of parties, mass associations, and militias, which often stood in conflict with each other for having different visions of an independent Indonesia (Aspinall 2004, p. 64). As a consequence of aliran politics, Indonesian society was highly politicized, even polarized, and mobilized in the 1950s and 1960s. Despite the recent weakening of aliran politics (Ufen 2006), it has had a lasting impact on societal structure and political affiliations (see Suryadinata’s 2002 comparison of the 1955 and 1999 elections).

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colonial rule has led to the mobilization of grassroots movements with a lasting impact on the organization of society and its political relevance. In the Thai tradition and according to official Thai discourse, by contrast, challenging power holders today still means being “un-Thai”. Lacking the disruptive experience of colonial rule and struggle against it, narratives of continuities are prominent in Thai civil and political society and have helped consolidate and preserve authoritarian power. Political competition and checks are seen as going against “unity” and “harmony” (Zackari 2016, p. 88). (How) are these historically grown societal structures and setups translated into protest during regime change? Our empirical analysis suggests that civil society in all three countries was actively involved in protest during regime change. In Thailand and Indonesia, civil society actors were the most active protest actors over the whole transition period: they were responsible for close to half and close to a third of all protests, respectively (Table 6.1). In light of Asian societies’ long tradition of holding a rather non-autonomous and dependent position vis-à-vis the state, this finding may surprise. Perhaps the most curious finding is that civil society in Thailand, a country which lacks the historical experience of mass opposition, was particularly active. It is important to note, though, that most of these protests in Thailand and Indonesia lacked organization; particularly in Thailand, civil society exhibited very low levels of organization and low levels of political orientation (see Tables 6.2 and 6.3). Given the rather varied past development of Korean, Thai, and Indonesian societies, it is interesting to see that civil society actors, organized and non-organized ones, have similar interests and assume similar roles in all the three democratizing countries. Overall, organized civil society actors in all three countries, such as civil society organizations, NGOs, religious leaders, and public intellectuals, were found to be clearly more strategic and more political in their protest behavior than their non-organized counterparts. While not particularly strong, a connection was discernible between the timing of the actions of this actor type and the democratization process (solid line in Fig. 6.1a): organized societal actors intervened at important moments of regime change, but their mobilization was—in comparison with other actors—not particularly high at these moments. Their mobilization increased during the political liberalization period. In Thailand and Indonesia, it would only peak, though, once free elections were introduced.

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Table 6.2 Protest actors during regime change (%): societal and political actors Protest actors

Korea

Thailand

Indonesia

Societal actors • organized • not organized Political actors • organized • not organized All other (rest) Total N

18.3 11.7 6.6 17.7 16.8 0.9 64.0 100.0 1938

46.6 18.3 28.3 8.3 6.8 1.4 45.1 100.0 1053

31.6 18.1 13.5 12.3 7.9 4.4 56.2 100.0 1681

Cramer’s V = 0.17***a , Cramer’s V = 0.22***b (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) a Indicator refers to broad comparison between societal, political actors, and rest; b Indicator refers to detailed comparison Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

Table 6.3 Protest demands during regime change (%): share of regime-related demands by societal and political actors Protest actors

Korea

Societal actors (org.)

49.1 (N = Societal actors (not 41.4 org.) (N = Political actors (org. 71.4 and not org.) (N = All other actors (rest) 49.4 (N = Total 52.7 (N =

226) 128) 343) 1241) 1938)

Thailand

Indonesia

19.7 (N = 18.8 (N = 75.9 (N = 14.5 (N = 21.8 (N =

44.1 (N = 30.8 (N = 56.8 (N = 37.3 (N = 40.0 (N =

193) 298) 87) 475) 1053)

Cramer’s V and p-value 0.24***

304) 0.20*** 227) 0.16*** 206) 0.26*** 944) 0.24*** 1681)

*** = significant at the 0.001 level Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

Organized societal actors were not among the first protesters: other actors were clearly more prominent in the early phases of transition. Based on this finding, it is difficult to argue that this type of actor was at the vanguard in promoting “collective alternatives”, as we would expect from

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Fig. 6.1 a Protests organized by societal actors: organized and non-organized actors (freq.), 1985–2005. b Protests organized by societal actors: organized and non-organized actors (% of total protests), 1985–2005 (Note Vertical solid line: founding elections, vertical dashed lines: start and end of the transition period)

actors holding a leadership role (see arguments presented in Sect. 6.1); rather, organized societal actors seemed to mobilize once public space was already being opened. The increased involvement of this actor type later in the transition process (see also increase over time in relative importance of organized civil society actors in Korea and Thailand (Fig. 6.1b)) may rather be interpreted as part of a diversification process which is often observed at later stages of regime change. A different pattern is observed for societal actors that lack formal organization. In absolute terms (dashed line in Fig. 6.1a), this actor type contributed most significantly to protest action during high mobilization. This is especially true in Indonesia, and also, but to a lesser extent, in Korea, where protest also escalated into a protest cycle. In relative terms

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(dashed line in Fig. 6.1b), the contribution of this actor type over time remained relatively unchanged in Korea and Indonesia, making it difficult to argue that they played an important independent role at one particular point in the transition. Based on the timing of their actions, a connection between non-organized and organized societal actors is also difficult to establish. This is particularly true in Thailand, where the percentage of non-organized actors in protest was important once after democratic rule was introduced and again in the early 2000s. This pattern cannot easily be related to the mobilization of organized societal actors nor to major events in the democratization process. Instead, patterns of mobilization by non-organized societal actors (dashed line in Fig. 6.1a) are best explained in terms of general protest dynamics: their mobilization was highest when the general protest level was highest and low when general mobilization was low. In Korea, protest activity by such individual societal actors peaked at the peak of the protest cycle in 1987 when the country democratized and remained at a slightly elevated level until the early 1990s before it went down again. The pattern was similar in Indonesia: protests organized by non-organized societal actors rose from 1996 on when the general mobilization level jumped to a higher level and started slowly declining once transition was achieved in 1999. In Thailand, mobilization by such individual societal actors was highest in the period of democratic institutionalization and early consolidation (phase between vertical solid line and vertical dashed line to the right in Fig. 6.1a), which was when the general mobilization in this country was highest. As for these individual societal actors, interests were not primarily political. The proportion of their protests directed toward regime-related issues was everywhere clearly lower than the country average (“total”) (see Table 6.3 above on protest goals). This difference in interest in political issues helps make sense of the fact that non-organized protest was not closely related to important steps in regime change. Claims by non-organized societal actors often revolved around questions of their subsistence or to immediate problems protesters encountered in their private or professional life. Political interest was slightly higher among organized actors. It was more pronounced in Korea and Indonesia, with, respectively, close to 50% and close to 45% of protest being on regimerelated themes, than in Thailand. Here, the corresponding number was at close to 20%. This difference in political orientation between organized and non-organized societal actors may help explain to some extent

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why not much correspondence was visible in their actions during transition. This difference becomes more marked for the cases of Thailand and Indonesia when also considering broader regime-related topics, such as mobilization for minority rights or against corruption (not shown here). 6.3.2

Actors from Civil Society: Detailed Composition

Countries differed as to the detailed composition of civil society involved in protest during regime change (Table 6.4), which helps explain crosscountry differences in the overall protest behavior of civil society actors. The picture was most diverse for two sub-types of societal actors: NGOs and religious actors. NGOs were the most important actors among societal organizations in Thailand and Indonesia, but not in Korea. The involvement of religious organizations was similarly varied. Their contribution to opposing the regime was most extensive in Korea, where they were the initiators of almost 5% of all protest. In Indonesia, this number was a little lower (3.6%). In Thailand, the respective number was only around 1%. These findings are in line with comparative studies of civil societies in Asia, which suggest that the composition of civil society can be very diverse and subject to change over time (Alagappa 2004, pp. 464ff.). They would range from apolitical welfare-oriented associations to more Table 6.4 Protest actors during regime change (%): societal actors, detailed Protest actors Organized Civil society organizations (CSOs) Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) Experts/intellectuals Religious organizations Non-organized Individuals All other (rest) Total N

Korea

Thailand

Indonesia

4.1 1.1 1.6 4.9

4.0 9.4 3.9 1.0

5.4 6.8 2.3 3.6

6.6 81.7 100.0 1938

28.3 53.4 100.0 1053

13.5 68.4 100.0 1681

Cramer’s V = 0.22*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

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politically active social groups, such as women’s groups and ethnic associations (see Hewison and Rodan 1996, p. 41). Politically activist NGOs were among the new forces which gained political relevance particularly in Southeast Asian countries in the 1980s and 1990s (see Aspinall 1996, p. 232; Hewison and Rodan 1996, p. 62). Country-specific research also shows that religious communities have been among the politically more active actors in Asian societies. A third of Indonesia’s population has been affiliated with either of the two mass-based Islamic organizations, the Nahdlatul Ulama or the Muhammadiyah (Barton 2006, p. 224). In Korea, religious organizations, in particular Christian churches, became the “principal forum for opposition” by the early 1980s (Huntington 1991, p. 74). By contrast, religious organizations in Thailand have been an integrative and constitutive part of the, for the most time, authoritarian, political regime of the modern Thai state.20 These insights from qualitative research suggest that actors like NGOs or religious organizations have played a role beyond what our analysis of protest data suggests: by their presence and activities, they helped open and secure public space. For example, Christian churches in Korea educated workers (Im 2006, p. 148) and NGOs in Thailand ensured capacity-building of rural people (see Jumbala and Mitprasat 1997). Through such activities, they facilitated and prepared the ground for protest by other actors. The role of churches before and during democratization in Korea was likened to the one in Latin America (see Cumings 1989). They were characterized as a “kind of refuge for other dissident forces” (Choi as cited in Im 2006, p. 136) or “sanctuaries of resistance” (Cumings 2005, p. 376). For Indonesia, Aspinall (1996, p. 234) observed that NGOs with their “ostensibly ‘non-political’ character… offer a form of legality and a limited freedom of movement”, from which other more openly repressed groups could benefit. The expansion and securing of public space against authoritarian state power also has an important international dimension, as these qualitative country-specific studies suggest. In the case of Korea, religious actors’ capacity to organize and mobilize depended heavily on their relations with counterparts in the USA (see Im 2006, pp. 145ff.). A similar

20 Throughout most of the twentieth century, Thailand’s politicians and royals reached out to Buddhist institutions and figures to legitimize their power, but were careful in keeping their political influence to a minimum (Ambuel 2006, pp. 89 and 93).

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tutelary function from abroad was exercised in the case of NGOs in Thailand and Indonesia. In the Indonesian context, Ford (2009, pp. 12–13) attributes the fact that “some highly critical NGOs escaped sanction” to the government’s recognition of “the links between international human rights organisations, domestic NGOs and Indonesia’s diplomatic and trade relations”. The embeddedness of local civil society organizations in transnational networks not only provided them with some protection from repression through their governments, but also with financial resources and ideas useful for the organizations’ further development (for Thailand, see, e.g., Jumbala and Mitprasat 1997, pp. 199–200). The fact that NGOs in Indonesia and, in particular, in Thailand assumed a considerable share in political contention helps explain why goals put forward by societal organizations were generally less political than in Korea and, if political, they were often concerned with questions not directly related to democratization in the narrow sense; these actors’ political interests lay, for example, in representing and empowering the poor and marginalized. The example of Thai and Indonesian NGOs, however, also showed how country-specific the orientation of NGOs can be. They were clearly more political in Indonesia than in Thailand. The cross-country variation in the political orientation of civil society actors can also be related to the varying participation of another type of civil society actor: religious organizations. They exhibited a strong political orientation. They were more active in protest in Korea as compared to the other two countries and, thereby, contributed to the high political orientation of societal protest actors in this country. 6.3.3

Actors from Political Society: Mobilization Potential and Actual Mobilization

A common trait that political societies in East and Southeast Asia share, according to previous research, is their underinstitutionalized party system (Croissant and Völkel 2012; Sachsenröder and Frings 1998); political parties are often weak and do not allow for proper political representation and participation (ibid.). The “‘ideological’ or programme-related standpoints of most of the important or prominent political parties in the region appear, to say the least, unclear. Clear-cut conservative, socialist, social-democratic, green or liberal parties as in the European context, are difficult to find in Asia. The old guard leaders … avoided defining

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their political power base in terms of ideologies or programmes” (Sachsenröder 1998, p. 2). Introducing a comparative survey of party systems in 41 countries, Fukui (1985, p. 10) called the Asian and Pacific area “a generally inhospitable terrain for the development of Western-style political parties and party politics”. A case can be made that the problem of the lack of ideology and “fecklessness”, as well as the factionalization and personalization of the party system, is particularly strong in Thailand (see Kuhonta 2014). For much of the recent Thai history, the country was governed by weak coalitions.21 In the pre-1997 constitutional system, political leaders typically cultivated personal networks at the expense of promoting a clear political agenda and building strong programmatic ties with the citizenry (see, e.g., Hicken 2006, pp. 394 and 401). Also in Korea, the party system has been known as very weak (Wong 2014, pp. 260ff.). In fact, Korean and Thai party systems in a comparison across the region have been found to be the least institutionalized “according to most indicators” (Croissant and Völkel 2010, p. 12): they are “characterized by high volatility, unstable party organizations and weak roots in society”. However, the instability in party organizations in Korea (ahead and after regime change) is matched by a high stability and legitimacy of political opposition leaders, i.e., parties split and merged around them.22 By contrast, Indonesia’s party systems can be counted among the stronger and more stable ones in the region (Croissant and Völkel 2010, p. 12). Strong, mass-based political parties active in parliamentary politics existed early on in the 1950s. During the following authoritarian period, party competition was severely restricted, but a certain continuity in organizational structures and relations to the constituencies could be maintained; the results of the first free elections in 1999 closely resembled those in 1955 (see King 2003). Differently from most Asian countries, Indonesia’s political society and society more generally is clearly structured along ideological lines (see footnote 90 on Indonesian aliran politics). Whereas the authoritarian regimes in Korea and Thailand lacked a strong party (see Croissant and Völkel 2010, p. 8), political opposition 21 For more details on Thai coalition behavior, see e.g. Chambers (2005). 22 The regional background of party leaders is important: the voter–party linkage on

the regional level has been rather stable on the regional level. But the frequent party splits and mergers in Korea results in a high level of electoral volatility. See Croissant and Völkel (2012, p. 12).

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in Indonesia faced a powerful ruling party (Golkar), which was an integral part of the authoritarian power structure. Does protest by political actors during regime change reflect these historically grown country-specific political structures and patterns? Table 6.2 earlier in this chapter showed that overall mobilization by political actors was lowest in Thailand (just above 8%) and highest in Korea (almost 18%). The comparatively low level in Thailand may be traced back to the institutional setting present in the country, i.e., its particularly factionalized and personalized party system.23 However, contrasting the role of political actors in Korea, where organized political actors assumed a powerful position within the opposition movement, with the one in Indonesia, where overall mobilization was more modest, highlights the importance of other context factors. Despite the stability of the Indonesian political system, political actors, such as political parties, were less unified and less organized in their opposition against the authoritarian rule than their Korean counterparts. A possible reason for this is the diversity within Indonesian society, and political society more specifically, which is a factor that is otherwise positively assessed in a democratization context. Like for the civil society actors, our dynamic cross-country analysis shows that political actors are dissimilar in their overall mobilization, but somewhat similar in the timing of their actions and in the claims they make during democratization (Fig. 6.2). The similarities in political actors’ interests across countries are, again, best seen when considering organized and non-organized political actors separately, where possible (in the discussion of protest goals below, however, organized and non-organized actors were considered together because the cases of nonorganized political actors were too few to be analyzed separately). The large majority of political actors in all three democratizing countries were organized. For organized political actors, the evidence presented in Fig. 6.2 suggests that they assumed the political leadership that could be expected based on theoretical considerations. Political organizations were neither the first nor the most numerous protesters, but clearly among the early 23 This argument is particularly strong when we consider that the importance of political actors in the country’s politics substantially increased once the institutional parameters were changed, which only happened after the regime change in 1992 (see discussion section further below).

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Thailand

Korea

Indonesia

400

200 100 0

200 100

Year

Year

Year

Political actors, org. (freq.) Political actors, ind. (cfreq.) Other actor(s), rest (freq.)

Political actors, org. (freq.) Political actors, ind. (cfreq.) Other actor(s), rest (freq.)

2005

1985

2005

2000

1995

1990

0 1985

2005

2000

1995

1990

0

300

2000

100

300

1995

200

Number of protest events

Number of protest events

300

400

1990

a 400

1985

Number of protest events

6

Political actors, org. (freq.) Political actors, ind. (cfreq.) Other actor(s), rest (freq.)

100

2005

2000

1995

1990

1985

2005

2000

1995

1990

1985

Year

20 0

0

Political actors, org. (cum. %) Political actors, ind. (cum. %) Other actor(s), rest (cum. %)

40

Year Political actors, org. (cum. %) Political actors, ind. (cum. %) Other actor(s), rest (cum. %)

2005

0

20

60

2000

20

40

80

1995

40

60

1990

60

80

1985

80

Number of protest events

100 Number of protest events

Percent of total protest

b 100

Year Political actors, org. (cum. %) Political actors, ind. (cum. %) Other actor(s), rest (cum. %)

Fig. 6.2 a Protests organized by political actors: organized and non-organized actors (freq.), 1985–2005. b Protests organized by political actors: organized and non-organized actors (% of total protests), 1985–2005 (Note Vertical solid line: founding elections, vertical dashed lines: start and end of the transition period)

organized ones and helped push the protest into a full protest cycle. We can discern an association between their protest activities and the democratization process. In Korea and Indonesia, protest by organized political actors peaked during the political liberalization period ahead of regime change and slowly declined afterward (solid line in Fig. 6.2a). In Thailand, where protests by political actors were fewer in numbers, organized political actors also mobilized more strongly than usual during key moments of the political transition, namely in 1992 when the country democratized, in 1994 when political pressure built up to reform the

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political system and to amend the constitution (Jumbala 1998),24 and in 1997 when the new constitution was adopted. Once initial consolidation was achieved (vertical dashed line to the right), mobilization by political organizations settled again at very low levels. Political actors’ strong interest in political topics explains the close link between the timing of their protest activities and the transition process. Organized political actors were even more political than their followers, i.e., the less organized political actors (not shown here). The goals that actors promoted when engaging in protest are presented in Table 6.3 above. Among others, we observe a strong engagement of political actors in issues related to the political regime. In Korea and Thailand, political actors mobilized in more than 70% of the cases for regime-related goals. This tendency is clearer than in Indonesia, where the corresponding number was (more than) 14 percentage points lower. In Indonesia, nonorganized political protesters assumed a larger part in protest mobilization than in the other two countries and diverted the focus somewhat away from these core political issues. Protests by individual political protesters, i.e., those with no formal party affiliation or membership, were not very important in terms of numbers. However, they were most interesting in terms of their timing (dashed line in Fig. 6.2). Actions by non-organized political actors took place only at defined moments that were critical to the political transition process. They coincided with increased protest activity by organized political actors. They followed the latter’s lead and thereby compounded their impact. Illustrative of this kind of protest and the dynamics vis-à-vis actions by organized political actors is the contention in Indonesia ahead of the general elections in 1997, when individuals heavily engaged in protest to support opposition leaders who faced heavy repression.25 The majority of this sort of spontaneous, non-organized political protest event

24 More specifically, see Prudhisan Jumbala’s (1998) section on “Movement for Political Reform”. 25 Megawati Sukarnoputri, one of the key leaders, was ousted from her position as

head of the PDI Party in 1996 and excluded from formal politics. Heavy repressions were imposed on opposition forces (Human Rights Watch/Asia and Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights 1996). In response, Megawati and other opponents led organized protests, but non-organized supporters substantially contributed to these contentious activities (see Eklöf 2003, pp. 278ff.).

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took the form of rallies supporting or opposing individual politicians and also played a role once the democratic system was in place.26 6.3.4

Actors from Political Society: Detailed Composition

Breaking down the category of political actors into detailed sub-groups (Table 6.5) is useful as it reveals a key actor in political contention in Korea. In Korea, organized political actors were more strongly involved in protest mobilization than in the other two countries. While the numbers in the other sub-categories were relatively similar across countries, the category of “opposition parties in parliament” stood out in Korea. Over 13% of total protest was organized by formal opposition parties. In Thailand and Indonesia, the corresponding number was (below) 2%. Given the variation in the composition of this actor type, the detailed analysis confirms that political actors in the three countries were surprisingly similar with regard to protest goals they put forward during the transition to democratic rule (not shown here). In this sense, actors’ composition was not relevant for the general orientation of political actors in the countries. There was one exception: demands tended to be more extreme for extra-parliamentary opponents in that they more often questioned the stateness of their country, which was relevant in Korea and Indonesia.

26 This can be understood in light of the argument in the democratization literature that opposition groups who join forces in their efforts against the authoritarian regime need to split up in the course of the transition process in order for political competition and thereby democracy to emerge and establish itself (Bos 1996, p. 98; Przeworski 1992, p. 124). Much of politics in the post-transition period in Korea was, for example, influenced by the political competition of former allies and opposition leaders Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung and their supporters (Kim 2011, pp. 30–34). In Korea, Kim Youngsam and Kim Dae-jung had been two key leaders of the opposition movement against the authoritarian regime. In 1990, Kim Young-sam allied himself with the conservative ruling camp to improve his chances of winning the presidential elections in December 1992 (Kim 2011, pp. 34–39), which sparked protest by political actors, including individuals. In Indonesia, it was the mobilization of supporters and opponents of opposition leaders-turned-presidents Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Sukarnoputri that reflected the power struggle of elite actors typical of transition processes.

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Table 6.5 Protest actors during regime change (%): political actors, detailed Protest actors

Korea

Thailand

Indonesia

Opposition within ruling parties Opposition in parliament Other formal political actorsa Extra-parliamentary opposition parties Dissidents Pro-democracy activists Ethno-political actors Supporters/opponents of individual politicians All other (rest) Total N

0.4 13.7 0.3 0.1 2.6 0.4 0.0 0.3 82.3 100.0 1938

0.1 1.4 1.7 0.0 0.1 4.0 0.4 0.6 91.7 100.0 1053

0.8 2.0 1.2 3.5 0.7 0.3 1.5 2.3 87.8 100.0 1681

Cramer’s V = 0.25*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) a Other formal political actors include parties (general, not specified) and politicians Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

6.3.5

Actors from Civil and Political Society as Coalition-Builders

As potential opposition leaders, societal and political organizations’ role in protest during regime change should not only be assessed in terms of their direct participation, but also in terms of the support they provide to the mobilization of other actors. Results for all three countries are similar: societal and political organizations were key actors in coalition-building, with few differences across countries (Tables 6.6a, 6.6b, 6.6c). While the proportion of protests in which more than one actor type participated— which is how “coalition” was defined in the coding process—lay between 8.6 and 10.6% (see the last column), the ratio was as high as between 12.5 and 29.6% when political organizations were present. The corresponding share for societal organizations was even higher, i.e., between 22.6 and 28.3%. Coalitions were most common in Thailand and least in Korea. Interestingly, coalitions between societal and political organizations were very rare, i.e., around 1% or even lower. This suggests that they substituted each other in the role of coalition-builders. The case is different if we consider cooperation efforts in terms of campaign-building (also shown in Tables 6.6a, 6.6b, 6.6c). Campaigns were defined as series of events that can be organized by one single actor type or various ones; several events can be held simultaneously or at

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Table 6.6a Cooperation during regime change (%): societal and political actors in Korea

155

Protest cooperation

Societal organizations

Political organizations

Total

Coalition

22.6 (V = 0.20***)a 47.2 (V = 0.06*)a

12.5 (V = 0.06*)a

8.6

36.8 (V = −0.03, p = 0.177)a 345

40.0

Campaign

Total N

265

1938

a V stands for Cramer’s V , p for p-value; *** = significant at the

0.001 level; * = significant at the 0.05 level Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

Table 6.6b Cooperation during regime change (%): societal and political actors in Thailand

Protest cooperation

Societal organizations

Political organizations

Total

Coalition

28.3 (V = 0.31***)a 26.6 (V = −0.04, p = 0.238)a 233

29.6 (V = 0.19***)a 35.2 (V = 0.04, p = 0.238)a 88

10.6

Campaign

Total N

29.7

1053

a V stands for Cramer’s V , p for p-value; *** = significant at the

0.001 level; * = significant at the 0.05 level Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

Table 6.6c Cooperation during regime change (%): societal and political actors in Indonesia

Protest cooperation

Societal organizations

Political organizations

Total

Coalition

27.1 (V = 0.31***)a 27.3 (V = − 0.09***)a 366

19.6 (V = 0.11***)a 27.7 (V = −0.05*)a

9.6

148

1681

Campaign

Total N

35.6

a V stands for Cramer’s V , p for p-value; *** = significant at the

0.001 level; * = significant at the 0.05 level Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

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different points in time. Table Tables 6.6a, 6.6b, 6.6c shows that societal and political organizations are not necessarily more likely to engage in cooperation than other actor types, although in Korea societal organizations would engage in campaigns more regularly than on average and the same can be said about political organizations in Thailand. While such demonstrations of power on the side of protesters are considered to be challenging to the authoritarian regime, the joining of forces by different types of actors, as measured by our coalition variable, where several different actor types participate in one common event, seems even more threatening. The joining of forces, as happens in coalitions during regime protest, constitutes an important step in organizing a common oppositional front and creating “collective alternatives” under authoritarian rule (see Przeworski 1986, pp. 52–53; 1992, p. 107). Only actors with the required organizational capacities and leadership qualities will be able to bring different actors together under the extreme conditions protesters face during regime change. It is no coincidence that the longest-lasting protests covered in our dataset were organized by coalitions under the leadership of NGOs and civil society organizations. These actor types were responsible for the protests in Thailand toward the end of the 1990s extending over several weeks or months. They were also responsible for the protests in Korea in the first half of the 2000s with particularly high participation rates, such as the ones against the presence of US troops on Korean soil. If successful, these actors can emerge as new national leaders and assert themselves as such by establishing a long-term relationship with the broad masses.

6.4 Discussing the Role of Elites and Masses in Indonesian, South Korean, and Thai Transitions The starting point of the analysis in this chapter was the idea that societal and political organizations are actors that may become leaders in the new democratic system and that they would assume a corresponding role in the protest arena ahead of regime change. In light of the question whether this idea finds support in the countries under study, this section puts the various findings presented in the results section into a bigger perspective. The discussion is carried out by country and combines the findings of this chapter with insights from case study-oriented research conducted by country experts. For each country, four specific questions are addressed.

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First, who were the oppositional elite actors in the countries during the transition process? Second, did they (and if yes, how and when) use the protest arena to position themselves? Third, what are the linkages between these elite actors and the masses? Fourth, how political were they in their actions? The information on civil societies below is primarily based on qualitative comparative research, such as found in Alagappa (2004) and Rodan (1996). Generally, the literature on Southeast and East Asian politics, including studies on civil societies, is mostly composed of qualitative single-case, in-depth studies, as well as of comparative volumes (see Weiss 2008, p. 148). The study of political societies in Asian countries also often takes the form of qualitative single-case or comparative studies with some being more quantitatively orientated. Differently from comparative works on electoral systems, comparative research on party systems as well as on individual political parties and leaders in East and Southeast Asia are still few in number, but considered to be particularly valuable in the context of this study (see references below). 6.4.1

South Korea: Politics-Oriented Opposition with Strong Involvement in Protest Mobilization

The main opposition leaders during Korea’s democratization process were politicians within the parliamentary opposition. They were the ones who negotiated the transition process with the ruling elite (Croissant and Merkel 2010, pp. 273ff.). The most prominent among them was Kim Dae-jung (Kim 2008). He was first a dissident politician (1972–1987), then leader of the opposition party (1987–1997), before he became president (1998–2003) (ibid., p. 215). Under authoritarian rule, political opposition in Korea was harshly repressed, but at the same time tolerated to a certain extent even in parliament. Kim Dae-jung started his career in parliament in the 1960s, but during his dissident years he “experienced more than one assassination attempt, one death sentence, six years of imprisonment, and ten years of exile and house arrest” (ibid.). When political liberalization started, his position as opposition leader was well established. The protest arena was a main channel through which the oppositional elite articulated their interests and promoted their positions. After their success in the 1985 elections, which shocked the regime, parliamentarians from the newly established opposition party, such as Kim Dae-jung,

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started to call for a constitutional revision that would include direct election of the president (Kim 2008, pp. 225 and 235). Since the system in place favored the regime, it was reticent to engage in talks. Only after the opposition party launched a nation-wide campaign for constitutional revision in early 1986, where moderate forms of protest were accompanied by more violent ones, did President Chun agree to form a special parliamentary committee on the subject. The negotiations of the committee dragged on until April 1987 when the process was suspended by Chun. Again, the masses mobilized. Protest was a major strategy of opposition leaders especially at moments when direct negotiations with the regime broke down (Saxer 2002, pp. 54–61). The strong mobilization initiated by organized political actors during 1986 and 1987 was captured in our data. In the qualitative studies cited here, we find the tendency to portray elite actors as being in a position to mobilize the masses at their discretion. The findings of this chapter and Chapter 4 suggest a more faceted view of the linkages between elites and masses. While organized political actors were quick at mobilizing, they were preceded by less organized actors, such as students (see the next chapter). While the latter did join forces with political leaders at critical moments of the transition, they had their own issues around which they mobilized, such as their protest against conscription. Rather than the one-sided effort by political elites to mobilize mass actors, the cooperative efforts between different actor types should be highlighted. Adesnik and Kim (2013, p. 272) suggest that earlier alignments between opposition forces were not successful in Korea because they lacked links between mass actors, such as student groups and labor unions, and elite actors, such as opposition parties in parliament. While the question of who was in the vanguard of protest in democratizing Korea, namely opposition politicians or students, may be differently assessed, opposition politicians decisively shaped the overall orientation of protest. The results of this chapter have shown that protest in Korea was the most political in our cross-country comparison. The analysis of protest goals has been revealing in this regard. When talks about the constitutional revision, led by the oppositional elite, were threatened, actors who were not primarily political would also get active. In May 1987, university professors started a public statement campaign. Artists would join the protest against the halt of the constitutional talks. Religious leaders and protesters waged a series of hunger strikes on this topic and students,

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labor unions, and other civil society groups launched violent protests on this issue (Kim 2002, p. 96). Thus, qualitative research supports our finding that organized political actors had a leading role in protest politics. Other actors, such as societal organizations, followed them in their actions and claims. While their role, as compared to political organizations’ role, was not as prominent in terms of open protest action, qualitative studies attribute societal organizations in Korea, more specifically Christian churches, a key role in facilitating protest by engaging in capacity-building of potential protesters, such as workers, and by providing shelter for democracy activists (see also Sect. 6.3). They contributed significantly to building up broad anti-authoritarian networks (Im 2006, pp. 144–149). This goes well with our finding on societal organizations’ outstanding capacity to build coalitions. At the same time, qualitative studies, such as the one by Adesnik and Kim (2013) cited above, also illustrate another result of this chapter, namely that the oppositional elite depended heavily on non-elite actors, such as students and workers, who reached out to them and were quicker at mobilizing early in the transition process. 6.4.2

Thailand: Apolitical Opposition and a Limited Role to Protest Politics

In an edited volume on dissident democratic leaders in Asian countries, Thaksin Shinawatra was portrayed as the dissident leader who had challenged the authoritarian regime (see Kane et al. 200827 ). This choice might surprise as Thaksin himself is known more for his authoritarian tendencies, through which he weakened the new democracy during his prime ministership between 2001 and 2006. Moreover, his political activism was most salient only after major democratic milestones had been achieved. However, Thitinan Pongsudhirak (2008, p. 68) correctly points out that “Thaksin and his cohorts engaged in a struggle to transform Thailand’s sociopolitical order, taking to task the old conservative elite that had dominated Thai politics for decades”. He was the first oppositional and then ruling leader whose power base lay outside the traditional power structure: his coalition consisted of the new business groups,

27 The title of the edited volume is “Dissident Democrats: The Challenge of Democratic Leadership in Asia”.

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provincial patronage networks, and former left-wing student leaders from the 1970s (ibid.). As emerging leader, Thaksin focused on the electoral arena, rather than on the protest arena.28 Nevertheless, the high level of mobilization during the democratization process, as captured in our analysis, is important to understand his rise to power and the further political development in Thailand. Thaksin reached out to actors and ideas present in the protest arena to build a broad power base and to formulate a political program that would eventually allow him to win the elections in 2001. Under the platform of the Thai Rak Thai Party, he allied with civil society actors, such as the Assembly of the Poor29 and the Rural Doctors30 (whose activities are shown in our data as mobilization by organized societal actors). He promoted their issues, such as health and welfare issues or human rights. The alliances did not hold and certain topics were dropped again. Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai managed, however, to widely politicize people at the grassroots level and to establish a stable political constituency (Pitch 2010).31 The results of this chapter have shown that protest in Thailand has been by far the least political in the cross-country comparison both in terms of participating protest actors and protest goals. Until the 1980s, it was the Left and labor organizations who had been the central actors in the opposition against authoritarian rule (Hewison 1996, p. 83). In the 1980s and 1990s, the opposition grew more diverse. Among the new, previously “disenfranchised” actors we find NGOs cooperating with farmers and environmental groups (ibid., p. 81; Jumbala and Mitprasat 1997). Thai NGOs assumed a leading and coordinating role in the actions that led to the introduction of democratic rule in 1992 (Hewison and Rodan 1996, p. 63). The growth of public space and parliamentary politics from the mid-1980s through the 1990s thus cannot be easily related to the strength of political actors (see Hewison 1996, p. 80).

28 For an interesting account of how institutional changes introduced by the 1997 constitution helped Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai to rise to (and stay in) power, see Hicken (2006). 29 See Baker (2000). 30 See Bamber (1997). 31 Pitch Pongsawat (Faculty member at Chulalongkorn University), personal communication, July 16, 2010.

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While the involvement of these organized societal actors can be positively assessed and can also compensate to a certain extent for the lack of action by political actors as established in our analysis, it also has its limits. The role of societal organizations, while valuable for opening the public space, does not substitute political leadership. The analysis has shown that they did not mobilize early in mobilization and that demands, if they were political, concerned non-core topics of democratization. In important ways, the Thai opposition during regime change resembled the one in Poland (on Poland see Linz and Stepan 1996, pp. 270–275). Civil society in the latter was well-organized and mobilized, but they took an apolitical stance and made the political discourse revolve around morals, rather than about politics. This feature of Thai politics is still dominant today. For a long time, discussions on how the political system should look in the future and how institutional solutions may help overcome the current deadlock have been quasi-absent in Thai mainstream political discourse. 6.4.3

Indonesia: Diversity in Opposition with a Key Role to Non-Elite Actors

Opposition leaders in Indonesia came from the civil society as well as from the political society. Abdurrahman Wahid, Megawati Sukarnoputri, and Amien Rais were the main opposition figures in the late years of Suharto’s authoritarian regime (Aspinall 2005, Chapter 8). They had established their position as oppositional, or at least semi-oppositional, elite actors over time. Abdurrahman and Amien were the leaders of the two massbased Islamic organizations the Nahdlatul Ulama and the Muhammadiyah with an estimated membership of forty and thirty million people, respectively (Barton 2006, p. 224). Toward the end of the 1980s and in the 1990s, Abdurrahman emerged as one of the most influential critics of the Suharto regime (see ibid., 224). Amien joined him toward the end of the 1990s in his efforts to push for political reform. In 1999, Abdurrahman became the first president in the democratic era representing the opposition camp (Subianto 2008, pp. 165ff.). All three oppositional figures had their own broad power base, which preceded regime change and endured it. Megawati’s power base was located in the political sphere. The eldest daughter of Indonesia’s popular former president Sukarno entered politics in the mid-1980s. She was elected to the parliament as a member of one of two opposition parties

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tolerated in parliament, namely the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). This party could be considered as the successor of the Indonesian Nationalist Party, which was closely associated with Sukarno (Eklöf 1999, pp. 25–28).32 As described in Sect. 2.2.2, Megawati got elected as chairwoman of the PDI in 1993, which triggered an intervention by the authoritarian regime. The heightened protest activity by organized and non-organized political actors in Indonesia ahead of regime change, as shown in our data, can be traced back to the struggle of Megawati and her supporters against repression and discrimination by the regime. Megawati was Indonesia’s president between 2001 and 2004. Opposition leaders’ engagement in the protest arena was very cautious. As chief victim of Suharto’s repressive politics, Megawati would have been the “obvious choice as symbolic leader of opposition” (Aspinall 2005, p. 215). However, Megawati was unwilling to mobilize her mass base and reluctant to intervene in wider politics beyond party matters (ibid., pp. 216–218). She rather used the electoral arena in opposing Suharto by running for presidency in 1998, along with Amien Rais. Abdurrahman remained publicly reconciled with Suharto and appealed for an end to protests until Suharto stepped down in May 1998 (ibid., pp. 214 and 234). From late 1997 on, the role of main opposition figure was taken by Amien (ibid., p. 216). In interaction with the mobilization of mass actors, his actions decisively shaped the protest dynamics that led to Suharto’s fall. But he, too, would soften his stance at moments when changes in the political system seemed unlikely (Mietzner 2009, pp. 159–160). Activism by non-elite actors were key in getting oppositional elite actors involved and pushing for substantial political debate. This is a finding we could establish based on our time-sensitive analysis. The question of opposition leadership was urgent when the oppositional mood spread in early 1998. Numerous smaller groups were prepared to challenge the authoritarian regime, but leaders with a national profile were missing (Aspinall 2005, p. 214). Since elite opposition was weak, indecisive, and incapable of united action, it was student protest that, in the end, broke the deadlock (ibid., pp. 218–221). It was also students from radical circles, associated with the dissident People’s Democratic Party (PRD33 ), 32 Megawati’s popularity was mainly derived “from her name and from the notion among her supporters that she represented the ideas and the charisma of her late father”, the national hero who had led Indonesia’s independence struggle (Eklöf 1999, p. 25). 33 PRD is short for Partai Rakyat Demokrasi.

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that made the most far-reaching political demands throughout the transition process, such as the abrogation of the dual function by the military (see ibid., p. 227). Elite actors, by contrast, resonating with the widening calls from actors such as organized societal actors like NGOs, only focused on the removal of Suharto in his position as president. Megawati in particular continuously stressed constitutionalism (ibid., pp. 213–217). Our analysis has shown that social organizations, such as NGOs, had a role to play in mobilization during regime change in Indonesia even if they were not at the vanguard of contentious politics. While some scholars raise doubts about NGOs’ activities, pointing, for example, to problems of co-optation by governments, the political potential of these “voluntary and non-profit-making associations with development-oriented goals” (Hewison and Rodan 1996, p. 62) has often been positively assessed (see also Eldridge 1995; Hadiwinata 2003). Like in Korea, societal organizations in Indonesia mainly contributed to the promotion of democracy by opening up the public space for other actors (see Sect. 6.3). Their presence facilitated an active associational life, which in turn has had a positive effect on the country’s democratization process (Lussier and Fish 2012).

6.5

Conclusion

Studying protest actors during regime change is important, since it is during this period that new political leaders emerge and new constituencies build up. In addition, it helps make sense of the findings in the previous chapters: Who are the spontaneously organized protesters who dominated early during transition and at the peak of democratization protests (Chapter 4)? Who are their organized counterparts? Who is behind the political regime-related claims that were made at critical moments of the democratization process (Chapter 5)? The assumption taken in this study is that during this period of fundamental change, emerging leaders will try and position themselves in the protest arena. The question of who these new leaders are and where they come from is key to understanding the transition process and the ensuing consolidation. For the analysis of protest actors, insights from democratization studies were used as a theoretical basis. Within this literature, various approaches exist, with some being more valuable than others in the context of the present study (see also next chapter). The topic of political leadership is most directly addressed in actor-centered democratization studies. This approach, however, provides little guidance either in prospectively identifying leaders or their constituencies. Therefore, we drew on studies by

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democratization scholars who focus on civil and political society as a realm where alternative independent organization and leadership can emerge: this chapter assesses the potential of civil and political society actors in counter-balancing and building opposition against authoritarian rule. Political organizations, and in particular political opposition parties, have been identified as key protest actors in democratizing Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia. They were important drivers for change. This was established based on the timing of their actions vis-à-vis the transition process, intervening at critical moments, as well as in terms of the content around which they mobilized: in all three countries, political organizations had a clear political orientation, primarily mobilizing for regime-related issues, i.e., directly targeting the authoritarian regime. While preceded by more spontaneous forms of protest, political organizations were among the early protest actors with formal organizational structures and the corresponding capacity to mobilize. They helped push the protest to critical levels in Korea and Indonesia. Overall, the observed actions and interests of political actors conform well to theoretical arguments that attribute to them a leading, autonomous role in regime change, and do not see them as “passive agents” of their socioeconomic interests (Capoccia and Ziblatt 2010, p. 946). Compared to other actors, civil society actors’ overall mobilization in democratizing Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia was rather modest, but still important. Societal actors, such as religious actors, intellectuals, NGOs, and civil society organizations, became more active at later stages of the transition process, i.e., once free elections were introduced. They, thus, did not lead the transition process. They showed an interest in regimerelated topics, but the extent of this interest varied. Societal organizations were clearly most political in Korea, often raising demands directly challenging the existing power holders (e.g., by asking them to step down). They were least political in Thailand; here, the level of regime-threatening demands was comparatively low. Our analysis, which was combined with qualitative research, reveals that civil society actors’ main contribution during the transition process does not necessarily lie in their direct protest involvement. They also play a less visible facilitating role. NGOs and religious organizations are among those actors who, while often accommodating the authoritarian state, empower other actors by providing them room to organize and mobilize and offering them cooperation possibilities. Our analysis has shown that they were particularly active in building coalitions with other actors.

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Moreover, qualitative research showed that through their embeddedness in transnational networks, civil society organizations, like churches or NGOs, were often able to maintain some autonomous position vis-à-vis the authoritarian state; their international ties would put restrictions to interventions by the state from which other actors could also benefit. This chapter or more generally the analysis of protest actors, which will be continued in the next chapter, reveals a major weakness of Thailand’s opposition and its role in the transition, namely its high proportion of protests conducted by non-organized protest actors. More specifically, protest mobilization in Thailand consisted in substantial parts of protest by civil society actors with no organizational structure. This type of protest has been found to be largely apolitical and of limited relevance to the overall protest dynamics even when protest was organized early on in the transition process and, at times, reached high levels. As a consequence of this lack of organization and political orientation, protest is less targeted and less sustained, and, as a consequence, less challenging from the view of authoritarian rulers. This suggests that the quality of protest matters as much as the intensity of protest. In other words, it is the composition of protest actors that decisively shapes the dynamics of a transition process. This results from the fact that the content as well as the timing of mobilization are closely linked to the type of protest actor, as was shown in this chapter.

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CHAPTER 7

Rise of the Previously Excluded Classes? Mobilization and Organization of Workers, Farmers, and Students During Regime Change

Scholars in the structural tradition of democratization research suggest that political change toward democracy is a consequence of changes in countries’ socioeconomic structure. Depending on the variant of the argument, regime change can be understood as an expression of the increasing role of either the middle class or of the previously subordinate classes, such as workers and farmers. The concepts and arguments developed by scholars in this specific research strand help us define the general mobilization potential of different socioeconomic segments of society under authoritarian rule. More specifically, they allow us to identify broad pro-democracy forces within a society. The perspective of these scholars who mobilizes during regime change is both theoretically broader and at the same time more precise than perspectives previously considered in this book (see Chapter 6): the focus is not on institutionally or politically constituted actors, such as civil society actors, but on actors with given socioeconomic identities and corresponding interests. This chapter aims at evaluating the importance of structural conditions in explaining protest mobilization during democratic transition. More specifically, the interest lies in assessing the mobilization potential of actors in a country based on their socioeconomic position and in studying how actual mobilization develops relative to the identified potential. Drawing on the arguments from structuralist democratization research,

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it is hypothesized that similarities and differences in countries’ socioeconomic development and structure are reflected in the protests observed in these countries, more specifically in the composition of actors, the timing of their actions, and their goals. While an actor’s pro-democratic position is expected to be translated into political action in the form of protest during regime change, insights of social movement research on actors’ organizational strength are considered to take into account that this translation is not always automatic. The comparison of Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia offers perfect ground for an examination of how actors in different socioeconomic positions, such as workers, farmers, and representatives of the middle class, such as students, engage in contention during regime change. The analysis in this chapter highlights the key role played by students. The timing of their actions and the goals they promoted (most of which directly bear on regime-related questions) suggest that they contributed significantly to the popular push toward democracy in their countries. Cross-country variation existed, however, with regard to students’ overall involvement in protest, which was high in Korea and Indonesia and only modest in Thailand. Both structural and organizational factors have proven to be useful in explaining protest activities by different actor types, including, respectively, the high mobilization by workers in Korea and the extensive protest activities by farmers in Thailand. Compared to students, workers and farmers in all three countries have been found to have narrower interests and to be less inclined to engage in cooperation with other actors.

7.1 7.1.1

Structural Democratization Theories Put to Test

Actors Defined in Socioeconomic Terms and Their Position Toward Democracy

As the previous chapter has shown, democratization studies provide interesting insights as to the question of who mobilizes, i.e., what actors and actor groups engage in political protest. Among the two major theoretical perspectives in the democratization literature that have been presented in this book, one favors structure over agency and the other agency over structure. In the last chapter, we borrowed from the latter. This chapter, by contrast, draws on insights from the structuralist approach. Two main variants of structural theories are considered here: modernization theory

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and class-based theories. Both were developed in a sociological tradition, where research interest lies in macro-level events and developments (Merkel 2010, p. 67). While actors and their actions in such a perspective are usually regarded as determined by structure, they still constitute an important element in the theoretical arguments. The presentation of the theories below focuses on the actors which they define as central, as well as their interests. Early democratization scholars in the 1950s and 1960s tackled the question of regime change from a functionalist angle (Merkel 2010, pp. 67ff.). In their perspective, a country’s political development is understood as a consequence of its socioeconomic development. Lipset (1959, p. 75), who has famously theorized this relationship in what is commonly known as the modernization theory, argues that “the more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy”. He identifies a number of intermediary variables, all of which are considered to be conducive to democracy, that link countries’ socioeconomic conditions to their political system. These variables are seen as aspects of a more general modernization process. Among them, he counts large-scale processes, such as industrialization, urbanization, wealth accumulation, and education (ibid., pp. 75–85). According to Lipset, these interdependent processes lead to an open-class system with a new role to be played by the middle class (see Wucherpfennig and Deutsch 2009). A strong case for the middle class as a key actor in democratization has not only been made in modernization theory literature, but also in early studies by scholars in a (socio-)structuralist tradition, like Barrington Moore (1966). These studies highlight the importance of societal structure and the power of different social classes within it. Whereas in Lipset (1959, 1960) a certain automatism is suggested that leads from socioeconomic to political change, Moore’s (1966) comparative historical study depicts liberal democracy as only one possible outcome among others such as fascist or communist dictatorships. He argues that the outcome depends on changes in power relations between social classes, such as the bourgeoisie, large landowners, peasants, and workers, and their capacity to push their interests. According to Moore, the presence of a powerful, independent bourgeoisie is a necessary condition for a democracy to emerge (“No bourgeoisie, no democracy”) (Merkel 2010, p. 76). More recent evidence in support of Moore’s socio-structural argument is provided by Rueschemeyer et al. (1992), who use the same

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social classes as analytical categories, but weigh their respective importance differently. The authors compare the political development of a large set of countries within and across several world regions. Aiming to explain the association between capitalism and democracy, they argue that “(c)apitalist development affects the chances of democracy primarily because it transforms the class structure and changes the balance of power between classes” (p. 47). It renders pro-democratic subordinate classes, such as the working class, stronger and anti-democratic upper classes, namely large landowners, weaker (pp. 271–272). For them, the primary agent of democratization is not the bourgeoisie, but the working class. The middle class has been found to play some role in the development of democracy, but an ambiguous one (p. 272). A varied role, sometimes in favor, sometimes against democracy, has also been attributed to peasants and rural workers (pp. 272–273).1 Within the structuralist tradition in democratization theory, as we have seen here, a number of mass actors have been identified by different scholars that play a potentially pro-democratic role. The middle class, workers, and peasants are, under certain circumstances, among those actors who can be expected to be in favor of democracy. The theories presented above primarily aim at explaining large-scale processes and interdependencies of macro-level events. Particularly Lipset’s (1959, 1960) analysis makes only vague reference to micro-level mechanisms and individual action.2 Moore (1966) and Rueschemeyer et al. (1992) are more specific and precise than Lipset in defining relevant actor groups, their interests, their relationships, and the conflict potential between them. However, explaining political action and more specifically protest mobilization is not their main concern either. Nevertheless, these theories provide interesting insights and a starting point for formulating hypotheses with regard to who, i.e., what social groups, can be expected to mobilize during democratic transition.

1 Especially small independent family farmers were attributed a pro-democratic role. This role depended on the extent to which they were capable of collectively organizing and acting independently of the influence of dominant classes, such as large landlords (see Rueschemeyer et al. 1992, p. 8 and pp. 272–273). 2 Lipset’s (1959) argument is about how norms and values are changed by socioeconomic development and how this, in turn, positively affects the political system. The middle class assumes a mitigating role favoring moderate and democratic parties and discarding extremist groups (p. 83).

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Actors Defined in Socioeconomic Terms and Their Mobilization Potential During Regime Change

Resorting to democratization theory to explain who engages in protest mobilization during regime change, as we do here, only makes sense if we expect that actors with a pro-democracy attitude are actually important in protest mobilization during transition. This is the general, underlying argument of this chapter which is to be tested in the empirical part below. To what extent do the above-mentioned democratization theories help explain who engages in protest? Does protest mobilization reflect the rise of the subordinate classes, such as workers and small peasants? Or is it an expression of the increasing political role of the middle class? Engaging in protest is only one way to push for one’s political interests. It has been argued earlier, however, that during democratic transition, where electoral politics is strongly restricted, the protest arena is assumed to be a representative reflection of political conflict and interest mediation in a country. Who participates in protest? The theoretical strands presented in the section above are not contradictory in every aspect, but clearly differ in their view of who the main actors are that make regime change possible. On the one hand, we have Lipset (1959, 1960) and Moore (1966), who share the idea that a new owning class, i.e., the middle class (or bourgeoisie), plays the central role in democratization. On the other, we have Rueschemeyer et al. (1992), according to whom the subordinate classes, i.e., workers and sometimes small peasants, are the main driving force behind democratization. Two different hypotheses can be derived for actors’ participation in political action during regime change. Based on Lipset and Moore, we can expect to see the middle class as the key actor in protest mobilization during democratization. By contrast, based on Rueschemeyer et al., we would expect to see broad protest participation by workers and small peasants. If actors defined in socioeconomic terms engage in protest as we expect, what do they ask for? Central to the concept of democracy in Rueschemeyer et al. (1992), who are the most explicit in this regard, is “the extent of the suffrage, and in particular the extent to which the right to vote transcends class boundaries” (p. 44). As pro-democratic forces, middle-class actors, workers, and small peasants are thus expected to make demands for regime change. In the present analysis, these would include goals that we have earlier defined as regime-related, i.e., general

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demands for democratization, demands for improved civil liberties, such as the right of assembly, and political rights, such as free and fair elections. However, the expectation that pro-democratic forces are going to ask for an expansion of suffrage may not be equally valid in all contexts. Countries exist where general suffrage was introduced early on, but that still have continued to be authoritarian. In these countries, political participation is formally granted to all actors, but de facto impediments to democracy exist. What do actors in a context like this ask for? Are their demands related to democratization, and if so, how? In Rueschemeyer et al.’s (1992) logic “democracy means nothing if not a share of political power controlled by the many” (p. 44). If formal political power-sharing in the form of general suffrage does not take place, actors could continue to push for political concessions toward the de facto implementation of general suffrage, or they might try to raise their influence in other spheres, such as the economy. A pro-democratic attitude does not automatically translate into protest action. While social movement research in general is not apt at identifying what types of actor or segments of society are likely to mobilize, it does identify the specific conditions under which we can expect to see protest mobilization by a given actor. The actor groups defined as relevant in this chapter are all relatively new in the sense that they are the result of modernization processes, in particular of the industrialization process. Questions of identity construction and framing (e.g., Snow 2004), the topic of one of the main social movement subfields, would be interesting to explore, but are not within the scope of this analysis. For the moment, we also assume that political opportunities during regime change are the same for all actors. Here, the focus is on a third set of factors considered in the literature on which the mobilization of actors depends, i.e., factors related to organization and networks. Protest requires organization. Knowing whether actors are organized or not, whether they cooperate with others or not is important in order to understand the “why” and “why not” of mobilization (see, e.g., McCarthy and Zald 1977). As has been discussed in detail in Chapter 4, the literature is indecisive about the role of organization on a protest actor’s capacity for contention (Tarrow 2011, pp. 123–124): some argue that the strength lies in organization, others think organization limits the power of disruption. In an authoritarian context, in the presence of heavy repression, the question of how much organization is needed to

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raise protest and put pressure on the government is particularly interesting, as we have seen. Based on the literature, either expectation can be formulated, i.e., that organization facilitates or hinders (successful) mobilization. Importantly, organization of actors may vary across actors (Tarrow 2011, pp. 123–124) and changes over time (see, e.g., Michels 1962).

7.2

Design of the Analysis

The aim of the empirical section of this chapter is to assess the actual importance of the different actor groups that have been identified by the theories presented above as potentially relevant pro-democratic actors, and, thus, as potentially important actors in protest mobilization during regime change. To evaluate an actor’s relevance, the same indicators are used as in Chapter 6, namely the proportion of protests organized by a given actor, the timing of protest action by this actor, and the goals the actor put forward in protest. 7.2.1

Variables

For the operationalization of actors, i.e., workers, peasants, and middleclass actors, theoretical definitions were considered and adapted to the time- and country-specific contexts. The operationalization of peasants was straightforward. The term “peasant” will, however, be replaced by the less historically loaded term “farmer”, while still upholding the theoretical idea of a social class.3 The operationalization of labor and middle-class actors, by contrast, needed more thought. Instead of only focusing on people in manual or industrial work, a broad definition of labor was used to more generally include people who were employed for wages. This included people in the service sector as well as in the

3 According to Elson (1997), the peasant in Southeast Asia existed only until the middle of the twentieth century. He understood peasants as “rural dwellers whose economy was very largely oriented to subsistence and localized system of exchange (xix–xx), and whose social and political horizons were correspondingly local” (Baker 2000, p. 8).

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public sector4 (see Glaberman 19755 ). By definition, middle-class actors are a heterogeneous group of actors. In a first step, two categories were used to take this into account: middle-class professionals6 and students. The latter helped do justice to Lipset’s (1959, 1960) argument, where education played an important role. Actor groups that are interesting in a structural perspective, as considered in the present chapter, are workers, farmers, middle-class professionals, and students (see Table 7.1 in the next section). Farmers and students each constituted a basic coding category. By contrast, workers and middle-class professionals were composed of more than one basic category: several categories existed to capture various types of employed labor force, on the one hand, and types of more independent professionals, on the other. To conform to the theoretical idea of a working class, the definition of workers in this chapter excluded civil servants and in certain cases public enterprise employees.7 These were, instead, counted as middle-class professionals along with other more independent professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, and educational professionals,8 as well as small independent entrepreneurs like small shop owners and operators.9 4 By people working in the public sector we mean labor employed in public enterprises (often factory workers), not civil servants. The latter constitute a separate actor category. 5 According to Glaberman (1975), “there is such a thing as the working class, no matter how you define it”. It is “not a cohesive”, a “very complex, contradictory, constantly changing entity”. “The definition of a worker in 1850 is not the same as that of a worker in 1950. The composition, the size, the character of the class changes and, therefore, the definition of the class changes”. 6 For the moment, the interest lies on mass actors that potentially challenge power holders during democratic transition. Protests by employers or big business, which could also be counted among the new owning class, are not included in our definition of middle class. They are rather considered to be part of the ruling class, whereas the middle class is located between the ruling and the producing classes. 7 Issues specific to public enterprise employees, different from what employed labor is normally concerned with, are, for example, the allocation of departmental funds, disagreement over the appointment of board members etc. 8 Finance professionals and other independent professionals also fall into this category of middle-class professionals. 9 Excluded from middle-class professionals were people working in the informal sector, such as collectors, liquor makers, or loggers. They usually are without any means and concerned with issues of subsistence. Other professionals, such as independent taxi drivers or craftsmen, were counted as middle-class professionals, though. The distinction between

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The Role of Workers, Farmers, and Students in Contention During Regime Change

The countries under study share important similarities with regard to the development of their socioeconomic structure: all three countries experienced rapid economic growth in the decades before democratic transition. The early 1960s marked the start of large-scale industrialization projects launched under the leadership of authoritarian rulers.10 The inflow of foreign direct investment played an important role in this context. Within a short period of time, the countries developed into open, export-oriented market economies. The changes in the economic sphere were accompanied by far-reaching changes in the society: the number of workers increased, while the number of farmers decreased. Important improvements in the education and health sectors took place. The number of educated people rose, as did the proportion of the population living in cities. Whereas the general trend and timing of socioeconomic change in the countries has been relatively similar, differences exist regarding the extent to which these changes have been taking place. In all countries, GDP per capita in the year of transition was many times higher than GDP per capita in the mid-1960s11 (World Bank 2014): it had more than quadrupled in Korea and Thailand and almost quadrupled in Indonesia. However, the absolute level of wealth in Korea was much higher (7006 USD) than in Thailand (1809 USD) or Indonesia (1050 USD) at the moment of regime change.12 The same is true for other indicators (ibid.), such as employment in industry, which, at 34% in 1987, was around twice as high in Korea in the year of transition than in Thailand (16% in 1992) or Indonesia (18% in 1999). In absolute numbers, urbanization was also clearly highest in Korea in 1987 (68%) as compared to Thailand in 1992 (30%) or Indonesia in 1999 (41%), but the increase over time since the

the different categories (i.e., informal and formal sector professionals) was not always easy to make. 10 See, e.g., Baker and Phongpaichit (2009, pp. 150–155) on Thailand, Hill and Narjoko (2010) on Indonesia, and Kohli (2004, Chapter 3) on Korea. For an assessment of industrialization processes in (South) East Asia in a comparative perspective, see Hughes (1988). 11 Data is in constant 2000 US dollars. 12 I.e. in Korea in 1987, in Thailand in 1992, and in Indonesia in 1999.

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Table 7.1 Protest actors during regime change (%): farmers, workers, middle-class professionals, and students

Protest actors

Korea

Thailand

Indonesia

Farmers Workers Middle-class professionals Students All other (rest) Total N

3.0 19.3 6.0 32.9 38.9 100.00 1938

11.9 14.3 5.2 6.5 62.2 100.0 1053

0.9 9.0 5.3 26.5 58.4 100.0 1681

Cramer’s V = 0.24*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

early 1960s with regard to this indicator had been most substantial in Indonesia (ibid.). If and how these differences and similarities in the socioeconomic structure translate into protest, mobilization is the subject of the following analysis. In Table 7.1, protest actors defined by their socioeconomic position are shown in a cross-country comparison.13 The table provides a heterogeneous picture of their general importance and their individual role played in the three countries under study. However, some parallels are observable. Protests organized by farmers, workers, middle-class professionals, and students amounted to 60% of all protests in Korea and around 40% in Thailand and Indonesia. Students were, by far, the most important actors in Korea and Indonesia, but not in Thailand. The relative importance of workers varied: it was clearly highest in Korea, followed by Thailand, and lowest in Indonesia. In Thailand, differently from the other two countries, farmers assumed a comparably important role. In all three countries, middle-class professionals constituted a minor group of protesters and their relative importance was similar (i.e., between 5 and 6%). In the analysis below, only three types of actors are considered: workers, farmers, and students. Workers and farmers are examined as representing the “subordinate actors” in the sense of Rueschemeyer et al. (1992). The category of “middle-class professionals” as shown in Table 7.1 has been dropped: an examination of this actor type would 13 As usual, only those protest events were considered in the tables that fell into the period of democratic transition in the narrow sense (starting with liberalization and ending with the beginning of advanced consolidation).

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have been impracticable due to the limited number of observations. More specifically, for a proper analysis of how goals and organization of actors are related to types of actors, cell entries for the cross-tabulation would have been too few. Hence, for the purpose of this study, students are retained as the main (and only) representatives of the middle class. 7.3.1

Workers: Mobilization Potential and Actual Mobilization

In Thailand and Indonesia, the process of industrialization was still ongoing when they democratized, whereas in Korea the process had mostly been accomplished in the period leading up to regime change (World Bank 2014)—a third of the working population in Korea was employed in industry when democratic rule was introduced in 1987. At this time, the proportion of people working in the industrial sector was as low as 12% in Thailand and 8% in Indonesia. These numbers went up to 16 and 18%, respectively, by the time the countries underwent regime change.14 At the time of transition, the countries were relatively similar with regard to the amount manufacturing contributed to GDP: the value added as the percentage of GDP lay between 25 and 30%. In Korea, a relatively large proportion of people worked in industry, but value added, which reflects an important part of workers’ compensation, was almost as high in Thailand and Indonesia, where the proportion of people working in this sector was much lower. The workers’ role varied across countries in terms of general importance and their activity at different moments in the democratization process. Almost 20% of protest in Korea was organized by labor, which is a little more than twice the level in Indonesia (Table 7.1). Thailand assumed a middle position with more than 14% of protests led by workers. In all countries, workers were responsible for a substantial share of overall protest. We can interpret these findings to mean that the industrialization of the previous decades had produced an important number of people that were willing and capable of mobilizing for their interests. The fact that labor protest accounted for a particular high proportion of overall protests in Korea is well in line with the above observation that in this

14 In 2005, the end of the period under study, the proportion of workforce in industry was at 19% in Indonesia and 20% in Thailand. In Korea, the number had come down to 27% (World Bank 2014).

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Indonesia

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country the number of people in industry was particularly high relative to the sector’s value added, suggesting smaller per capita compensation. As for the timing of protest, workers’ activity seems most closely tied to democratization in Korea: mobilization in absolute numbers was highest at the moment of regime change (solid line in Fig. 7.1a). Workers were important protest participants at a key moment in the transition process. Right after regime change was announced in the June 29 declaration in 1987, the Great Labor Struggle, an unprecedentedly intense wave of strikes, was launched. Workers in almost all industrial sectors demanded further democratic reforms and asked for the democratization of the workplace and the organization of new labor unions (Kim 2000, pp. 93–95). Korean workers were part of a broader coalition for democracy known as the Minjung movement (see, e.g., Cumings 2005,

b

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Year Worker(s), 1st actor (cum. %) Worker(s), add. actor (cum. %) Other actor(s), rest (cum. %)

Fig. 7.1 a Protests organized by workers (freq.), 1985–2005. b Protests organized by workers (% of total protests), 1985–2005 (Note Vertical solid line: founding elections, vertical dashed lines: start and end of the transition period)

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Chapter 7; Lee 2007, 2010 on the democracy movement and Koo 2002 for a differentiated account of labor’s role within it). In Indonesia, the most important labor protest reported in the data took place early in the liberalization period in 1994 (Fig. 7.1). What was later known as the Medan riots and degenerated into general violence including anti-Chinese attacks started as a strike involving tens of thousands of people working in 20 factories in Medan (Ford 2009, pp. 65–67; Heryanto 1996, pp. 256–257). Repression was harsh. Demands were, like in Korea, about union recognition and the right to organize and strike (ibid.). Given the timing of this labor action and the fact that it was organized by an emerging alternative trade union, this labor action can be attributed the role of opening the political space for further protest to come. However, differently from the Korean context, labor in Indonesia was not part of a broader pro-democracy coalition. Importantly, it only played a limited role during the high time of protest in Indonesia in 1998, which was according to Hadiz (2001, pp. 108ff.) due to its organizational weakness. Based on the data, a connection between labor mobilization and regime change is even more difficult to establish in the case of Thailand. Brown (1997) criticizes views attributing Thai labor only a limited role in democratization, which he sees as the consequence of a narrow focus on open political action. This reticence in engaging in open political action would explain, however, why workers, whose destiny has been closely linked to Thailand’s various regimes, do not appear to be active at important moments of regime change, such as in 1992 (see Fig. 7.1). Restrictions, i.e., repression, also added to the scarcity of labor action, especially after 1991: one of the heaviest blows to labor rights and organization was conducted by the military leaders in the aftermath of the coup in that year (Brown 2004, pp. 107–110). Furthermore, protest forms such as strikes, which sometimes stayed within the walls of a company, appeared not to be as well covered by the newspapers as open protests, such as the ones against privatization efforts under Prime Minister Chatichai in the late 1980s. In all three countries, workers most often mobilized for socioeconomic issues (Table 7.2). Among the most important topics we find wages (not shown here). In Korea and Indonesia, protests for higher wages constituted a third of all labor protests. For no other socioeconomic issue did people in these two countries mobilize more often. In Thailand, the proportion of wage protests was lower at around 13%. The issue that

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Table 7.2 Protest demands during regime change workers Protest demands

Korea

(%): demands made by

Thailand

Indonesia

Regime-related demands (incl. labor rights )

40.9 (24.1) 14.7 (6.7 ) (6.7 )

20.5 (8.0) (8.0)

Stateness demands Socioeconomic demands (excl. labor rights) All other demands (rest) Total N

0.0 57.8

0.0 75.3

0.7 74.8

1.3 100.0 374

10.0 100.0 150

4.0 100.0 151

Cramer’s V = 0.22*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

dominated among Thai workers (with a proportion of over 40%) was the restructuring of the workplace and related problems of unemployment and redundancy. A significant proportion of these protests were directed against government policies to privatize public enterprises, which fell into the period of transition. This reflects the role played by negatively affected public enterprise workers in protest mobilization. Restructuring was also an issue in Indonesia and Korea, but to a lesser extent (15 and 9%, respectively). In a cross-country comparison, workers in Korea clearly showed most interest in political topics (Table 7.2). Over 40% of their demands concerned regime-related issues. Over 24% of this was about labor rights, i.e., the right of workers to organize, strike, etc. When labor protest was at its highest, general demands for democratization and democratization of the workplace went in parallel. Korean labor, thus, substantially contributed to mobilization in their country at a critical point in the transition process, making critical claims in view of regime change. In Thailand, workers were least political. Qualitative studies suggest that Thai labor were rather concerned with other issues, such as workplace health and safety standards (see Brown 2001). In Indonesia, still around 20% of all protests were about regime-related issues. Among these political protests, those which were not related to labor issues were often directed against state repression (against workers). This was also a recurring theme with Korean labor.

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Farmers: Mobilization Potential and Actual Mobilization

In the early 1980s, the workforce employed in agriculture accounted for 70% in Thailand, for more than half in Indonesia, and a third in Korea. In all three countries, these numbers dropped considerably over time and throughout the democratization process. At the moment of transition, the proportion of people working in agriculture was, by far, highest in Thailand (61% in 1992). In Indonesia, the number had come down to 43% by 1999. In Korea, it was at 22% in 1987 when the country democratized. In 2005, marking the end of the period under study, employment in agriculture in Thailand and Indonesia was still over 40% and only 8% in Korea. The contribution of agriculture to GDP, i.e., the sector’s value added (% of GDP), was highest in Indonesia and lowest in Korea. In Thailand, the proportion of agriculture in GDP was 12% at the time of transition and remained relatively stable in the aftermath (World Bank 2014). The following discussion based on Fig. 7.2 (and Table 7.3) focuses on Thailand and excludes the other two countries, where the number of observations for farmer protests is very low. In Thailand, almost 12% of all protests were organized by farmers (Table 7.1). Farmer protests were relatively evenly spread across time (see Fig. 7.2a and b). However, like overall protest mobilization in Thailand, protest activity by Thai farmers was highest during democratic institutionalization and early consolidation (Fig. 7.2a). In relative terms, their protest actions were most important (at around 20% of all protests) and sustained from the mid- until the late-1990s (Fig. 7.2b). During this period of democratic institutionalization and early consolidation cases where farmers were co-organizers of protests, rather than the main actors, also temporarily became more frequent (dashed line in Fig. 7.2b). Neither the timing of farmers’ protests discussed above, nor the goals they put forward, allow us to establish a connection between their mobilization and the democratization process. More than three quarters of the protests organized by farmers in Thailand revolved around socioeconomic issues (Table 7.3). Farmers mostly mobilized to ask for active economic policy measures, such as price guarantees for their products, e.g., rice, or debt relief. A not inconsiderable proportion of Thai farmer protests fell into the “rest” category: almost all of these protests (20%) were actions which were coded as protests on “infrastructure and environment policy”. Most prominent were claims made against big infrastructure projects, such as dams or pipelines, which affected farmers’ land rights, and thereby

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Farmer(s), 1st actor (freq.) Farmer(s), add. actor (cfreq.) Other actor(s), rest (freq.)

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Farmer(s), 1st actor (cum. %) Farmer(s), add. actor (cum. %) Other actor(s), rest (cum. %)

Fig. 7.2 a Protests organized by farmers (freq.), 1985–2005. b Protests organized by farmers (% of total protests), 1985–2005 (Note Vertical solid line: founding elections, vertical dashed lines: start and end of the transition period) Table 7.3 Protest demands during regime change (%): demands made by farmers Protest demands Regime-related demands Stateness demands Socioecon. demands (excl. labor rights) All other demands (rest) (incl. infrastructure and environment ) Total N

Korea 0.0 – 75.9 24.1 (15.5) 100.0 58

Cramer’s V = 0.29*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

Thailand

Indonesia

0.8 – 76.0 23.2 (20.0)

20.0 – 33.3 46.7 (46.7 )

100.0 125

100.0 15

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threatened their livelihoods (Hirsch 1997; Jumbala and Mitprasat 1997; Kuhonta 2009). According to the categorization of protest goals used in this study, farmers’ claims were largely non-political in the sense that they did not touch on the political regime in the narrow sense (Table 7.3). However, both issues around which they mobilized, i.e., active economic policies and big infrastructural projects, concerned more generally their relationship with the state. Thai politics for large parts of its history had been Bangkok-centered, to the neglect of people living in the rural areas. The second issue regarding infrastructural projects had like the former a clear economic dimension in that it was the farmers’ livelihoods that were at stake. The Thai state had started regulating issues, such as the use of the forests, that were previously not regulated. This again also had a political dimension, but only in a broad sense. Overall, these findings for the period under study suggest that farmers were not a pro-democratic force in that they actively made claims to change the political system. This is true for the case of Thailand, where protest participation by farmers was most extensive in our cross-country comparison, as well as for the cases of Korea and Indonesia, where farmers’ political involvement in the years of democratic transition was much more limited. In light of the current situation in Thailand, it is, however, interesting to see how and around what issues farmers and people from rural areas mobilized during the 1990s and the early 2000s. While they were trying to establish a new relationship with the state pushing the latter to assume a more active role in supporting them, their demands back then stayed in the economic sphere. It is only more recently that these demands have shifted toward more openly political issues (see Walker 2012). 7.3.3

Students: Mobilization Potential and Actual Mobilization

Some important similarities exist across countries with regard to the timing of students’ protest activity during regime change, but their overall role in it varied. Students were the most important protest actors in Korea, where they were responsible for almost a third of all protests (Table 7.1).15 Students in Indonesia assumed a similarly important role 15 Their share in overall protest was also higher than the share of the actors considered in the previous chapter, i.e. societal and political actors.

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Fig. 7.3 a Protests organized by students (freq.), 1985–2005. b Protests organized by students (% of total protests), 1985–2005 (Note Vertical solid line: founding elections, vertical dashed lines: start and end of the transition period)

(with over a quarter of protests organized by them as main protest actors), but not in Thailand, where just over 6% of protests were held by students. In all three countries, students were most active during political liberalization, i.e., ahead of regime change (Fig. 7.3). This is true in relative terms (Fig. 7.3b), but also in absolute terms: the number of protests organized by students was highest in the year in which regime change was announced (Fig. 7.3a). While Korea and Indonesia experienced similarly high levels of student mobilization, the rise and following drop in Indonesia were much more sudden. In Korea, by contrast, the mobilization and demobilization of students was more gradual. Students’ protest activity was closely linked to the transition process. When students mobilized, they demanded changes in the political regime more than anything else (Table 7.4).16 With ongoing democratization,

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Table 7.4 Protest demands during regime change (%): demands made by students Protest demands

Korea

Thailand

Indonesia

Regime-related demands Stateness demands Socioecon. demands (excl. labor rights) All other demands (rest) Total N

63.3 15.9 13.8 7.1 100.0 637

38.2 0.0 13.2 48.5 100.0 68

52.6 6.1 22.5 18.9 100.0 445

Cramer’s V = 0.25*** (*** = significant at the 0.001 level) Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

the need for political action in this regard diminished, and so did students’ role in protest mobilization. In Korea, the proportion of protests organized by students slowly declined after regime change and became very small from the mid-1990s onward (Fig. 7.3). In Thailand, student protests were hardly existent after 1993. In Indonesia, since regime change came about so abruptly, political discussion about the design of the new democracy, including the future role of the military, remained intense after the first free elections. Students thus continued to play a certain role during the phase of democratic institutionalization. Demands to investigate into past and present abuses of power by security forces were also typical claims raised by students in Indonesia. Just like other “modernization” indicators, structural conditions expected to empower middle-class actors looked most favorable in the case of Korea. The outlook based on various indicators was less permissive for Thailand and Indonesia. According to a distribution-based measure of middle class, leaving out the poorest 20% and the richest 20% of the population (see Castellani and Parent 2011, p. 14), Korea was the country with the broadest middle class and Thailand the country with the smallest one. In Korea, the income shared by the second, third, and fourth 20% of the 16 Around 10% of student mobilization in Thailand which is subsumed under the “rest”

category focused on political regime-related topics in a broad sense (see Sect. 5.2.1). This includes protest concerning the functioning of government (e.g., accusations of corruption) and minority or women’s rights. However, the number of observed student protests in Thailand was very low and, therefore, has in general to be interpreted with caution.

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population was 55%. In Indonesia, the share was a little lower (52% in 1999), and in Thailand, it was only 40% (in 1992) (World Bank 2014). These numbers were relatively stable over time. The Gini index, another measure of economic inequality, supports this picture of Thailand being clearly the most unequal country of the three.17 Data on the literacy rate of the population, an indicator of the education level in society, has not been available for many years (especially for Korea), but suggests that rates in the countries were in a comparable range. In Korea, where democratization occurred first, the literacy rate at the moment of regime change was lowest at 80%, and in Indonesia, where regime change was introduced in 1999, the rate was 92%18 (World Bank 2014). To assess the potential relevance of students considered as representatives of the middle class, the number of students enrolled at university is a useful indicator. Tertiary enrollment in Korea at the time of transition in 1987 was 35% already and quickly rising. The corresponding numbers for the year of transition in Thailand and Indonesia were 19 and 15%, respectively (World Bank 2014). In Korea, the period of political transition was also a period of continued expansion of the higher education system. In 2005, at the end of the period under study, tertiary enrollment reached 93%. In Thailand, the increase during the same time period was also considerable: tertiary enrollment amounted to 44% in 2005. In Indonesia, with its large population, the enrollment rate in 2005 was not much higher than at the moment of transition (18% as compared to 15%), but the number of enrolled students by 1999 had more than doubled since the mid-1980s. For all countries, it can be said that in the early 1970s, enrollment rates were still very low and quickly rose from then onward (ibid.).19 While students’ strong interest in regime-related protests was a common trait in the democratization processes of Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia, their formulation of protest goals was to some extent also country-specific, reflecting specificities of the conditions found in the countries (see our general discussion of protest demands in Chapter 5). With over 20%, the proportion of student protests on socioeconomic 17 Source: Gini coefficients (Deininger and Squire 1996) in Teorell et al. (2011). 18 Due to data scarcity, values were imputed and since this comparison relies on imputed

values, caution is in order. The literacy rate for Thailand in 1992 was 84%. 19 Due to data scarcity, values were imputed and since this comparison relies on imputed values, caution is in order.

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issues was clearly higher in Indonesia than in the other two countries (Table 7.4). In 1998, students combined criticism concerning the economic crisis with calls for regime change, i.e., the adverse impact of the crisis, which was immediately felt by the people, was taken as an opportunity to raise more general long-standing political demands. As explained in Chapter 5, Korean students radicalized under Chun Doo-hwan’s rule between 1980 and 1987 (Oh and Arrington 2007) and adopted leftist ideologies. This included the promotion of a strong anti-US and proNorth Korean stance. Demands for regime change were combined with demands for unification of the Koreas and the removal of US troops from Korean soil—or less radical versions of it. Before attempting to interpret all these results in light of the different theoretical arguments considered in the scope of this chapter (see discussion section further below), it is important to consider the organizational capacity of actors. Based on social movement research and our findings in previous chapters, we know that mobilization of actors also depends on how they are organized and if they cooperate with others. Hence, for a good understanding of why actors such as workers, farmers, and students mobilized, a sole focus on their structurally given interests would be too narrow. An examination of how they organized in protest during regime change and if and how they engaged in collaboration with other actors will help us make sense of why, when, and how much they mobilized. 7.3.4

Socioeconomic Actors and Organization of Protest During Regime Change

In this chapter, we have considered actors’ motivation rooted in their socioeconomic background as the main explanatory factor for their actual mobilization. Social movement research suggests, however, a number of mediating variables. Based on the arguments in previous chapters, organization is the one considered here. Three aspects of actors’ organization, which also include the idea of networks, are taken into account. The first question we explore here is the organization of actors in the narrow sense, i.e., whether or not a group of actors involved in protest displays any sign of organizational structure preexisting to the protest (“organized (1st )” in Tables 7.5a, 7.5b, 7.5c). The second question that interests us concerns an actor group’s capacity and willingness to cooperate with other actors. If it is itself not organized, does it cooperate with another organized actor group, i.e., an “additional” organized actor group (“organized (add.)”)?

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Table 7.5a Organization and cooperation during regime change (%): workers and students in Korea Protest organization and cooperation Organized (1st) Organized (add.) Coalition Campaign Elite support Total N

Workers

Students

Total

Cramer’s V and p-value

87.2 0.5 4.3 31.6 9.9 (0.5)a 374

7.9 2.2 10.1 43.0 0.5 637

49.2 1.3 8.6 40.0 24.9 (23.1)a 1938

0.52*** 0.06 (0.129) 0.11*** 0.12*** 0.62***

Table 7.5b Organization and cooperation during regime change (%): workers and students in Thailand Protest organization and cooperation

Workers

Organized (1st) 41.3 Organized (add.) 0.7 Coalition 2.7 Campaign 26.0 Elite support 14.0 (0.7)a Total N 150

Farmers

Students

16.8 5.6 11.2 40.8 0.8 125

67.7 1.5 20.6 42.7 0.0 68

Total

Cramer’s V and p-value

34.8 0.24*** 3.0 0.09 (p = 0.077) 10.6 0.13* 29.7 0.15*** 13.4 (11.5)a 0.20*** 1053

Table 7.5c Organization and cooperation during regime change (%): workers and students in Indonesia Protest organization and cooperation Organized (1st) Organized (add.) Coalition Campaign Elite support Total N

Workers

Students

Total

Cramer’s V and p-value

35.1 4.0 6.6 40.4 17.9 (0.7)a 151

16.4 4.3 13.7 48.1 5.8 (5.2)a 445

32.0 2.5 9.6 35.6 15.2 (13.3)a 1681

0.35*** 0.11*** 0.09* 0.18*** 0.19***

a For the figures in parentheses (), peak labor unions were excluded

*** = significant at the 0.001 level; * = significant at the 0.05 level Source Own data Note Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%

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Does it engage in cooperation with another type of actor group (“coalition”)? Does it engage in a campaign (“campaign”)? The third question of interest is also about the embeddedness of an actor group in the wider society: Does it receive support by elite actors (“elite support”)? From Chapter 4 (see Table 4.2 and Fig. 4.3), we know that some cross-country similarities exist in protesters’ organizational and cooperative arrangements, which is surprising in light of the findings of this and the last chapter, suggesting a relatively diverse composition of actor types. Tables 7.5a, 7.5b, 7.5c presents forms of organization and cooperation by country. In the column “Total”, we see the proportion of protests in which protesters were organized or cooperated with other actors. The variable that has been added to the analysis of this chapter is the “organized (add.)” variable; cases where the first actor was non-organized and cooperated with an organized actor were few, i.e., below 6% in all three countries. The columns that have the actor types in their titles show the percentage of protests in which a specific actor type engaged in a given organizational or cooperative behavior. The figures, presented by country, need to be considered separately from each other. The last column in the table indicates the strength of association (Cramer’s V ) between organizational and cooperative arrangements and actor types. As a reminder, the coefficient ranges from 0 to 1, with 1 indicating perfect association. Based on the information taken from Tables 7.5a, 7.5b, 7.5c, students were protest actors that, while not receiving substantial support from the elite, reached out to other actors more often to push common interests. Student protesters in all three countries had in common that elite support was extremely limited and that their participation in coalitions and campaigns was above average, especially in Thailand and Indonesia. In Korea and Indonesia, where student mobilization was very high, students, as the main actors, were in the large majority of cases not organized. This means that student protest for the largest part was spontaneous. The non-organized actors who played a key role in leading and pushing the protests in Korea and Indonesia into a full protest cycle are in large parts composed of students. In Thailand, where no protest cycle was observable, the number of protests organized by students was small. Most of the student protests that did take place took an organized form. Unlike their counterparts in Korea and Indonesia, students were not able to mobilize the (less organized) broad masses. With regard to the level of organization, workers were at the other end of the pole compared to students: they were more organized than

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other actors, especially in Korea, where 87% of worker protests were led by organized actors (see Tables 7.5a, 7.5b, 7.5c). On the other hand, they were less cooperative than students in allying with other organized actors, other types of actors, and participating in campaigns. In Korea and Thailand, where workers’ protests were more organized than in Indonesia, cooperation with other actors was even more limited and below average. Importantly, students were more diverse in their protest goals, a fact that can be attributed to them representing heterogeneous middle-class interests. Workers were very clearly focused on labor issues, making coalition-building and contention on shared issues less likely. Farmers in Thailand were, compared to workers and students, the least organized actor (Table 7.5b). In addition, the support by elite actors, measured by the presence of an elite actor at a protest event, was almost nonexistent. This position, which could be interpreted as weakness, was compensated by a rather active (above average) cooperation strategy: Thai farmers, as main actors, joined forces with other organized actors, with other types of actors, and participated in campaigns. Especially their cooperation with environmental groups, which included NGOs and university committees, turned out to be fruitful and strengthened farmers’ organization capacity.

7.4 Discussing the Role of Socio-Structural and Organizational Factors in Indonesian, South Korean, and Thai Transitions 7.4.1

Workers: Strong Politicization and Organization in South Korea

Workers, like peasants, are subordinate actors in the sense of Rueschemeyer et al. (1992) who, through socioeconomic changes, have gained power, which has not been matched by their integration into the political system. In the countries under study, they were subject to heavy state repression during authoritarian rule, which severely limited labor organization.20 In Korea and Indonesia, workers are more political than

20 See Brown (2004, Chapters 4–7) on Thailand, Choi (1989) on Korea, and Hadiz (2001, especially pp. 112–114) on Indonesia for a general account of labor development under authoritarian rule in the countries—with repression constituting one important aspect of it.

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in Thailand: they denounce repression and demand the right to organize and engage in collective action. In Thailand, both protest on such political issues and repression by the state (as will be seen in Chapter 8) are less open. The fact that Indonesian workers’ involvement in political issues is not quite as focused as in Korea can be related to their lesser capacity in structural and organizational terms, but also to a strategic rejection to assume a political role and to build alliances with political actors (see Ford 2009, p. 66). Industrialization has been identified as one of the important changes in (socio-)economic structure that are consequential for a country’s political development. Industrialization produces a large number of actors of a new type, i.e., employed labor. In Korea, the number of workers relative to total population employed was particularly high and quickly increased in the years ahead of regime change. The important role played by workers in Korea’s democratization process is, therefore, at least in parts, of structural origin. This is in line with all the class-based analyses reviewed in the theory section. However, the structural strength is compounded by favorable organizational conditions, notably the high geographic concentration of labor in the country’s big business conglomerates. It was Hyundai workers who sparked the Great Labor Struggle in July and August 1987 (Kim 2000, p. 93). In Thailand, by contrast, the workforce was fragmented and most industrial workers were employed in small firms (Hewison and Brown 1994, pp. 502–503). How labor is organized and allies with other actors is important to understand its activity, Korea being an illustrative example. Compared to other actors, workers engaging in mobilization here are often organized. At the same time, cooperation with other actors is more limited. The proportion of organized protest by labor is extraordinarily high in Korea, where labor protest is key during regime change in terms of its frequency, timing, and claims made. This suggests that the workers’ organizational capacity contributes to their strength. However, Korea’s labor protest also has its spontaneous side: protest was not centrally organized, but “erupted from below” (Kim 2000, p. 94). This explains the lower support by elite actors, i.e., peak trade unions, compared to Indonesia and Thailand. Organization is also important to understand labor action in Indonesia and in Thailand. Labor’s collective action in 1994 in Indonesia was initiated by the Indonesian Prosperous Trade Union (SBSI21 ), which became

21 SBSI is short for Serikat Buruh Sejahtera Indonesia.

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one of the most influential trade unions after regime change, but started as a union that emerged outside the formal labor representation structure in the early 1990s. There were a few of these alternative trade unions, which were led by non-worker intellectuals (Ford 2009, pp. 65–67). In Thailand, the increased labor activity in 1988 can be related, among others, to the growth of unions, which picked up in the late 1980s (Hewison and Brown 1994, p. 503). The union density was much higher in public enterprises than in the private sector (ibid.). The dominance of topics affecting public enterprises during protest can be attributed to this fact. While Korea’s workers and their leading role in democratization reflect most clearly the predictions by Rueschemeyer et al. (1992), workers’ activity in Thailand and Indonesia during regime change is also clearly shaped by country-specific historical patterns. The absence of action is sometimes equally telling as the presence of it. Thai workers have been heavily involved with politics throughout their history and allied to progressive political forces also in the agitated time between 1973 and 1976, a period of open politics, democratic experimentation, and high political conflict (Morell and Samudavanija 1981; Samudavanija 2002, pp. 94–98). This explains why they have continued to play some role despite heavy repression and despite their friction with liberal academics and politicians when they first supported the coup in 1991 in the hope that privatization policies would be reversed (Hewison and Brown 1994, p. 506). 7.4.2

Farmers: Favorable Conditions for Mobilization in Thailand

Farmers’ mobilization in Thailand, which reached substantial levels during democratization, notably in the 1990s, can be related to structural conditions present in the country. At the moment of transition, employment in the agricultural sector is still very high, whereas the value added by the sector, reflecting to a large extent workers’ compensation, is low (see Sect. 7.3.2). A comparison to the other two countries has shown how marked this contrast is. In Indonesia, where the proportion of people working in agriculture is also still considerable, the agrarian structure is less conducive to farmer action: the proportion of family farms, while having increased over the decades in all three countries, is at the time of regime change 84% in Thailand and clearly less, i.e., 60%, in

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Indonesia (Vanhanen 2003a, b).22 In the latter, large estate farms or plantations coexist with peasants (Hayami 2000). Rueschemeyer et al. (1992, p. 8) find that “(i)ndependent family farmers in small-holding countries were a pro-democratic force”. Thailand’s experience fits the finding in that (small) farmers do mobilize and do, in this sense, get politically active during regime change. However, they do not directly challenge the authoritarian regime by demanding democratization, which could be expected based on the literature. The analysis of the organizational structure of Thai farmers, which has experienced a positive development over time, helps explain why their protests gain momentum only after regime change in the 1990s and peak in 1997 during the large-scale 99-day protest in Bangkok. According to Rueschemeyer et al. (1992, p. 8), peasants’ pro-democracy role depends on their capacity for autonomous organization. More generally, the basic concern with peasants found in class-based analyses is that a lack of organization and dispersion keeps them from acting together and accomplishing change (Marx 1996, p. 117). Qualitative studies show how several developments have strengthened small Thai farmers’ organizational base up through the 1990s. Increased rural–urban labor migration from the 1970s on and the expansion of affordable communication means in the 1980s helped overcome the traditionally deep divide between village and city (Baker 2000, pp. 9–10). It is in the early 1990s that new supralocal organizations and new leaders emerge to represent rural interests in Thailand (ibid., p. 5). The timing of farmers’ protest activity and the choice of protest goals and cooperation partners, which can be interpreted as strategic choices, cannot be understood without considering farmers’ interactions with state authorities. Thailand has a history of violent suppression of peasant struggle, including selective assassinations of peasant leaders. Such deadly incidents occurred in the 1970s, but also as late as in the early 1990s (Haberkorn 2011; Morell and Samudavanija 1981, pp. 225–228; U.S. Department of State 1996). A large proportion of farmer protests during democratization have been found to be spontaneous, i.e., not led by organized farmer actors. The segment of farmers which is most active in terms of protests in the mid-1990s and the following years, where most protests in terms of protest number, duration, and participants take place, adopts a 22 Data on the Vanhanen Index of Power Resources was taken from the QOG dataset by Teorell et al. (2011).

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decentralized form of organization, and renounces political links.23 They focus on issues directly relevant to them. And the cooperation they seek is with environmental groups. This alliance with the latter, consisting of university students or NGOs, has a cross-class character. The fact that farmers in Thailand actively mobilize during regime change would go well with an interpretation à la Rueschemeyer et al. (1992) that sees them as an important socioeconomic force struggling for political power, from which they have previously been excluded. However, Thai farmers’ organizational handicap is only overcome after regime change has been reached and claims made by farmers are for the largest part apolitical. The latter point can, as shown above, be understood at least in part as a strategic choice by farmers who have in the past been repressed for their political involvement. Modernization arguments also have some validity considering that the new leaders among farmers are, from the mid-1990s on, educated sons of farmers, i.e., trained as lawyers or teachers in the city (Baker 2000, p. 11). Interestingly, in line with this interpretation, some scholars of Thai politics interpreted the recent mobilization of rural people, starting in 2006,24 as a consequence of the emergence of a new middle class (Phongpaichit 2010).25 In this line, Walker (2012) explicitly argues that the rural support for Thaksin and the political role Thai farmers adopted more recently can be traced back to socioeconomic changes. Whereas previous generations struggled to meet their subsistence needs, today’s middle-income peasants would seek a new relationship with the state. The quasi absence of farmers’ protest in Korea and Indonesia does not contradict Rueschemeyer et al.’s (1992) analysis. Farmers have not

23 The so-called Assembly of the Poor represented the interests of small farmers with little security, threatened by resettlement schemes and big infrastructural projects, and organized protests over access to land, water, and forests (Baker 2000, pp. 11–13). They are to be distinguished from a second set of farmers with whom they joined forces in the early 1990s. These farmers being in a more secure position were mainly interested in income issues, such as pricing of farming inputs and outputs and debt issues, and protested, for example, over the failed agriculture schemes. This second group of farmers also mobilized, but successively shifted their action away from open protest toward “lobbying” (Baker 2000, pp. 13–16). 24 The military coup in 2014 put an end to a period of high protest mobilization in Thailand. 25 Pasuk Phongpaichit (Professor at Chulalongkorn University), personal communication, July 15, 2010.

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been attributed the same consistent pro-democratic role as workers. They have been seen as sharing a common interest in democracy, but “they acted much less frequently in support of it, in part, because they followed the lead of large landlords and in part because they had much greater difficulty organizing themselves” (ibid., pp. 272–273). 7.4.3 Students: Key Actors in National Politics and Democratization in Indonesia and South Korea Based on the findings of this chapter, it can be said that students are key actors in national politics and democratization issues. In all countries, their activity is sensitive to and related to events in the political transition process. They are mainly concerned with political questions, but also have an interest in other issues, again, probably reflecting the heterogeneity of middle-class interests. In Korea and Indonesia, students are main contributors to the protest cycle at key moments during regime change. In Thailand, student mobilization is much more limited. In a structural analysis, it could be argued that this is related to its middle class being smaller than in the other two countries. In the case of students, however, factors concerning their organization, i.e., related to their willingness and capacity to organize (the latter being also a result of repression policies), matter as well. In all three countries, students have played a special role as the nations’ intellectual elite.26 In this position, they have had a say in moral, ideological issues discussed in the societies (see Aspinall 2012; Kongkirati 2012; Park 2012), more than in real politics. Moreover, students in all three countries, for large parts of history, have been strong promoters of nationalist ideals (ibid.). Both perspectives of students, i.e., as intellectual (nationalist) elite and middleclass representatives, explain why they could not be easily thrown into the same category as subordinate actors. Their special role has made them less often subject to repression. In Thailand, however, the student movement was brutally repressed in 1976 and has not recovered since then (Kongkirat 2012, pp. 250–253): the generally low participation in protest and the lower percentage in regime-related goals illustrate the difficulty in reorganization and ideological reorientation.

26 Intellectual elite, thus, does not correspond to the definition of elite used in this study (see Chapter 4).

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Where student mobilization during regime change is strong, i.e., in Korea and Indonesia, most protest takes a spontaneous form. Compared to workers, students resort more often to cooperating tactics. Whereas students in Korea and Indonesia are similarly important in terms of participation size, they assume different roles: students in Korea are among the early protesters taking the lead of the protest to come. Actively reaching out to other actors, they lead a broad democracy coalition (Lee 2002, 2010). In Indonesia, open mass protest on key political issues is a more recent phenomenon and has taken place in a more punctual and isolated manner. Indonesian students have had a close relationship with the authoritarian regime in the past (Boudreau 2004; Slater 2010). The slightly higher rate in the otherwise low elite support to students may be an indication of these formerly close ties. On the one hand, structural theoretical arguments highlighting the role of middle-class actors in the democratization process (Lipset 1959, 1960; Moore 1966) find support in the analysis of protest mobilization in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia during regime change. Students, considered representatives of middle-class interests, are key actors of political contention during this period. They are active at decisive moments in their countries’ political development, even where their relevance in numbers is limited (see, e.g., Kongkirati 2012, p. 253). On the other hand, however, the students’ role illustrates the importance of institutional factors. Middle-class interests are diverse, and hence, the process of political identity building and organization is a considerable challenge. Research on student activism in Asia shows that students’ leading political role fades with the massification of the higher education system. The latter affects their social status, which in turn affects their potential as a strategic political group (see Aspinall 2012, pp. 13ff. and 283–284).

7.5

Conclusion

Democratization studies with a structural perspective have proven useful in examining actors’ participation in political contention during democratic transition. The analysis has shown that students, defined in this study as representatives of middle-class interests, assumed a particularly important strategic role with regard to regime change. This could be established based on the timing of their actions at key moments of the transition, their interest in political issues, and their importance in numbers for the cases of Korea and Indonesia. Workers’ roles varied across

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countries, being most active and politically involved in Korea. Crosscountry variation was even more marked with regard to farmer protest. Farmers’ share in protest organization was only substantial in the case of Thailand. Findings further suggest that organizational factors have been equally important to understand why protest occurred or not, as have actors’ socioeconomic position. Due to a fast socioeconomic development, structural conditions for political change have generally been favorable in the three countries under study. An examination of actors’ organizational and cooperative capacities therefore helps make sense of the absence of action of certain actors. The (non-)mobilization of workers in Indonesia is a case in point. Due to a first positive organizational development, Indonesian workers became politically active around 1994. Their overall organizational structure remained, however, weak, which explains why they did not substantially contribute to protest at the end of the authoritarian and the beginning of the democratic rule a couple of years later (see Hadiz 2001). The mobilization of farmers in Thailand, which only gained momentum in the 1990s, can also be traced back to strengthened organizational capacities, which they gained, for example, from cooperating with NGOs during this period. The arguments based on the structural logic found in Lipset (1959, 1960), Moore (1966), and Rueschemeyer et al. (1992) work best in the case of Korea. This country’s democratization process is usually considered a model case of modernization theory, where successful political development has been closely linked with successful economic development (see, e.g., Przeworski and Limongi 1997, p. 162). However, the observed strong role of workers as strategic actors, who joined forces with students, suggests that not only middle class, but also subordinate actors’ interests are reflected in the transition process (Koo 2002). The structural conditions in Korea having generated an abundant number of students and workers were matched by equally favorable institutional conditions, as the comparison with Indonesia has shown. In Indonesia, the “middle class” argument also applies well: students were an important force in mobilization for democracy. They started mobilizing early and stepped up their protest activities at key moments of the transition process. Students in Indonesia were directly affected by the Asian Financial Crisis, which explains the massive mobilization they engaged in shortly after the crisis first hit the country in the second half of 1997. They started combining economic demands with previously

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advocated political demands for regime change. Like their counterparts in Korea and Thailand, interests of Indonesian students were broad, making it easier for them to engage in joint protest actions with other actors. From qualitative studies, we know, however, that this cooperation during protest was not based on durable (cross-class) alliance structures, such as found in Korea. This may explain why, in a cross-country comparison, the presence of Indonesian students in protest during regime change was less stable over time. Much of the literature on Thai politics takes a class-based perspective. This is justified in light of the results of this study. Workers and farmers have been found to be important political actors in contention during transition, giving support to the structural argument of the rise of the subordinate actors. The role of the middle class, by contrast, was limited. Importantly, the goals of workers and farmers in this country were not directly political or oriented toward regime change, and the timing of their activities could not easily be related to the democratization process. However, especially farmers’ protests have had an indirect political dimension. The relevance of their early protest on economic and infrastructural issues becomes clear when looking at the political events that followed Thaksin’s ousting as Prime Minister in 2006. Thailand is today a deeply divided country—the rural population still does not feel its interests properly represented.

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Hirsch, Philip. “The Politics of Environment: Opposition and Legitimacy.” In Political Change in Thailand: Democracy and Participation, edited by Kevin Hewison, 179–94. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. Hughes, Helen, ed. Achieving Industrialization in East Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Jumbala, Prudhisan, and Maneerat Mitprasat. “The Politics of Environment: Opposition and Legitimacy.” In Political Change in Thailand: Democracy and Participation, edited by Kevin Hewison, 195–216. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. Kim, Sunhyuk. The Politics of Democratization in Korea: The Role of Civil Society. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. Kohli, Atul. State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Kongkirati, Prajak. “Thailand: The Cultural Politics of Student Resistance.” In Student Activism in Asia: Between Protest and Powerlessness, edited by Meredith Leigh Weiss and Edward Aspinall, 229–57. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Koo, Hagen. “Engendering Civil Society: The Role of the Labor Movement.” In Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State, edited by Charles K. Armstrong, 109–31. London: Routledge, 2002. Kuhonta, Erik Martinez. “Developments and Its Discontents: The Case of the Pak Mun Dam in Northeastern Thailand.” In Agrarian Angst and Rural Resistance in Contemporary Southeast Asia, edited by Dominique Caouette and Sarah Turner, 135–58. London: Routledge, 2009. Lee, Myung-sik. The History of Democratization Movement in Korea. Edited by Norman Thorpe. Seoul: Korea Democracy Foundation, 2010. Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung: Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007. ———. “The South Korean Student Movement: Undongkwon as a Counterpublic Sphere.” In Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State, edited by Charles K. Armstrong, 132–64. London: Routledge, 2002. Lipset, Seymour Martin. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1960. ———. “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.” The American Political Science Review 53, no. 1 (March 1, 1959): 69–105. https://doi.org/10.2307/1951731. Marx, Karl. “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.” In Marx: Later Political Writings, edited by Terrell Carver, 31–127. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1996. McCarthy, John D., and Mayer N. Zald. “Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory.” American Journal of Sociology 82, no. 6 (May 1, 1977): 1212–41.

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Merkel, Wolfgang. Systemtransformation: Eine Einführung in die Theorie und Empirie der Transformationsforschung. 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010. Michels, Robert. Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Collier Books, 1962. Moore, Barrington. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966. Morell, David, and Chai-Anan Samudavanija. Political Conflict in Thailand: Reform, Reaction, Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain, 1981. Oh, Chang Hun, and Celeste Arrington. “Democratization and Changing AntiAmerican Sentiments in South Korea.” Asian Survey 47, no. 2 (April 1, 2007): 327–50. https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2007.47.2.327. Park, Mi. “South Korea: Passion, Patriotism, and Student Radicalism.” In Student Activism in Asia: Between Protest and Powerlessness, edited by Meredith Leigh Weiss and Edward Aspinall, 125–51. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Przeworski, Adam, and Fernando Limongi. “Modernization: Theories and Facts.” World Politics 49, no. 2 (1997): 155–83. Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, Evelyne Huber Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens. Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Samudavanija, Chai-Anan. Thailand: State-Building, Democracy, and Globalization. Bangkok: Institute of Public Policy Studies, 2002. Slater, Dan. Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Snow, David A. “Framing Processes, Ideology, and Discursive Fields.” In The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, edited by David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, 380–412. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470999103. ch8/summary. Tarrow, Sidney. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Teorell, Jan, Marcus Samanni, Sören Holmberg, and Bo Rothstein. The Quality of Government Dataset (Version 6 Apr 2011). University of Gothenburg: The Quality of Government Dataset, 2011. http://www.qog.pol.gu.se. U.S. Department of State. “Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1995: Thailand.” Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, January 1996. Vanhanen, Tatu. Democratization: A Comparative Analysis of 170 Countries. London: Routledge, 2003a. ———. Democratization and Power Resources 1850–2000 [Computer File]. FSD1216, version 1.0 (2003-03-10) ed. Tampere: Finnish Social Science Data Archive [distributor], 2003b.

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Walker, Andrew. Thailand’s Political Peasants: Power in the Modern Rural Economy. 1st ed. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012. World Bank. World Development Indicators, 1960–2014. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014. http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?sou rce=world-development-indicators. Wucherpfennig, Julian, and Franziska Deutsch. “Modernization and Democracy: Theories and Evidence Revisited.” Living Reviews in Democracy 1, no. 0 (September 1, 2009). http://democracy.livingreviews.org/index.php/lrd/art icle/view/lrd-2009-4.

CHAPTER 8

Repression and Protest During Regime Change: Democratization as an Interactive Process Between Power Holders and Challengers

An aspect of contention that has not received enough attention in this study so far is its interactive dimension. The threat protesters face in being repressed by the state is unequally higher under authoritarian rule than under democratic rule. In the study of protest in democratizing Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia, a key question to be addressed is, thus, how governments respond to mobilization. Within the social movement literature, studies on the policing of protest have identified a set of variables found to influence the likelihood of repression. Situational and tactical protest characteristics, such as the size of the protest and the degree of violence employed, have been the focus of these studies. The argument made in this chapter is that an additional key factor determines whether the state will intervene and suppress political mobilization or not, namely the identity of actors. This is an understudied aspect in social movement research and considered to be particularly relevant in authoritarian settings. As discussed earlier, anti-communist, authoritarian regimes in East and Southeast Asia, as established after World War II, share important institutional and ideological similarities. These also extended to the repression tactics applied to their population, in the form of systematic repression of labor, farmers, and political opponents, as has been mentioned (but © The Author 2020 L. Maduz, Contention and Regime Change in Asia, Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49220-5_8

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not thoroughly discussed) in Chapters 6 and 7. Given these similarities, we expect that parallels exist in repression tactics in the Korean, Thai, and Indonesian transitions. The analysis of this chapter shows, however, that these ideologically driven repression tactics are not to the same extent and in the same ways translated into open observable repression in the three countries. For all three countries, our results confirm the importance of tactical factors, but we found the role of ideology to be more important in Korea and Indonesia than in Thailand. The last analytical chapter of this book takes a different methodological approach than the previous ones. So far, the focus has been on individual protest characteristics and bivariate relationships among them. In this chapter, a multivariate approach is used that allows us to take into account all the different factors considered in the previous chapters and to jointly relate them to the repression variable. For this purpose, a logistic estimation model is employed. The insights gained through this additional methodological approach complement the analysis of the previous chapters.

8.1 Arguments of the Literature on Protest Policing Put to Test 8.1.1

Repression in Social Movement Research

In social movement research, state repression has been associated with the concept of political opportunities (Earl 2011, pp. 263–264)1 : repression can be analyzed as an aspect of stable political opportunity structures, such as political institutions and political culture, but also be seen as a reflection of more volatile context factors, such as government strategies or the strategies and will of the political elite at large. Public opinion and media are also considered among the more volatile features of the political system. In Della Porta and Reiter’s (1998) seminal edited work on protest policing, researchers use these varieties of political opportunities, as defined, for example, by Kriesi (1989, 2004; Kriesi et al. 1998), when trying to explain levels of repression that vary across time and place. In the structuralist logic of political process scholars, protest happens in contexts of open political opportunities (see Chapter 2); repression leads to reduced or closed political opportunities. 1 See Chapter 2.

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More recently, the study of state repression started focusing on police– protester interactions (Davenport et al. 2011, pp. 153–154). Important works include Davenport et al. (2011), Earl et al. (2003), Earl and Soule (2006, 2010), and Soule and Davenport (2009). This trend resonates with research critical of a one-directional conception of the causal relationship between political opportunity and protest (Goldstone and Tilly 2001; McAdam et al. 2001); the empirical observation that repression does not necessarily diminish protest has been important in this context (Olivier 1991; Rasler 1996). This shifting of the focus from macrolevel conditions, such as political institutions, toward micro-level protest characteristics has also had to do with the disciplinary background of researchers (Davenport et al. 2011, p. 153): sociologists followed political scientists who had studied repression since the 1960s and directed the attention to specific information about protesters, such as their number, their targets, motivation, and use of violence. Within this recent strand of literature on protest policing, which has produced “remarkably consistent” results, one explanatory model stands out as particularly powerful (Davenport et al. 2011, p. 154): threat has been found to be “critically important to explaining repression”, i.e., “the more a movement or a protest threatens authorities, the more likely it is to face repression” (Earl 2011, p. 266). The basic question scholars in this approach ask is how government agents consider protesters’ behavior when choosing their response. In such an interactive scenario, the state, differently from its conception in a structuralist perspective, assumes agency and engages in tactics and counter-tactics with protesters. More specifically, studies in this field have found that the probability of the police intervening by repressive means is higher when protesters are “violent, numerous, directly challenging political authorities, organized, and using multiple or innovative tactics” (Davenport et al. 2011, p. 154). Alternative approaches to explaining state repression exist, but findings are less corroborated and consistent. One strand of research focuses on the protesters’ weakness as a relevant factor in protest–repression dynamics. Over time, scholars have developed different versions of the weakness argument that can be traced back to Gamson’s (1990) idea that authorities only repress when facing challengers that are expected to collapse under pressure (Earl et al. 2003, pp. 583–584; Earl 2011, p. 267). Some studies suggest, for example, that protests by racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to be repressed (e.g., Davenport et al. 2011; Wood 2007). Another line of research which can also be read in

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the logic of the weakness argument finds that media coverage, through its monitoring function, is inversely related to repression (Davenport and Eads 2001; Earl et al. 2003; Koopmans 2005; Wisler and Giugni 1999).2 Explanations of state repression that are mainly concerned with protesters and their actions, such as the threat and the weakness approaches, tend to neglect “the other side of repression”, i.e., the state’s capacity and willingness to repress, which may be independent from these situational protest characteristics. Evidence exists from both democratic and authoritarian contexts that governments’ response to protest shows consistency and continuity over time. For Western democracies, researchers have identified comparable trends in policing protests as well as changes thereof (Della Porta and Reiter 1998). A case in point is the general shift toward negotiated management as a favored protest policing strategy found in the United and Western Europe since the mid-1950s (Earl 2011, pp. 268–271; Della Porta and Fillieule 2004). Shifting the attention from protesters to a less actor-centered, state perspective, we are moving closer back to the structuralist perspective and away from a micro-level analysis. Attempts to combine both perspectives exist (e.g., Earl et al. 2003), but are challenging. 8.1.2

Protest Policing in Authoritarian and Transitory Settings

For the authoritarian context, findings from recent democratization studies suggest that patterns of repression and protest are relatively stable within a given authoritarian regime. A key argument of this literature, which has been developed in the (South) East Asian context, is that the institutional setting of the authoritarian regime depends on its establishment, i.e., on how it has been put in place (Slater 2010 on Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia). From that point on, certain protest actors and forms are tolerated, while others are not (see also Boudreau 2004). In this perspective, the general stability and longevity of a regime, of which repression policies are an integrative part, is seen as a consequence of its origins. This approach emphasizes the historical dimension of the relationship between challengers and power holders. Interactions between

2 See literature review by Earl (2011, p. 267).

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them are path-dependent and have been set at critical junctures.3 In this perspective, patterns of repression and protest are specific to countries, i.e., authoritarian regimes, and time periods. In this research field, scholars such as Boudreau (2004) and Slater (2010) suggest that state repression in authoritarian regimes is highly selective. In the present chapter, this selectiveness in the treatment of citizens is defined as a distinctive trait of authoritarian regimes, which differentiates them from democratic ones, along with an overall higher level of repression. To understand what type of protesters is subject to repression rather than others, it is important to understand the role ideology plays in the selectivity applied by the repressing state. The ideological component is an essential feature of many authoritarian regimes (Geddes 1999).4 For example, during the Cold War, communist and anti-communist regimes were pitted against each other, sometimes in close geographic proximity.5 Both types of regimes identified “enemies of the state” based on ideological grounds. In anti-communist states, for example, labor, farmers, and left-wing political groups were subject to harsh repression (Hewison and Rodan 1994; Lee 2007, pp. 70–108). In social movement research, the focus on repression has been on protesters’ behavior—and only to a lesser extent on the ideological challenge they may pose to power holders (see, e.g., Davenport et al. 2011, p. 154). As a consequence, factors such as the number and organization of protesters as well as the protest forms and targets they choose have received much attention. By contrast, the analysis of types of actors has been less differentiated in empirical as well as in theoretical terms. Some studies employ a composite measure as a summary variable for subordinate groups, where the unemployed, gays, and racial and ethnic minorities are lumped together (Earl and Soule 2006; Earl et al. 2003). Theoretical arguments on why certain actor groups are expected to be subject to repression are equally underdeveloped

3 On the concepts of path dependency and critical junctures, see Collier and Collier (1991), Capoccia and Kelemen (2007), Mahoney (2000), and Pierson (2000). 4 It was argued elsewhere that in non-democratic settings, forces in charge of executing repressive operations, such as the police, are fashioned by the state in a manner to defend its own interests and power holders (see Jaime-Jiménez and Reinares 1998, p. 166), which is less the case in democratic settings. 5 See Anderson (1998, pp. 300–301) on the Cold War’s impact in Asia, i.e., on how it shaped common conditions for development in non-communist countries.

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(e.g., Earl et al. 2003 on students). A stronger emphasis on ideology would allow them to explain why governments are likely to perceive the mobilization of certain actors as more threatening than others and why they are likely to use more repression on them. The argument developed in this chapter is in line with the wellestablished threat model, but, in addition to situational and tactical protest features, we also consider those factors reflecting the ideological challenge protests pose to power holders. For the analysis, we suggest that a protest’s ideological challenge manifests itself mainly in the identity of protesters. As mentioned above, authoritarian power holders are selective in applying repression to protesters and this high degree in selectiveness in repression can be considered to be a specificity of authoritarian (and transitory) regimes. To understand how and why certain actor groups are perceived as threatening to the state, it is important to understand the ideological position of power holders, which is usually historically grown. The perspective adopted here thus emphasizes the role of the historical dimension of protester–powerholder interactions. A question which is essential to address in the context of political transition is that of how repression develops over time and if changes in the overall political regime affect repression politics. What happens once the authoritarian regime starts to crumble? How do repression and protest patterns change in a transitory context? Various scenarios are plausible: if we assume that institutions among which we consider repression are inert,6 we could argue that the government continues to repress certain actors and certain protests just like during the authoritarian time. Interestingly, studies have shown that, after all, democracies and autocracies are not so different in their repression strategies (Carey 2006).7 However, during regime change citizen–ruler relationships are fundamentally changed. It is thus probable that repression patterns are going to change, too. A reduction in the general level of repression, as well as in the selectiveness, which has been argued to be typical for authoritarian regimes, seems likely.

6 On inertia of institutions, see Mahoney (2000), and Pierson (2000). 7 Carey (2006, p. 1) found that “if faced with popular dissent, democracies were just

as likely to respond with negative sanctions as other regime types”.

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Design of the Analysis

In Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia (and more generally in all of Southeast Asia), the period immediately following World War II was a period of relative political openness and high political activism with increasing tensions between the Left and the Right, which was then followed by considerable political change (Hewison and Rodan 1994, p. 245).8 Socialist and communist movements that had emerged in the 1920s and ’30s under the influence of “nationalist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements” (ibid., pp. 244ff.) regained strength in the aftermath of the war, this time with a clearer nationalist orientation. The Left contributed to the opening of the political space, broadened its bases in civil society, and managed to connect itself with labor and sometimes with the peasantry. This development, perceived as threatening by the increasingly authoritarian rulers, was soon stopped and reversed. The political Left was repressed and again “moved off the legal political stage” (ibid., p. 247). As mentioned above, the authoritarian regimes in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia that established themselves after World War II share important similarities with regard to their coming into power, their institutional setup, their political and economic orientation, and their relationship to the West, more specifically the US: in the context of the Cold War in which they emerged, pro-Western and pro-business governments in Asia were actively supported by the U.S. (Hewison and Rodan 1994, p. 249). In Korea, Left forces, supported by farmers and workers, who enjoyed broad popular support and had high political aspirations, were crushed under American occupation in the years after the war and an anti-communist state was put in place (Choi 1996, pp. 54–63; H. G. Jung 2001, pp. 101–117, as cited in Jung and Kim 2009, p. 3). Already under Syngman Rhee’s nominally democratic regime (1948–1960), leftist parties and unions were repressed. The same happened in Thailand under Phibun (1948–1957), who led a military–royalist alliance.9 The US support in Thailand had taken the form of the CIA supporting Thai police and army generals opposed to the Left (Hewison and Rodan, p. 249).

8 Hewison and Rodan’s (1994) observation on Southeast Asia also applies to Korea. 9 See, e.g., Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit (2009, pp. 144–150). For an account of the

mobilization, organization, and repression of Thai communists in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, see Keyes (1987, pp. 107–111).

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In Indonesia, just as in Korea and Thailand, communists were outlawed and unions were controlled, but here the anti-communist authoritarian regime seized power only in the 1960s and the related repression of Left forces was taken to another level. The West had observed with suspicion President Sukarno’s (1945–1967) close ties with the Left. The Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) had become the largest communist party outside the communist world. Together with the army, the party was the only institution capable of organizing and mobilizing the masses (Boudreau 2004, pp. 52–53; Crouch 1978, Chapter 2). The military eventually won the struggle for power: under the leadership of Major General Suharto, a coup was organized in 1965 and an anti-communist purge followed, lasting for several months until spring 1966 (Crouch 1978, Chapter 5). During this purge, between 200,000 and 500,000 people were killed (Cribb 2009, p. 239). Left forces in Indonesia were thus literally extinct (Boudreau 2004, pp. 7, 9). Strong and long-lasting bureaucratic-military regimes with similar ideological stances and similar strategies toward political opponents ruled in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia for several decades in the second half of the twentieth century. Due to their own history, the geographic proximity of communism in neighboring countries, and the ideological and financial support of the U.S. as the leader of the non-communist world, the threat of the Left and actors associated with it was kept alive and continued to be repressed. Control was also imposed on universities (Aspinall 2012; Park 2012; Kongkirati 2012). Links between students, labor, and left(ish) forces developed during the authoritarian regimes (e.g., Hewison and Rodan 1994, pp. 248ff.). Like in Korea under longtime military ruler Park Chung-hee and to a lesser extent in Thailand under the successive military regimes, economic development was a main pillar of Suharto’s authoritarian regime in Indonesia. This further contributed to the need of suppressing labor activism. This chapter is set out to explore the relevance of the ideological aspect of repression, for which the experience of the three countries under study at the end of their authoritarian rule and the beginning of their democratic existence seems to offer fruitful ground. Authoritarian rulers in all three countries had repeatedly shown that they were committed to protecting their rule and the ideological principles it was based on (Ganesan and Kim 2013). At various instances, but to different degrees, they all resorted to brutal means in dealing with their opponents. This is true even in Thailand, where authoritarian rule has often been

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described as relatively liberal. The red drum killings in 1972, in which people accused of supporting communism were killed, is a case in point (Haberkorn 2013). In such a context, the (ideological) background of actors is highly likely to play a role in determining when exactly the state intervenes.10 8.2.1

Independent Variables and Detailed Hypotheses: Situational vs. Historical Roots of Repression

The general expectation based on well-established findings of previous research is that the government engages in repressive behavior when it feels threatened. Challenges to the government can take various forms, though. Based on much of the research on protester–powerholder interaction, it is expected that the government reacts to situational and tactical aspects of mobilization that it perceives as threatening. In addition, however, the government is also expected to react to ideological challenges. It has been argued above that the ideological dimension of state repression is particularly relevant in the context of authoritarian and transitory regimes. Studying this aspect of state repression constitutes an add-on to existing research. By including all the different factors of state repression in one estimation model, the study aims at assessing their respective relevance and ultimately at establishing the role of ideology in shaping state repression. For each of the different dimensions expected to influence the repressive behavior of the government, we selected variables and formulated more detailed hypotheses in line with the general expectation outlined above. With regard to situational and tactical protest characteristics, ten factors were included in the analysis (see below for details). Most of them have been shown to influence the likelihood of state repression by past research, but some of them are new. Among the factors considered to represent ideological, as opposed to situational, challenges, three different actor types were taken into the analysis (see below for details). A variable for the presence of students was also included. Five additional measures related to actors, notably to their organization and to the support received by elite actors and the media, were considered. To account for the time 10 For general accounts of the countries’ authoritarian rules (and rulers) in the postWorld War II period, see, e.g., Kim (2004) on Korea, Wyatt (2003, pp. 256–304) on Thailand, and Liddle (1996) on Indonesia.

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dimension, three additional measures were added. Lastly, a set of control variables was entered into the models. To capture protest characteristics that constitute a situational threat to power holders, we constructed established and new measures based on the original dataset for this study. Established measures included the place of protest, captured by a capital or other city dummy, the size of the protest, measured as the logged count of the number of protesters, and the duration of the protest, measured as the logged count of days of protest. For Thailand and Indonesia, in addition to a capital dummy variable, a dummy variable was introduced to control for protest taking place in contested areas, such as the southern regions in Thailand, and the regions of Aceh, East Timor, and Papua in Indonesia. It is expected that both large and long protests are perceived as more threatening by the holders of power, and, therefore, more likely to prompt repression. The same should be true for protests taking place in the capital as the political center of a country as well as in contested regions. Protest characteristics can emanate from situational conditions, but still have a clear tactical and strategic dimension. The strategic orientation depends on the cases and specific variables considered. The place of protest, for example, can be chosen strategically or be decided upon more spontaneously. Aggregate protest dynamics observed during periods of high contention, which also may impact the government’s repression strategies, are argued to be less strategic and more situational. To account for the relevance of these dynamics, two additional variables were entered in the model, one measuring the number of all protest events in the past 30 days and one measuring the number of violent protest events in the past 30 days. It is hypothesized that the more (violent) protest has previously taken place, the more power holders are likely to feel threatened and will repress the current protest event. The radicalness of a protest, expected to threaten the political elite and, thus, to provoke a reaction, usually finds reflection in the protest forms and goals (see Chapters 4 and 5). Two dummy variables were used to capture radical protest forms and two dummy variables to measure radical goals. The two form categories are mutually exclusive, as are the two goal categories. Violent actions are the most radical forms of protest considered in this study. Confrontational actions, such as strikes, sit-ins, and barricades, are a less, but still radical form of protest (see Chapter 4). Confrontational, and even more so, violent actions are predicted to trigger a reaction by the police or the military. Two types of radical goals

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are analyzed in the scope of this analysis and predicted, due to the threat they constitute, to be more likely to be repressed: stateness demands and regime-related demands (see Chapter 5). Like the goal of protest, the addressee of protest reveals the political nature of claim-making. This variable has not been analyzed in any of the previous chapters. Research suggests that protests directly targeting political authorities are viewed by the state as more threatening (Davenport 1995; Earl et al. 2003; Rafail et al. 2012; Soule and Davenport 2009). The prediction is that mobilization targeted at the government is more likely to be repressed than mobilization targeted at other actors. A dummy variable was employed to measure “government targets”. All events in which protesters explicitly addressed the government were coded as 1.11 In a considerable number of cases, the newspapers did not mention any protest target. For the present analysis, it was assumed that these protests were targeted at the government when they explicitly focused on regimerelated demands or stateness demands,12 and targeted at other actors (often employers) otherwise. To finally capture the ideological dimension of protest–repression dynamics, we turn to a second main set of variables used in the analysis that concern actors of protest. The prediction is that, for ideological reasons, certain actors are more threatening to a given regime, and consequently more likely to be repressed than others. Following the explanation above, workers, farmers, and the political Left constituted a particular threat to authoritarian anti-communist regimes, such as those in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia before their democratization. For each of these actors, dummy variables were included indicating the presence of the particular actor. The categories are not mutually exclusive, since different actor types can participate in the same event. During the period under consideration, leftist actors as such rarely openly participated in protest. As a proxy, a dummy variable indicating the presence of political opponents outside the formal system, who referred to themselves as “dissidents”, “pro-democracy activists”, or “government critics”, was used. 11 Studies exist (e.g., Davenport et al. 2011) where a broader definition of authorities is used including all branches of government at any administrative level. In the context of authoritarian states with a strong central government, where other branches of government have only limited power, a narrower definition seemed appropriate. 12 See Chapter 5 on protest goals and on regime-related demands and stateness demands in particular.

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An additional actor type and variables measuring the strength of actors in terms of organization, networking, and public support were also included in the analysis. In previous chapters, students have been identified as key actors in contention during political transition. A dummy variable was employed to capture their presence in protests. Students cannot as clearly be related to any general ideology as the other actor groups discussed above: in all three countries, students had at one point supported the authoritarian regime or at least not been opposed to it. But in more recent times, links between students and forces under stricter scrutiny of the anti-communist authoritarian state existed in all three countries. No clear prediction can thus be made about the direction of the impact students’ presence at protests should have on the likelihood of state intervention. Furthermore, dummy variables were used to measure if an organized actor participated in the protest, if the protest was part of a broader campaign, if different actor types joined forces during a single protest (coalition dummy),13 and if it was supported by elite actors, such as religious organizations, formal political parties, but also peak labor unions.14 We assume that the presence of organizational structures renders actors more powerful. If the strength of actors is interpreted as a threat, repression would hence become more likely. To measure media attention, which has been found to have a monitoring function (Wisler and Giugni 1999), a count of the number of protests reported in front-page stories in the past 30 days was used.15 The hypothesis is that repression is less likely if this number is high. In other words, the watchful eye of the public should have a moderating effect on the government’s repressive behavior. However, ambiguity exists with regard to the impact of the organizational variables and the media monitoring. For the latter, it can also be argued to the contrary: when protest reaches a certain level of attention, the government is going to intervene because this increases the threat. The hypothesized positive link between the presence of organizational

13 Coalitions between main actor groups as defined in Chapters 6 and 7 were considered here. 14 See Chapter 4 on the definition of elite actors. 15 We created this variable based on a variable contained in our protest dataset: this

original variable indicates whether the protest was reported on the front page of the newspaper.

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structure and repression can also be questioned. Following the weakness argument discussed in the theory section above, the government will repress those protests where chances of successful repression are high. In this case, non-organized, i.e., more informal, protest would be more likely to be repressed. According to the logic promoted by this approach, protests where actors join forces would be less likely to be repressed. An analysis of state repression during the period of a country’s democratization needs to be time-sensitive. The perception of what is a threat to a regime is subject to change. It is hypothesized that the likelihood of repression varies depending on the phases of democratization a country is going through. Three dummy variables were introduced to capture the phases of democratization, as defined earlier in this book.16 They mark the start of the political liberalization phase, the democratization phase, for which the first free elections constitutes the starting point, and the phase of advanced consolidation. For every phase, the respective variable takes on the value 0 before the start of the phase and 1 afterward. Repression is expected to rise with the start of political liberalization, to fall again with the start of democratization, and to successively decrease with the start of the advanced consolidation phase. In addition to the overall importance of time in accounting for repression, the “time variables” are important to test the time-sensitivity of the other independent variables. It is expected that certain protest characteristics, such as violence, will always have a higher probability of triggering police or military action, independently of the political regime (Carey 2006); reaching the stage of democracy will not change much in this scenario. Protests raising stateness demands, targeting the government, and attracting a large number of participants all fall into this category. By contrast, among the factors considered to be particularly challenging to an authoritarian regime and much less to a democratic one are protests touching on regime-related issues, those organized by opponents outside the formal political system, or those that take place around the time of elections.17

16 See Chapter 2. 17 Election dummies, i.e., one for pre-election periods and one for post-election periods,

were only included as control variables and not shown in the results table.

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L. MADUZ

Research suggests that the capacity and willingness to repress by the state, or more specifically by its security forces, shape trends in repression (Boudreau 2004; Stockdill 1996). This explanatory approach, which focuses on characteristics of the state, is referred to by Earl et al. (2003) as the “police agency approach”. The expectation is that the more generally brutal a regime is toward its people, the higher the likelihood that it will repress specific protests. To capture this, two variables were included. Firstly, to measure the general brutality of a regime, we used the Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) Physical Integrity Rights Index (Cingranelli and Richards 1999, 2010), which is available for the countries and time periods under study. It is an additive index constructed from indicators for four types of rights, i.e., torture, extrajudicial killing, political imprisonment, and disappearance. The index ranges from 0 (no government respect for these rights) to 8 (full government respect) (ibid.). For easier interpretation, the variable was recoded so that the highest value (8) indicates the highest level of brutality. Secondly, we constructed a variable reflecting the regime’s repression capacity and willingness in the short run by measuring the number of repressed protests in the past 30 days. Other measures of state capacity related to military spending or the number of military personnel, as employed in other studies on repression (e.g., Ortiz 2007), are not used in this analysis.18 With regard to the willingness of a regime to repress, the question of when the opposition seizes power is relevant, because it would be expected that repression levels would fall in the aftermath. This provides an alternative reason why we should expect to observe less repression in the advanced consolidation phase during which the opposition assumed power (for the full period in Korea and Thailand). The situation in Indonesia is special in that the opposition seized power early on in the transition process. But when a first stage of consolidation was reached, power shifted back to a politician with connections to the former authoritarian power circle. A number of additional control variables expected to affect repression were entered into the analysis. It is hypothesized that the repression of protests is more likely at times considered critical from the viewpoint of a regime, particularly of an authoritarian regime, such as around election

18 Data availability was an issue. But for the years available, these indicators strongly correlated with the human rights physical integrity index, already included in the model.

8

REPRESSION AND PROTEST DURING REGIME CHANGE …

223

time and during an economic crisis. A dummy variable for a threemonth period ahead of elections and a dummy variable for a one-month period following the elections were used. To capture temporal variation in economic development, the measure of annual GDP growth rates from the World Bank’s (2014) World Development Indicators (WDI) dataset was employed. Furthermore, a variable was introduced to capture the level of democratization in the neighboring countries. The expectation, in line with arguments from democratic diffusion studies (Gleditsch and Ward 2006; Huntington 1991), would be that repression is less likely if the level of democratization in the region is high. The variable was constructed based on a variable taken from the Quality of Government (QOG) Standard Dataset (Teorell et al. 2011)—an average measure of the Freedom House and Polity indices.19 For the purpose of this study, an average variable was calculated per country and year, considering all Northeast and Southeast Asian countries minus the country of interest. The scale of the variable ranges from 0 (least democratic) to 10 (most democratic). 8.2.2

Dependent Variable: State Repression

Repression is defined by Tarrow (2011, p. 170) as “physical coercion of challengers”. A binary variable was used to capture the presence or absence of repressive actions by authorities in reaction to protest mobilization. Repression could be exercised by the police or the military.20 The variable was coded in a restrictive manner to only include open repression. Repressive behavior was considered to be present if the respective newspaper article reported on an active intervention in the form of arrests,21 19 The indicator taken from the dataset by Teorell et al. (2011) is described in the codebook as follows: “Average of Freedom House (fh_pr and fh_cl) is transformed to a scale 0-10 and Polity (p_polity2) is transformed to a scale 0-10. These variables are averaged into fh_polity2. The imputed version has imputed values for countries where data on Polity is missing by regressing Polity on the average Freedom House measure. Hadenius and Teorell (2005) show that this average index performs better both in terms of validity and reliability than its constituent parts”. 20 Actors of repression had to be part of the state apparatus, i.e., repression had to, for example, be conducted by the military or the police. This definition excludes acts of aggression by non-state actors, such as paramilitary groups. 21 A repressive action, for example in the form of a conviction, was retrospectively coded if it could be positively linked to an earlier, clearly identifiable protest.

224

L. MADUZ

violence emanating from the authorities, or actions by which protesters were barred from engaging in protest activities. Less evident and subtle forms of repression such as security forces’ ostentation of power by their mere presence at critical places and moments were not taken into account. The same holds for preemptive or delayed repression which, intentionally or unintentionally, was exercised outside the public’s view and failed to be reported. Our countries under study exhibit marked differences with regard to the overall levels of repression, as well as to the variation in these levels over time. The empirical analysis below aims to account for patterns of state repression specific to the countries and how they develop along the process of transition from authoritarian to democratic rule. Our data shows that between 1985 and 2005, 21.3% of protests were repressed in Korea, 4.1% in Thailand, and 13.2% in Indonesia. As explained in Chapter 2, this period includes the final years as authoritarian and the early years as democratic regimes for all three countries. The difference in repression levels in the pre- and post-regime change settings was more accentuated in Korea (28–13.7%), where transition happened early in the time frame considered, and Indonesia (16.3–8.3%), our latecomer country, than in Thailand (3.2–4.6%), where repression patterns seemed very stable over time. 8.2.3

Estimation Techniques

Since the outcome variable is binary, the hypotheses were tested using a logistic estimation model. The full model included all independent variables, as described above (model 1 in Table 8.1 in the next section). In addition, a reduced variant of the model was used (see model 2 in Tables 8.1, 8.2a, and 8.2b in the next section). Details about the second model are provided in the results section below.

8.3 The Role of State Repression in Contention During Regime Change Figure 8.1 suggests patterns of state repression in democratizing Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia varied from one country to the other, yet, Korea and Indonesia displayed some similarities: in the time period that lay between the start of the political liberalization phase and the end of the democratic institutionalization and early consolidation phase (indicated

Korea

Thailand

200 100

0

200 100

Year

1985

2005

2000

1995

1990

0 1985

2005

2000

1995

1990

0

Year

Protests repressed Protests not repressed

Year

Protests repressed Protests not repressed

Protests repressed Protests not repressed

b

Year

Protests repressed

Year

Protests repressed

2005

2000

1995

1990

0 1985

2005

2000

1995

1990

0

10

2005

0

10

20

2000

10

20

30

1995

20

30

1990

30

40

Number of protest events

Number of protest events

40

1985

40

1985

Protests repressed (% of total)

300

2005

100

300

2000

200

400 Number of protest events

Number of protest events

300

225

Indonesia

400

1995

400

1985

Number of protest events

a

REPRESSION AND PROTEST DURING REGIME CHANGE …

1990

8

Year

Protests repressed

Fig. 8.1 a Levels of state repression (no. of protests repressed, freq.), 1985– 2005. b Levels of state repression (no. of protests repressed, % of total protests), 1985–2005 (Note Vertical solid line: founding elections, vertical dashed lines: start and end of the transition period)

by the dashed lines in Fig. 8.1), levels of repression were higher than during the rest of the time. This tendency was stronger in Korea, where over 20% of protests were repressed during this period, than in Indonesia, where the corresponding number was 12%. In Thailand, less than 5% of protest was repressed during the 20-year period considered. Patterns of state repression in Thailand were steady across time and throughout the different phases of democratization (Fig. 8.1). In Korea and Indonesia, where repression patterns underwent sizable changes across time, repression was highest during political liberalization ahead of regime change (between the left dashed line and the solid line in Fig. 8.1). In Korea as well as in Indonesia, the number of repressed

226

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protests in absolute numbers (see Fig. 8.1a) peaked when total mobilization was highest, which coincided with the moment when regime change was announced, i.e., 1987 in Korea and 1998 in Indonesia. Also in relative terms, repression was at its highest level during political liberalization. In 1985, at the beginning of the transition period in Korea, as much as 38% of protest was repressed (Fig. 8.1b). Less and less protest was repressed in the following periods (with a short re-increase in the early 1990s). After Korea reached an advanced stage of democratic consolidation in 1998, the number of repressed protests remained below 10%. In Indonesia, the ratio of repressed to total protests reached its highest level early and late in the political liberalization period (see double-peak in Fig. 8.1) and quickly dropped afterward. Generally, as opposed to Korea, it never exceeded 20%. The following multivariate analysis allows us to simultaneously examine the various factors that may have driven these developments. How do factors, such as the size and place of protest, influence government’s repression behavior? How does the relevance of such situational factors compare to more ideological factors, such as the background of protesters? Does it matter if actors, like workers and farmers, are present at a protest? How do repression strategies change during the process of regime change? Does repression vary across the different phases of democratization? To assess the relevance of the various factors, the significance and direction of their effect on state repression are considered, as well as the size of the effect. Table 8.1 presents the logistic estimation coefficients. The sign of the coefficients indicates whether an explanatory variable is positively or negatively associated with state repression. If the association is statistically significant (significant at the p < 0.5 level), the coefficient is marked with an asterisk (*). Two model specifications are shown in Table 8.1. The first includes all the variables identified as relevant in the discussion above. The second model is a reduced version of the first one, but includes, in addition, a set of interaction variables: all insignificant coefficients were removed from the initial model and the dummy variables for workers, farmers, and extra-parliamentary political opponents were collapsed into a single actor variable. This new variable was interacted with three variables: “regime-related demands”, “violent action”, and “presence of organization(s)”. The expectation is that these interacted variables unfold their threatening effect only or particularly when combined.

Stateness demands (dummy)

Regime-related demands (dummy)

Violent action (dummy)

Tactical threat ( radicalness of protest) Confrontational action (dummy)

No. of violent protests in prior month

No. of protests in prior month

Place: capital dummy

Duration: no. of days (log)

Situational threat Protest size: no. of participants (log)

0.20 (0.16) 1.77* (0.17) 0.33* (0.16) 1.15* (0.22)

0.06* (0.03) 0.06 (0.13) 0.18 (0.14) −0.01 (0.01) −0.00 (0.04) 0.10 (0.16) 1.67* (0.18) 0.43* (0.19) 1.27* (0.22)

–

–

0.04 (0.03) 0.04 (0.13) –

1.69* (0.33) 2.49* (0.42) 0.09 (0.40) −1.26 (0.77)

0.14* (0.07) 0.32 (0.19) −0.10 (0.32) 0.00 (0.03) −0.07 (0.05)

Model 1

Model 1

Model 2

Thailand

Korea

1.68* (0.32) 2.51* (0.43) 0.21 (0.39) −1.10 (0.58)

–

–

0.15* (0.07) 0.25 (0.18) –

Model 2

0.58* (0.25) 1.15* (0.21) 0.55* (0.19) 0.93* (0.28)

0.21* (0.04) 0.51* (0.22) −0.27 (0.18) 0.03 (0.01) −0.02 (0.04)

Model 1

Indonesia

Binary logistic estimation models predicting state repression at protest events, 1985–2005

Independent variable

Table 8.1

(continued)

0.72* (0.25) 0.96* (0.22) 0.56* (0.20) 1.17* (0.24)

–

–

0.21* (0.04) 0.52* (0.23) –

Model 2 8 REPRESSION AND PROTEST DURING REGIME CHANGE …

227

(continued)

Media attention (no. of protests reported in front-page news in prior month)

Campaign: participation in (dummy)

Coalition: multiple actor types (dummy)

Presence of organization(s) (dummy)

Elite support (dummy)

Other actor-related variables Students (dummy)

Summary actor (dummy)

Extra-parliamentary political opponents (dummy)

Farmers (dummy)

Ideological threat Workers (dummy)

Targeting the government (dummy)

Independent variable

Table 8.1

0.82* (0.17) −0.66* (0.21) −0.34* (0.17) −0.22 (0.24) −0.05 (0.12) 0.03 (0.02)

0.62* (0.20) 0.92* (0.32) 1.20* (0.26) –

−0.04 (0.12) 0.01 (0.01)

0.84* (0.16) −0.63* (0.20) −0.28 (0.20) –

1.09* (0.29)

–

–

–

−1.22 (0.84) −1.75 (1.04) −0.76 (0.45) 0.36 (0.65) 0.40 (0.26) −0.02 (0.06)

−1.37* (0.64) 0.07 (0.43) 1.33 (0.76) –

0.47 (0.26) −0.02 (0.06)

−1.09 (0.79) −1.79 (1.03) −0.57 (0.48) –

−0.21 (0.40)

–

–

–

−0.11 (0.26)

0.69* (0.14)

−0.15 (0.27)

0.67* (0.14)

Model 2

Model 1

Model 1

Model 2

Thailand

Korea

0.36 (0.20) −0.21 (0.31) −0.43 (0.23) 0.05 (0.29) 0.36* (0.16) −0.07* (0.03)

−0.21 (0.31) 0.03 (0.65) 0.22 (0.43) –

0.22 (0.17)

Model 1

Indonesia

0.38* (0.16) −0.05* (0.02)

0.29 (0.19) −0.43 (0.30) −0.73* (0.25) –

−1.34* (0.47)

–

–

–

0.16 (0.17)

Model 2

228 L. MADUZ

–

Summary actor X presence of organization(s)

0.15 (0.45) −0.89* (0.15) −0.71* (0.23) −1.91* (0.49) 2566 −953.309 0.211

0.07 (0.38) −0.28 (0.26) −0.16 (0.30) 0.46 (0.75) −0.37 (0.53) 0.14 (0.47) −5.00* (1.09) 1836 −271.418 0.167

–

–

–

0.84 (0.72) −0.29 (0.47) 0.06 (0.33) −5.26* (0.87) 1836 −278.202 0.146

−0.69 (1.17) 0.25 (0.91) −0.11 (0.83)

Model 2

0.07 (0.38) −1.00* (0.31) −1.53* (0.75) −6.07 (3.16) 1969 −603.762 0.177

–

–

–

Model 1

Indonesia

0.27 (0.31) −0.88* (0.19) −1.69* (0.74) −3.61* (0.38) 1969 −601.568 0.180

1.84* (0.57) −0.00 (0.53) 1.79* (0.57)

Model 2

*p < 0.05 Note Main entries are coefficient estimates. Standard errors are in parentheses. The table does not show the results for all the variables included in the analysis (see Sect. 8.2.1). The effect of the variables that are not shown here was found to be not significant

N Log likelihood McFadden’s R 2

Constant

Start of democratic consolidation (dummy)

Start of democratic institutionalization (dummy)

0.41 (0.47) −0.91* (0.18) −0.82* (0.32) −2.35* (0.63) 2566 −946.248 0.217

–

Summary actor X political change demands

Time variables: phases of democratization Start of political liberalization (dummy)

–

Model 1

Model 1

Model 2

Thailand

Korea

Interactions: actor-related Summary actor X violent action

Independent variable

8 REPRESSION AND PROTEST DURING REGIME CHANGE …

229

Thailand

Indonesia

0.5 −1.4* −0.2

0.7

10.6* 23.4* 0.6 −1.8 −0.3

0.1

0.2 8.9* 1.2

5.5*

2.2*

18.8*

8.2*

0.5

0.4

0.1

0.3*

−0.2

−1.5

0.5

19.7*

8.7*

0.5

0.3*

1.2

13.7*

5.1*

10.3*

7.0*

3.8*

1.5*

0.6

6.8*

2.4*

5.0*

3.3*

1.7*

0.7*

0.1

1.4

0.5

1.0

0.6

0.3

0.1

LiberalizationInstitution. Consolidated LiberalizationInstitution. Consolidated LiberalizationInstitution. Consolidated

Korea

Situational threat Protest size: no. 0.4 0.2 of participants (log) Duration: no. of 0.4 0.2 days (log) Tactical threat ( radicalness of protest) Confrontational 1.0 0.5 action (dummy) Violent action 28.0* 15.8* (dummy) Regime-related 4.8* 2.3* demands (dummy) Stateness 19.0* 10.0* demands (dummy) Targeting the 8.4* 4.1* government (dummy)

Independent variables

Table 8.2a Marginal effects of situational, tactical, and ideological factors on state repression during different transition phases (percentage points)

230 L. MADUZ

Thailand

Indonesia

2.9* −1.1* −0.6 −0.1 0.0

5.4* −2.1* −1.1 −0.2 0.0

1.2 −0.0

−0.0

−0.9

1.6

−1.2

−1.7*

−1.4*

−1.8 −2.3

−0.4

−0.5

−0.0

1.2

−0.9

−1.8*

−1.5

−0.4

−0.4*

3.2*

−3.9*

−2.6

2.3

−5.6*

−0.2*

1.4*

−1.7*

−1.1

1.1

−2.5*

0.0

0.3

−0.3

−0.2

0.2

−0.5

Note Main entries are percentage points. The model on which this table is based included all reported explanatory variables, three time variables, and a control variable (annual GDP growth). The marginal effects were calculated with continuous variables set at their means and all dummy variables turned off except for the time variables. These time variables, indicating the start of the political liberalization, democratic transition, and democratic consolidation phase, are not reported here, but were used in different constellations to simulate the predicted probabilities of repression for each of the transition phases. Asterisks indicate that the change in probability when the particular independent variable increases by one unit is significant (N = 2566 for Korea, N = 1836 for Thailand, and N = 1969 for Indonesia)

4.3*

7.9*

LiberalizationInstitution. Consolidated LiberalizationInstitution. Consolidated LiberalizationInstitution. Consolidated

Korea

Ideological threat Summary actor 15.3* (dummy) Other actor-related variables Students 10.9* (dummy) Elite support −4.6* (dummy) Presence of −2.4 organization(s) (dummy) Campaign: −0.4 participation in (dummy) Media attention 0.1 (no. of protests reported in front-page news in prior month)

Independent variables

8 REPRESSION AND PROTEST DURING REGIME CHANGE …

231

−0.4

−11.2

10.8

−0.4

0.1

−0.5

−0.5

−13.6

13.1

−0.5

0.2

−0.7

17.4*

−13.1

4.3*

4.0*

0.2

Institution.

4.3*

Liberalization

Consolidated

Liberalization

Institution.

Thailand

Korea

Summary actor X violent action 15.3* 7.9* Difference in summary actor at violent action = 0 Difference in 28.0* 24.4* summary actor at violent action = 1 → Difference −12.7 −16.5 in differences Summary actor X political demands Difference in 15.3* 7.9* summary actor at regime-related demands = 0 Difference in 13.5* 7.4* summary actor at regime-related demands = 1 → Difference 1.8 0.6 in differences

Independent variables

−0.5

0.1

−0.4

11.3

−11.7

−0.4

Consolidated

1.7

−4.2*

−9.2*

3.5

−2.5*

−7.3

4.8

−2.5*

Institution.

−5.6*

−14.4

8.7

−5.6*

Liberalization

Indonesia

0.3

−0.8

−0.5

−1.5

1.1

−0.5

Consolidated

Table 8.2b Marginal effects of actor variable on state repression, conditional on form, goal, and organization of protest (percentage points)

232 L. MADUZ

−0.3

−0.1

−0.4

−0.1

2.6*

1.7

−0.1

−0.3

−0.4

Consolidated

Indonesia

7.8*

2.1

−5.6*

Liberalization

−3.4*

0.9

−2.5*

Institution.

−0.6

0.2

−0.5

Consolidated

Note Main entries are percentage points. The model on which this table is based included all reported explanatory variables, three time variables, and a control variable (annual GDP growth). The marginal effects were calculated with continuous variables set at their means and all dummy variables turned off except for the time variables. These time variables, indicating the start of the political liberalization, democratic transition, and democratic consolidation phase, are not reported here, but were used in different constellations to simulate the predicted probabilities of repression for each of the transition phases. Asterisks indicate that the change in probability when the particular independent variable increases by one unit is significant (N = 2566 for Korea, N = 1836 for Thailand, and N = 1969 for Indonesia)

−0.4

−0.5

Institution.

4.3*

Thailand Liberalization

Consolidated

Liberalization

Institution.

Korea

Summary actor X presence of organization Difference in 15.3* 7.9* summary actor at organization = 0 Difference in 10.2* 5.0* summary actor at organization = 1 → Difference 5.1 3.0 in differences

Independent variables

8 REPRESSION AND PROTEST DURING REGIME CHANGE …

233

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L. MADUZ

The presentation of results in Table 8.1 has its limits, which is why the results are discussed jointly with the results shown in Tables 8.2a and 8.2b. The size of the effect of variables on repression cannot be interpreted based on the coefficient estimates shown in Table 8.1. Moreover, when variables are interacted with other variables as in model 2 in Table 8.1, not even the direction and the significance of the effects can be directly identified from the coefficient estimates (see Ai and Norton 2003). To get an idea of the substantial effects on repression, we hence present the marginal effects of the various factors in Tables 8.2a and 8.2b. The entries correspond to changes in the predicted probabilities of repression, for a one-unit increase in a particular independent variable. The calculation was done based on the second model in Table 8.1 with continuous variables set at their means and binary variables turned off. The results shown in Tables 8.2a and 8.2b basically correspond to the results in model 2 of Table 8.1, but they are presented in a different form. The interest now lies in the size of the effects that the different explanatory variables have on repression. Moreover, in Tables 8.2a and 8.2b, the effects of the variables are shown at three points in time (they were calculated by setting the respective time variable at 1), i.e., during political liberalization, during democratic institutionalization and early consolidation, and during advanced consolidation. This gives us additional insights into how the effects, and more specifically the size of the effects, vary across the phases of democratization. Importantly, Tables 8.2a and 8.2b, more specifically Table 8.2b, allow us to analyze the effect of the actor variable when combined with other factors (see variables interacted in Table 8.1). What we see in this table are the marginal effects of the collapsed actor variable (“summary actor”) on state repression, conditional on form, goal, and organization of protest. With regard to the impact of situational and tactical factors on repression, the results in Tables 8.1, 8.2a, and 8.2b lend support to two key findings of research on state repression: the likelihood of repression increases with the radicalness of the protest and it also increases with the size of the protest. In other words, the experience of democratizing Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia confirms what has previously been found mostly in the context of the democratic West, i.e., that the state is more likely to intervene when protesters are violent or numerous, or both. In Thailand and Indonesia, not only violent protests, but also confrontational actions, such as strikes and sit-ins (albeit to a lesser extent) make state intervention more likely. In Korea, the effect of confrontational

8

REPRESSION AND PROTEST DURING REGIME CHANGE …

235

actions is in the expected direction, but not significant. The large number of labor actions taking place in the period after regime change which were not systematically repressed explains this result. Still on the situational and tactical factors, the three states under study vary with regard to their reaction to radical protest goals and targets. In Korea and Indonesia, as expected, state repression becomes more likely in cases where protesters make regime-related demands, and even more likely when they raise stateness issues (Table 8.1). In line with our expectations, the Korean experience shows that protests targeted at the government are more likely to be repressed. In Indonesia, the effect goes in the same direction, but is not significant. Thailand, however, constitutes a case that does not fit well with the predictions outlined earlier. While regime-related demands are positively linked with state repression, the effect is not significant. The effect of stateness demands is not significant either (except during democratic institutionalization, see Tables 8.2a and 8.2b), and even points in the opposite direction. The relatively high percentage of terrorist attacks by Southern separatists for which perpetrators could often not be punished may explain this unexpected result. In Korea, also in substantial terms, tactical aspects of mobilization, such as protest forms, goals, and targets, are important to explain the occurrence of state repression (Tables 8.2a and 8.2b). Like in Thailand, and Indonesia, the choice of violent actions is among the variables with the biggest impact: it increases the likelihood of repression by 28 percentage points (pp) during liberalization and by almost 9 pp during advanced consolidation. In Korea, a second variable that stands out in terms of its size is “stateness demands”. The period from early 1985 until transition in 1987, defined as the political liberalization phase, saw the mobilization of people, mainly students, who often linked regime-related demands with leftist pro-North Korea, anti-U.S. demands, coded as “stateness demands”. Raising stateness issues during protest increases the likelihood of repression in Korea by 19 pp during political liberalization, 10 pp during democratization (the cause was kept alive by a smaller, radicalized group of people in the early years of transition), and 5.5 pp during advanced consolidation. In Korea, a little less important in terms of its size but still considerable is the impact of protesters who make regime-related demands or target the government, or both. When protest events are targeted at the government, the likelihood of state repression increases by 8.4 pp

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during liberalization, 4.1 pp during democratic institutionalization, and 2.2 pp during advanced consolidation. When regime-related demands are raised in protests during political liberalization, the likelihood of repression increases by 4.8 pp. This may be less than could be expected given the centrality of the question. The marginal effect for “regime-related demands” drops further to 2.3 pp during democratic institutionalization and turns insignificant during the phase of advanced consolidation. This development probably reflects the fact that, from the viewpoint of power holders, this type of protest goal loses its threatening effect along the democratization process. In Thailand, among the factors considered in this study, the forms of protest play by far the most important role in explaining the relatively limited number of instances when protest was repressed (Tables 8.2a and 8.2b). The likelihood of repression is significantly higher when protesters resort to radical means of protest. This is as true for confrontational forms of protests, such as street blockades and disturbances of meetings, as it is for violent forms of action, where violence may be of a more symbolic nature or involve damage to property and people. While the size of the effect decreases somewhat going from the liberalization to the institutionalization phase, variation between the different phases of democratization is limited compared to the other two countries. The likelihood of a protest event being repressed increases by around 10 pp when confrontational means are used and by around 20 pp when violent means are employed. For the Indonesian case, the results in Tables 8.2a and 8.2b reveal some important parallels with the Korean and Thai cases. Violent tactics, like in the other two countries, considerably increase the likelihood of state repression (i.e., by 10 pp during political liberalization). Like in Thailand, confrontational tactics also have a sizeable, but somewhat smaller impact on the likelihood of state repression. Like in Korea, the protest goals are important in explaining the occurrence of state intervention with stateness demands having a bigger impact (the likelihood during political liberalization increasing by close to 14 pp) than regime-related demands (increase by roughly 5 pp during the same period). What is very similar to the pattern in Korea, but different from the one in Thailand, is that the size of the variables’ effect shrinks by around 50% moving from the political liberalization phase to the democratic institutionalization phase. Other protest characteristics that are situation-specific turn out to be less relevant in explaining state repression in the three countries, except, maybe, for Indonesia (Table 8.1). Factors such as the place of protest

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and general protest dynamics appear to be generally insignificant. This means that for the likelihood of a protest event being repressed it does not matter whereabouts in the country it takes place, i.e., in the capital, in a contested area, or elsewhere. Neither does it depend on the number of violent protests or more generally the number of (all) protests that have preceded a given protest event. However, the effect of the latter in Indonesia just missed the significance level set in this study. In Indonesia, the duration of a protest event, measured in days, is also found to be relevant: the longer a protest lasts, the more likely state intervention becomes. The variety of factors influencing the reaction of the Indonesian state (see also the results for other factors below) suggests a differentiated and situation-specific approach to protest. The main interest of this analysis lies, however, in understanding the role of specific actor types in triggering state repression. Once controlled for situational and tactical threats, are certain actors more likely to be repressed by the state (see model 1 in Table 8.1)? The theoretical argument, made earlier, that anti-communist states selectively target workers, farmers, and the political Left finds support in Korea. Here, the presence of each of these actors at protest events makes state intervention more likely. The same cannot be said about Thailand and Indonesia. Only the “workers” variable in Thailand has a significant effect, but does not point in the expected direction: the presence of labor reduces the likelihood of repression, which is contrary to what is expected. Hence, only in the case of Korea is the relevance of the ideological dimension of repression directly confirmed. The Korean experience is important to support our argument about power holders being challenged by ideological factors, such as the presence of actors identified as enemies of anti-communist governments. More generally, it points to the importance of studying the identity of the protesters, an aspect that has not received due attention in much of the previous research on state repression. This is probably related to the focus of studies on protests in democracies, where the treatment of citizens is supposedly more equal than in autocracies. The presence of workers, farmers, or political opponents from outside the formal political system increases the likelihood of state repression in Korea during political liberalization by as much as 15.3 pp (Tables 8.2a and 8.2b). The number drops to 7.9 pp during democratic institutionalization and to 4.3 pp during advanced consolidation. Despite this type of protest being

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less repressed along the transition process, its effect is still considerable even during advanced democratic consolidation. With regard to the role of ideology in state repression, Indonesia is a particularly interesting case. Like in Korea, the identity of actors matters, but their threatening potential, and thus the likelihood of the state to intervene, is contingent on other factors (Table 8.2b). The presence of workers, farmers, or political opponents decreases the likelihood of repression. However, when combined with violent tactics or the presence of organizational structure, the association between the actor variable and repression becomes positive for all three phases considered (this is not the case when the actor variable is combined with “regime-related demands”). The difference in differences is significant, but only for the organization variable and only for the phases of liberalization and democratic institutionalization. The presence of organizations on its own makes repression during liberalization roughly 4 pp less likely (Table 8.2a). With regard to the state’s handling of students, expectations were ambiguous. The results in Table 8.1 reflect this ambiguity. While students in all three countries have been found to be important actors in raising regime-related issues (see Chapter 7), the role of Korean students in the democratization process has been the most extensive in many regards. In Korea, students are usually portrayed as the leaders of the democratization movement that actively engaged in coalition-building with other actors (Lee 2010). Thus, reasonable grounds existed for the Korean state to perceive students’ mobilization as a threat and to repress it. The presence of students, as the main organizers of protest throughout the democratization process, increases the likelihood of state intervention by almost 11 pp during liberalization (Tables 8.2a and 8.2b). The size of the effect is divided by half during democratic institutionalization and early consolidation and reaches roughly 3 pp during advanced consolidation, and remains significant. In Thailand and Indonesia, the presence of students at protests does for the most part not change the likelihood of state intervention (Tables 8.1, 8.2a, and 8.2b). While they were key organizers of protest during transition, the position of students in Indonesia was more isolated and less emancipated from the regime than in Korea. The coefficient estimate of the student dummy variable in Indonesia is positive, but no significant effect exists. For Thailand, the effect is not significant either (except during democratic institutionalization) and the sign of the coefficient is, moreover, in the wrong direction. Previous chapters have shown that

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student mobilization in Thailand during democratization has been very limited anyway. In democratizing Thailand, students’ role in protests and the state’s reaction to it have to be seen in light of the historical relationship between students and authoritarian power holders. The student movement was crushed in the events in October 1976, when the politically most liberal era until then was brutally put to an end (see Morell and Chai-anan Samudavanija 1981). The movement has not recovered since these events, which are still relatively recent. A deep ideological crisis within the student movement has followed (Kongkirati 2012). Concerning the impact of elite actors’ presence (“elite support”) and organized actors’ presence in protest, the findings in Table 8.1 point in the same direction for all three countries and are not in line with the threat model, which has hitherto worked very well in interpreting our results. This does not come as a surprise, though, since our hypothesis in this regard was ambiguous. Results suggest that state intervention is less likely when elite actors are present at a protest and is also less likely when protesting actors are organized. While the signs of the coefficient estimates are in the expected direction in all countries during all periods, we could not always establish a significant effect. The effect of elite support on state repression is significant in Korea (for the whole period) and in Thailand during democratic institutionalization and during its advanced consolidation phase (Tables 8.2a and 8.2b).22 The effect of the organization dummy variable is significant in Indonesia during most of the period considered—the effect is only insignificant in the advanced consolidation phase.23 The results in Table 8.1 show that the presence of organizational structure at a protest, like elite support, reduces the likelihood of state repression and, thereby, supports the view that power holders intervene when they think they will be successful. This is what is referred in Earl et al. (2003) as the weakness approach (see theory section above).

22 The size of the effect is moderate in both countries. In Korea, it is below 5 pp during political liberalization and decreases in the aftermath, but is also still significant during advanced democratic consolidation. In Thailand, the size of the effect does not exceed 2 pp. 23 The reason why the elite support variable was not significant in the case of Indonesia is that “elite” is operationalized to include peak labor organizations, as well. If a specification is used that excludes them, elite support has a significant negative effect in the case of Indonesia, as well.

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Other explanatory variables that have also been referred to as organizational variables because they capture when actors get organized and join forces or get support by other actors are particularly important in the context of Indonesia and reveal a contrasting experience of Indonesia and Thailand on the one hand and Korea on the other. For Indonesia and Thailand, the signs of the coefficients of interest in Table 8.1 suggest that actors joining forces in the form of participating in campaigns or engaging in coalitions for a specific protest are indeed threatening to the state and thus more likely to be repressed. However, a significant effect only exists for campaign-building in the case of Indonesia. The effect of campaign-building in Thailand just missed the significance level. In Korea, no significant effect of these variables can be observed. As the threat and the weakness arguments produce opposing predictions, an insignificant result may indicate that none of them dominates so that the two effects cancel out on average. More variables exist that have the expected impact on state repression, but are supported only in some of the cases. For the cases of Thailand and Indonesia, the relationship between media attention and state repression has been found to be as research in this area suggests (Davenport et al. 2011; Wisler and Giugni 1999): the higher the number of protests in front-page stories, the less likely the state is to intervene. This indicates that the media exercise an important monitoring function. The more public attention protest receives, the less likely is it to be repressed. The effect is significant only in the Indonesian case, though. It is relatively small (an increase from the 10th to the 90th percentile reduces the likelihood of repression by around 1.5 pp), but stable across phases. In Korea, no significant effect exists in this regard and the sign of the coefficient is not in the expected direction either. An important question to be asked when studying state repression in the context of democratizing states is whether patterns of repression, as suggested and tested here, change over time. The results in Table 8.1 indicate that state repression depends on the democratization phase the country is currently in. This is particularly true for Korea and Indonesia, where the start of the democratic institutionalization phase, as well as later on the start of the advanced consolidation phase, is found to significantly reduce the likelihood of repression. With the start of political liberalization, the likelihood of state repression increases in all three countries, but the effect is not significant. In Thailand, the start of democratization is,

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like in the other countries, negatively associated with repression, but in Thailand no significant effect is found. The advanced consolidation phase, by contrast, which coincides with the coming into power of Thaksin, is positively associated with repression, but again, no significant effect exists. A trend across the phases is discernable with regard to the size of the studied effects on state repression: they decrease along the process (Tables 8.2a and 8.2b). This gradation is most obvious in the case of Korea. In this country, the choice of violent action, for example, increases the likelihood of state repression by 28 percentage points (pp) during political liberalization. During the phase of democratic institutionalization and early consolidation, the corresponding figure is 15.8 pp, and it further drops to 8.9 pp during advanced consolidation. The marginal effects of all the other explanatory variables follow a similar pattern: going from one phase to the next, the effect is roughly divided in half. The same is true when comparing the liberalization and institutionalization phases in Indonesia. A drop in the size of the effect of explanatory variables can also be seen in Thailand between the liberalization and the institutionalization phases, but it is much smaller in size and does not extend to the advanced consolidation phase. All control variables in all three countries have been found to be insignificant with the important exception of annual GDP growth, our measure of economic crisis, in Korea (not shown in the results table). As expected, a negative development of the economy pushes the government to be harsher on protesters. When reflecting on all the above results we should remember the discussion, we started in Chapter 2 on the question of how biased data may affect our analysis. With regard to repression, newspaper articles used for our dataset tended to under-report instances of state intervention. This means that if a statistically significant relationship between an explanatory variable and repression has been found we should be on the safe side. If such a relationship cannot be established, as is the case for many variables in Thailand for example, this may either be due to the explanatory variable not deploying the expected effect in terms of triggering repression (as suggested in the above discussion), or, however, to the under-reporting of repression. The fact that in Thailand no clear peak in repression could be observed and that repression did not substantially drop when the country entered the consolidation phase may also be a

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consequence of the newspaper reporting becoming better and more open over time.24 Coming to the conclusion of this section and following up on the discussion about the quality of data, a note with regard to the general fit of the explanatory model tested in this chapter is in order, given the differences observed in the countries in this regard. The Thai case, for which the model seems least appropriate, raises the question of the relative importance of open repression and other forms of repression. In the scope of this study, we have analyzed open state repression. In Thailand, the level of this type of repression was very low, the single most important explanatory factor being the form of protest chosen: the power holders strongly reacted to radical protest forms. Has this strategy been so successful that it prevented further protest and made other repression strategies unnecessary? A more obvious explanation is that repression in Thailand took more secretive forms. Evidence from qualitative research suggests, for example, that leaders of labor, farmer, and student movements were eliminated in a very targeted way by the authoritarian rulers and the people helping them (Anderson 1990; Morell and Samudavanija 1981, Chapters 6–8). By contrast, the model has proven useful in generating a better understanding of state repression in democratizing Korea and Indonesia. These countries’ experiences suggest, as expected, that both actors’ identity and tactical and situational protest characteristics are important factors in explaining state repression. In Korea, where the percentage of repressed protests was highest among the three countries, repression patterns are clearly discernable and stable across democratization phases, fitting our theoretically derived expectations best. The importance of ideological factors in explaining state repression can be seen in the strong reaction of the state to the presence of workers, farmers, and political opponents. It also reacted to protests in which people made regime-related demands. Interestingly, and as could be expected, this latter effect is not significant anymore at a later stage of democratization, since it loses its threatening

24 As mentioned earlier, however, the problem of censorship re-emerged in Thailand

under Thaksin. This, again, would explain a potential decline in protest activity that could not be explained otherwise. In the critical period, a certain downward trend in mobilization was indeed observable except for the strong mobilization in the south of Thailand. These opposite trends make it difficult to come to a conclusive assessment of the censorship problem in our data during this period.

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power. The explanatory power of actors’ identity also decreases along the transition process, but remains significant. In Indonesia, actors’ identity has also been found to matter, but only when considered in combination with situational and tactical factors. This finding is interesting, given that the situation during regime change in Indonesia was very chaotic. In these apparently confusing times, the state acted in a very nuanced way to protest. Workers, farmers, and political opponents were repressed, but only when they got organized. From qualitative studies, we know that the Indonesian state under Suharto resorted to repression that was not always visible and known to the public. The high number of missing people is indicative of this (Kontras— The Commission for “The Disappeared” and Victims of Violence 2015). Against this background, the explanatory model used in this study works fairly well. Compared to Korea, the size of the effects of the variables is generally smaller and they are not significant for the advanced consolidation phase. The fact that a broader set of the included variables has proven to be helpful in explaining state intervention in Indonesia adds to the image of Indonesia as having a situation-specific and differentiated strategy in countering protest. Korea’s and Indonesia’s experience has also been insightful with regard to how repression strategies have developed over time. In these countries, in contrast to Thailand, a clear trend is observable. Whereas the effects of the explanatory variables (in terms of their size) are stable across phases in Thailand, they decrease in Korea and Indonesia over time. Studying the Korean case in more detail during the advanced consolidation phase is revealing as it can be seen that certain factors continue to trigger state repression to a considerable extent. The use of violence, for example, still has a considerable effect even under democratic rule, which is in line with previous research (see footnote 7). Stateness demands are also among the factors to which not only authoritarian but also democratic power holders strongly react. Interestingly, workers, farmers, and political opponents are still significantly more repressed than other actors.

8.4

Conclusion

The findings of this chapter support much of the previous research on state repression. The general underlying assumption, based on established findings of protest policing studies, has been that the state represses protest by which it feels threatened. Our analysis has shown that

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situational and tactical protest characteristics are important in this context: the use of violence and large protest size increase the likelihood of repression. Moreover, radicalness in goals has been established to be an important trigger of state repression in democratizing Korea and Indonesia. The same is true for protests targeting the government; this effect is, however, only significant in Korea. In Indonesia, a number of more situation-specific factors have been found to matter, as well. Results suggest that the state is more likely to intervene during regime change when challenged by a long-lasting protest event or when a protest is part of a larger campaign. Also conforming to previous research, but not in line with a threatbased explanation of repression, is the finding that media attention is negatively related to repression. This is true for all three countries, but the effect only reached the level of statistical significance in the case of Indonesia. In the same logic, the presence of elite actors and organizations leads to less repression. These results can be interpreted in light of an alternative explanatory approach, referred to in the literature as the weakness approach (see Earl et al. 2003). According to the explanation provided by this approach, the state represses mobilization when it is likely to succeed given the weakness of the protesters (e.g., less organized, nonelite actors). Both arguments, i.e., the threat and the weakness arguments, have proven useful in the analysis. It is likely that the mechanisms behind these two arguments sometimes apply at the same time. In some instances, their effects will then cancel each other out. The novel aspect of this chapter concerns the question of the impact of actors’ identity on repression, designated here as the ideological dimension of repression. Authoritarian rulers in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia faced similar popular challenges in the aftermath of World War II and up to the democratization process of their countries. Their position in the international context and the situation they faced domestically were in many aspects comparable. As a consequence, the repression strategies they applied for decades were also similar; this is what qualitative research suggests. Workers, farmers, and the political Left, and in some instances students, were the main targets and subject to heavy repression. Against this background, the expectation was that these similarities in the regime would be translated into repression strategies during political transition. While situational and tactical protest characteristics have been found to have an effect on repression in all three countries, the ideological dimension of repression has had a repression-triggering effect only in Korea

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and Indonesia. The Korean case supports the argument promoted in this chapter particularly well. The authoritarian and transitory state is more likely to repress a protest event when workers, farmers, or political opponents are present. This repression strategy is clearly discernable for all phases of democratization studied here, i.e., liberalization, democratic institutionalization, and advanced consolidation. In substantive terms, the effect of the presence of actors targeted by anti-communist regimes decreases along the democratization process, as could be expected. The Indonesian case is interesting as it shows how differentiated a state can react to protest. The identity of actors for itself was not threatening enough to repress their protests. However, when these actors got organized, the regime’s restraint in repressing them vanished. The interactive analysis in the present chapter, going beyond the protesters’ perspective, compounds and complements the analyses in the previous chapters and allows us to move on to our final chapter, in which we try to wrap up the key findings of the book and draw some general conclusions. The present chapter has shown that not only protest action developed in a highly dynamic manner in democratizing Korea and Indonesia, but also government action in response and anticipation of protest action. Mobilization by protesters and repression by the government can be seen as processes that reinforce each other. In Thailand, people’s steady protest behavior during transition is mirrored by rather steady government behavior. We address the implications of the findings of the present and previous chapters in the following final chapter.

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Wood, Lesley. “Breaking the Wave: Repression, Identity, and Seattle Tactics.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 12, no. 4 (December 1, 2007): 377–88. https://doi.org/10.17813/maiq.12.4.a38x78203j3502q0. World Bank. World Development Indicators, 1960–2014. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014. http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?sou rce=world-development-indicators. Wyatt, David K. Thailand: A Short History. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003.

CHAPTER 9

Final Discussion and Conclusion: Dynamic Transitions and Their Implications

The questions of how people voice their opinion in the political arena and how effectively they can do it are at the core of political science research. They are particularly interesting to explore during democratization processes, when people’s influence on government decision-making is shifting with regard to the scope and channels of influence. In undemocratic settings, where modes of political participation and interest mediation are severely limited, protest may become a major form of political action. When and why does popular upsurge occur in such a setting? What form does it take? What do people ask for? When does protest become regime-threatening? How does the authoritarian government react? The present study helps us understand the dynamics we observe during transitional periods facing high contention, in which much is at stake both for power holders and their challengers. Based on the experiences of democratizing Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia, we have been able to establish that even in the chaotic context of transition there are regularities in when and how people mobilize; this is what social movement research suggests. The present study applied concepts and methods used in social movement research to the study of regime change and thereby highlighted a dimension of regime change that is generally under-researched in the literature: the mobilization of the masses during the transition to democratic rule. For a complete picture, we consulted various sub-strands of social movement research © The Author 2020 L. Maduz, Contention and Regime Change in Asia, Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49220-5_9

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and also looked for theoretical inputs from other research areas. Research on the policing of protest was useful for examining patterns of interaction between protesters and the authoritarian government. Studies on regime change further provided us with concepts and categories helpful in studying the actors behind contention. A main contribution of the present study may be situated at the empirical level. The bulk of the political science literature on the Asian region consists of qualitative single-case studies. Cross-country comparisons are more difficult to find and are often not carried out in a systematic way. Through the compilation of a dataset on protest events over a period of 20 years, we have developed indicators that allow us to conduct a comparative analysis of political developments in three Asian countries. The focus of the study was on the methodologically coherent and systematic gathering and analysis of data. While various existing theories and concepts were referred to in the empirical chapters, no overarching theoretical framework was used or tested. Instead, we operated rather inductively. Based on the experience of democratizing countries, we tried to answer the question of what role popular mobilization assumed in regime change. In the process, we gained new theoretical insights that will be discussed here and need further testing in the future. The present chapter aims at summarizing the results of the empirical chapters and at identifying the major insights for theory that have become apparent through the cases studied. We will first introduce the central concept of dynamic transition (9.1). In a second step, we will identify a number of key qualities of dynamic transitions (9.2). To understand where the dynamism in protest during regime change comes from, we will then take a step back and address the deeper causes of this dynamism—or the lack thereof (9.3); a central insight of the present study is that the type of actor active in mobilization decisively shapes protest action. Furthermore, we have found that protest action is also shaped by government reactions. This dimension is the interactive dimension in protest during regime change. Before we draw the final conclusion for this book (9.5), in which we also formulate some policy proposals, we will show what our findings on dynamic as opposed to non-dynamic transitions imply for the prospect of a democracy’s quality and durability (9.4).

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9.1 A Key Distinction: Dynamic vs. Non-dynamic Transitions The question of how much pressure protesters can exert on the existing regime decisively depends on whether contention during regime change follows what we have identified as a dynamic as opposed to a nondynamic pattern. In democratizing Korea and Indonesia, contention was highly dynamic and escalated into a full protest cycle. Authoritarian power holders were confronted with a rapidly increasing number of protests and protesters. Furthermore, the composition of protest actors quickly changed along the process, as did their strategies in terms of radicalness of protest forms and goals. Protest in these two countries was also dynamic in its geographic expansion, spreading from the political center to the periphery. In Thailand, by contrast, mobilization during the critical transition period studied in this book lacked this dynamism: protest was an ever-present feature, but patterns were much more stable and regular. This regularity included the overall intensity, place, actors, forms, and goals of protest. The starkly contrasting experience of the countries under study shows that even when the overall protest level in countries is similarly high, protest dynamics and, therefore, the amount of pressure challengers exert on the government can vary significantly. The various fast-changing aspects of contention which we observe in democratizing Korea or Indonesia led to massive pressure being exerted on power holders. Based on the findings of this book, we define below a number of qualities of this dynamism in contention which we were able to detect in the two countries but could not find when analyzing the transition in Thailand. These qualities of dynamic transitions will have to be tested in further studies. They are potentially applicable to all transition processes from authoritarian rule that are characterized by a strong popular upsurge.

9.2 Building Up Pressure: Qualities of Dynamic Transitions 9.2.1

Pressure Through Chaos and Order: Finding the Right Balance

The high level of dynamism in contention creates a general sense of chaos and disorder. A source of power in the hands of protesters is the threat of further, larger-scale violence. The element of spontaneity or chaos—which

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is a key element in dynamic transitions—makes situations unpredictable. In such a challenging and fast-changing environment, authoritarian power holders need to take quick decisions, not knowing what comes next. At critical moments of the Korean and Indonesian transitions, massive protest was, for example, triggered by incidents of state violence against students. In what followed, the core of protesters quickly expanded. Broad elements of society mobilized and a feeling emerged that the political system was being pushed to the verge of a breakdown. While protests in democratic settings may target certain policy areas, protests in undemocratic contexts quickly turn to challenge the incumbent regime and the political system at large. The authoritarian governments were able neither to foresee nor to control these developments. At the same time, dynamic contention is more than simple escalation. It is targeted and sustained. This differentiates dynamic transitions from shorter, smaller-scale contestation, which were particularly widespread in Thailand, as well as from situations that descend into full-scale chaos and violence, such as in post-2011 Syria. In dynamic transitions, there is a clear sequencing and connection of individual actions. Temporal patterns can be discerned as to protest actors involved, levels of violence, and types of demands made during mobilization. Escalation is followed by de-escalation once the main claim(s) of protesters are fulfilled. In the Korean and Indonesian transitions, this was the case once free elections were announced. In dynamic transitions, people participating in protest are organized and unified enough to give their actions and demands a direction, which raises the pressure on the rulers. 9.2.2

Pressure Through Spreading: The Contagiousness of Protest

Dynamic contention is contagious. When protest begins to spread, it can quickly include a large number of people. Importantly, pressure is not only being built up by the sheer number of participants, but also by the successive extension of protest in space and across topics, actor groups, etc. The spreading of protest leads to new links being established. It is not only places and people between which previously no contact existed that become interconnected, but also ideas from different thematic areas. When contention is extraordinarily high, it will not be contained in one place; protest is likely to spread to other areas of a country. At the peak of protest, shortly before regime change, contention in the Korean and Indonesian periphery was higher than in the center. Protest in the political

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center is important, but its geographic expansion to more remote areas adds to the pressure on national power holders. The spreading of protest from one issue area to another is another defining feature of dynamic transitions. In democratizing Korea, calls for political rights on the one hand and for workers’ rights on the other reinforced each other. In Indonesia, socioeconomic demands related to the prevailing financial crisis and political regime-related claims blended at the peak of contention during the transition. In Thailand, where we did not observe such dynamic developments during transition, protests, and the issues they raised, developed much more independently from each other. It appears that when people gain new political ideas and identities through the spreading of protest, this is particularly challenging for authoritarian as compared to democratic governments. 9.2.3

Pressure Through Radicalness and Transgression: Form and Content of Protest

In a dynamic transition, radicalness in form and content of protest picks up ahead of regime change and turns most extreme shortly after the peak of contention, i.e., in the early demobilization phase. This is consistent with the protest cycle model in social movement research. By choosing violent protest forms and directly addressing politically sensitive issues, protesters mount pressure on authoritarian power holders. Often it is not only absolute levels of radicalness but rather the fact that forms and content of protests chosen are new that makes the protest challenging to a government. In repressive environments, innovation in political contention will quickly catch the attention of power holders and the public at large. In none of the countries studied had large-scale demonstrations and open criticism of the head of government been openly tolerated or common before the start of transition. This changed in the course of the transition. In all three countries, demonstrations have been the by far most commonly used strategy in mobilization during transition. This action form has been identified by social movement scholars as especially apt for broad participation by the population. Gaining the support of the masses is of particular relevance during regime change, when new leaders emerge and new constituencies build up. In our two cases of dynamic transitions, actors showed moderation at the beginning of the transition. At first, demonstrative and more conventional actions dominated. Radicalization

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only happened during moments of high contention. Most acts of high violence happened in the early phase of demobilization, i.e., right after regime change. This explains why the proportion of more radical forms of action was higher in Korea and Indonesia, where protest escalated into a full cycle, than in Thailand. As for the protest goals, the most widely used claims during regime change in Korea and Indonesia have been political, directly targeting questions concerning the regime’s legitimacy. This type of claim was much less common in Thailand. In Indonesia, analogously to the development of protest forms, protest goals were more moderate early in the liberalization phase, but then quickly became more radical; claims for regime change constituted the most important claim shortly ahead of regime change. In Korea, however, demands for regime change dominated from the start of the contentious period. In both countries, the most radical claims were made right after regime change. Stateness was questioned at this point. In Korea, radical leftist activists (from student circles) were sympathetic with the North Korean cause. In Indonesia, people mobilized around regional interests. Secessionist demands were numerous. Religious and sectarian unrest also spread during this time. 9.2.4

Pressure Through Well-Timed Actions: Interacting with the Political Context

It is not the (number of) acts of protests alone, but the timing that decides their effect on politics. Mobilization occurs in interaction with the political context. During democratic transitions, the timing of contention with regard to key events in the transition process is decisive for the overall dynamics. The pressure protesters created in democratizing Korea and Indonesia were punctuated and specific in time. The spontaneous outbreak of protest following the start of political liberalization triggered the fast mobilization in Korea and Indonesia, which slowed down only once free elections were announced. A corresponding development could not be observed in Thailand. Either the break from authoritarian patterns might not have been big enough or perceived as such, or alternatively, actors were not willing or capable of mobilizing (see the next section). People’s reaction to government decisions and actions, including repression, is much stronger in dynamic transitions than in “normal” times. In reaction to individual, at times unexpected, events, such as the killing of students by security forces, protest would rise to critical levels.

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Upon the announcement of regime change, however, people promptly started to demobilize. As suggested by the protest cycle model in social movement research, a dual process of institutionalization and radicalization was then observable in Korea and Indonesia. While the more moderate actors integrated with the political system, small radical groups tried to push their cause further. In some regards, repression patterns across the three countries were very similar: the larger the number of participants or the more radical the protest or the less organized the protesters, the more likely the governments were to intervene. Repression and protest spur each other on.

9.3 Actors and Reaction: Conditions for a Dynamic Transition Under what conditions do we see transitions with dynamic characteristics (as set out in 9.2)? The results of this study point to two main sets of factors which drive the differences in contention patterns between the countries (i.e., dynamic vs. non-dynamic transition as described in 9.1). The first is the composition of protest actors. For instance, students were among the main organizers of protest in Korea and Indonesia, but not in Thailand. The cross-country variation in the involvement of specific actor types has implications for all important aspects of protest mobilization. The second cause is related to the interactive dimension of protest. Contention is also a reflection of authoritarian rulers’ strategies, i.e., the extent to which they let protesters mobilize or incite them to do so. As the experiences of the countries under study show, these government strategies can vary between open, full-scale repression—such as observed in democratizing Korea—and less visible or selective forms of repression—such as seen in democratizing Thailand or Indonesia. 9.3.1

Actor Composition and Dynamics in Contention During Regime Change

The type of protest actor influences not only the timing and content of protest, but also its form and the overall level of mobilization. The cross-country analysis has shown that similar actors will intervene at similar moments of the democratization process and promote similar goals. This suggests that specific actor types have specific interests.

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Students mobilized early in the process, followed by political organizations. Societal organizations and workers, and then farmers, mobilized later in the process. Political actors were found to promote political goals most actively. But political, regime-related claims were also made by students, sometimes by workers, and less often by farmers. These findings hold for all three countries under study. A main distinction can be made between organized and non-organized protest actors. This distinction is important as less organized protest actors were found to be more likely to resort to radical means, have the potential to initiate early protest and escalate it to critical levels (see the Korean and Indonesian transitions), and be particularly rapid at demobilizing once the peak of protest is reached. Organized actors, by contrast, were generally more moderate in their means. Their participation started more slowly, but was steadier in that mobilization was sustained and did not drop quickly after democratic rule was announced. A more detailed examination of specific sub-groups and actor types, as conducted in this study, provides additional insights. Based on the experience of our three countries, we identify students and political opposition parties as key protest actors during regime change. 9.3.1.1 Students In both Korean and Indonesian transitions, students without an established organizational affiliation have been at the vanguard of contention, and it has often been their actions that have set the pace for the overall protest dynamics. Students have pushed open the window of opportunity that eventually led to regime change. Established political actors, such as political parties, could not fill this role. Students add the element of spontaneity and unpredictability that is essential in starting and escalating contention. In the majority of protests analyzed, students lacked a formal organizational structure. At the same time, they had a large pool of people that could potentially be quickly mobilized. This combination of factors makes students powerful protesters. This powerful and at times explosive force was largely absent in Thailand’s democratization process. The form and content of mobilization promoted by students made the protest movement susceptible to broad participation. Under students’ leadership, large-scale demonstrations were organized, which would sometimes turn violent. Students in all countries represented, for the most part, broad, non-group-specific interests. Coming immediately after

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political actors, students were the protest actors with the strongest political interest. They mostly mobilized around regime-related topics, but also actively pushed for other issues, such as socioeconomic matters. Compared to other actors, they were more often part of large protest campaigns, i.e., protests taking place at different moments and places. The opposite has, for instance, been the case with workers, who had much narrower, group-specific interests and protest repertoires. 9.3.1.2 Political Parties Our analysis has shown that organized actors, and more specifically political opposition parties, contributed significantly to the overall dynamics. Political parties intervened at critical moments of the democratization process—like during the period leading up to regime change—and promoted goals that challenged power holders very directly. This is true for all three countries under study. In addition, political parties helped sustain mobilization, which was important to keep up the pressure on the government once free elections were announced (see the Korean and Indonesian transitions). The demobilization of organized actors, including political parties, was less rapid than the demobilization by spontaneously organized protesters. Both their political know-how and their organizational capacity give political parties a leading role in mobilization. Political parties were important protest actors in formulating clearly specified political demands, including the form new democratic institutions should take, as well as in promoting new leaders. Political parties were, along with social organizations, particularly active in building protest coalitions, i.e., they organized protests in which other actor types participated. These qualities which we associate with political parties are particularly important once the authoritarian rulers step down and a power vacuum opens up. In democratizing Thailand, where this type of actor was largely absent, protest during regime change was clearly less political, less focused, and less sustained. 9.3.1.3 Thailand: No Organization, no Protest If certain actor types are not willing or capable of participating in protest, this will have an impact on the overall level as well as on the quality of mobilization. An important part of Korean and Indonesian protests during the critical democratization episodes was held by students. In contrast to their counterparts in Korea and Indonesia, students in democratizing Thailand mobilized rarely; when they did, their mobilization

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often took on an organized form. In Thailand, the student movement had been crushed in 1976, after a period during which students had been politically very active and successful in shaping politics. Both their capacity and their willingness to mobilize were severely affected by the strong repression that followed. As a consequence, the broad masses of spontaneously protesting students responsible for initiating and escalating protest in democratizing Korea and Indonesia were largely absent during the Thai transition process. The Thai case illustrates that students have unique qualities as protest actors and must be distinguished from other actors who also lack formal organization. The composition of less organized actors in protest was found to vary more strongly across the democratizing countries than the composition of organized actors. The proportion of non-organized protest actors was particularly high in Thailand. It was higher than in Indonesia and much higher than in Korea. The dominant form of spontaneous protest in democratizing Thailand was, however, individual local protest, organized by protesters who had neither a clear socioeconomic nor political identity. Their mobilization was usually contained in space and time. Often protests were about people’s subsistence and did not have a political content. Differently from students, such actors are in no position to mobilize the masses over weeks and months. We identified institutional weakness of the opposition and, linked to this, a lack of organizational capacity to mobilize as a main cause of the limited mobilization in the Thai transition. This explains the low participation rate by students. The involvement of another key protest actor, i.e., political opposition parties, was likewise limited due to their organizational inability to mobilize. In an international comparison, the Thai party system is particularly weakly institutionalized and strongly factionalized (see Chapter 6). The same is true with regard to labor. Due to prohibitive laws and policies, trade union membership has been low in the country. The absence of actors with the organizational capacity and political know-how to push for political reform is a striking feature of the Thai democratization process. The authoritarian rulers in Thailand have been very systematic and thorough in not letting any elements of the society get organized. Hence, open repression in this country was less needed once the critical democratization period analyzed in this book started.

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Government Strategies and Dynamics in Contention During Regime Change

Decisions and actions by authoritarian rulers also play an important role in shaping the course of contention. The countries in our study were not only found to differ in the overall level of government repression, which was very low in Thailand and highest in Korea, but also with regard to the selectiveness of the subjects of repression. In all three authoritarian states, the military was in a powerful position, running the countries with the help of a strong bureaucracy. They were part of the anti-communist power bloc in Asia, which was reflected in the handling of the political Left, the workers, and farmers (see Chapter 8). In democratizing Korea, the old authoritarian patterns of repression were still visible: workers, farmers, and dissidents were more likely to be repressed than other actors. In Indonesia, repression strategies were more nuanced during transition: this type of actor was not repressed when they lacked organization. But authorities changed their behavior when they became organized. In Thailand, no such pattern of open actor-specific repression further spurring repression was discernible. 9.3.2.1 Thailand: Early Concessions, Few Transgressions In Thailand, unlike in Korea or Indonesia, major concessions were made early in the process. While protest in its early phases ahead of regime change had some resemblances with protest in the other two countries, protest could not escalate and deploy its full power since the cause for protest was taken away by the power holders. Here, protesters did not have to mobilize to the extent their counterparts in Korea and Indonesia did, because free elections were conceded to them early on with little effort spent. In Korea and Indonesia, by contrast, we saw a nation-wide partly violent protest, with rulers attempting to solve the conflict with the help of repressive means before they finally conceded to regime change. During critical moments of dynamic transitions, we observe a clear transgression in actions on both sides of the conflict: protesters will use radical protest forms and goals to challenge the power holders, and they, in turn, will take more drastic measures to restore order, which then will spark even stronger protest. At these critical moments, both sides pit their strengths against each other. In Thailand, no such showdown happened. The authoritarian rulers did face protest, but it was not of the same quality; the form and content of protest were less radical. In addition,

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the government acted and reacted differently, preempting rather than inciting further protest. In Thailand, clear frictions were missing on both sides of the conflict—for challengers as well as for power holders it was mostly business as usual. During critical moments of the democratization process, transgressions were few.

9.4 Contention and Regime Outcome: Democratic Durability and Quality As the example of Thailand shows, democracy is not a one-way street. The process can be reversed. The political rights that were given to the people during the democratization process in the 1990s were again taken away from them. Thailand is today a non-democratic country rated as “not free” (Freedom House 2019d) or as a “hybrid regime” (The Economist Intelligence Unit 2019). In 2006, Thailand’s democratically elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a military coup. Politically turbulent years followed, during which we saw the high mobilization by Thaksin’s supporters, mostly from the rural north and northeast of Thailand, as well as by those who objected to his lasting influence in Thai politics, mostly from the urban middle class. In 2014, the military seized power again in a coup. Ever since, the ruling military junta, which was formally elected into office in 2019, has not only been trying to influence formal politics, but also to leave an imprint on all important societal institutions at large, such as the media. By contrast, Korea is the top-performing democracy in Asia according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index (2019); among 167 states and territories, Korea was assessed to be the 21st most democratic, coming right after the top-20 grouping of “full democracies”. The country’s status has continuously been rated “free” (Freedom House 2019c). A persistent flaw of South Korea’s democracy is related to its National Security Law and its unresolved relations with North Korea. The law restricts civil liberties, such as the freedom of expression and the freedom of assembly. Indonesia’s regime was assessed as “free” in its early years after regime change, but downgraded to “partly free” in 2014 (Freedom House 2019b). Democratic flaws include restrictions on NGO activities and attacks on minority rights and the freedom of expression. The politicized use of the blasphemy law in the Muslim-majority country is seen as becoming increasingly problematic.

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How is the outcome of democratic transition linked to the transition itself? Our study conceptualized democratization as people’s struggle for power, i.e., the wresting of concessions from their rulers. The analysis focused on critical episodes in the political development of the countries during which the window of opportunity for political change was wide open. Changes made during this period were expected to be particularly consequential and to have a lasting effect. Therefore, a crucial question was whether people’s ability and willingness to pressure the authoritarian government during the process matter for the outcome of the democratization process, as we observe it today. Does it matter which actors were politically active during this critical period and what they asked for? How lasting have the political agreements been that were reached during this period? And what is the role of contention in all this? 9.4.1

Contention and the Durability and Quality of Democracy

This study lends support to the idea of “pact-making” between rulers and challengers, but highlights its non-elitist dimension.1 The “pacts” that were struck among political opposition and rulers in Korea and Indonesia came about differently as compared to the one in Thailand. In Korea and Indonesia, protests during transition were taken to levels that became regime-threatening. Situations were created—for all to see—in which not only the rule of individual power holders, but the survival of the political regime was at stake. Under this pressure, the new political regime was negotiated and political concessions were made by the government. This included their agreeing to free elections and the establishment of a new government under democratic rule. Democratic institutions were introduced in reaction to the pressure by the people. In Thailand, by contrast, democracy was not wrested from authoritarian government, but rather easily conceded. The new democratic institutions established in the course of the 1990s did not represent the outcome of tough negotiations between a demanding political opposition which represented large parts of the society on the one hand and reticent power holders who actively engaged in negotiations on the other. Some popular pressure existed, but we did not observe the same threat of a 1 The literature on pacts and pact-making in transition processes focuses on elite actors, not on elite–mass dynamics like this study. See e.g. Karl (1990) and O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986).

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political breakdown and the same strong display of power by the people as in Korea and Indonesia. The moment of regime change in Thailand was not the same groundbreaking moment and the role of the mobilized masses in it was clearly limited. In Korea and Indonesia, it was the pressure through mobilization that put the political opposition in a position to negotiate a “pact” with the authoritarian power holders. Furthermore, this display of power and unity among protesters during a critical moment in the countries’ history also guaranteed that the “pact” would be kept in the longer run. Most democratic achievements were made during this short period around which the “pact” was made. This is particularly true for the case of Indonesia, where political opposition was more heterogeneous and less unified than in Korea. In the latter, the political opponents who struck the “pact” in the first place managed to put pressure on the power holders continuously in the early years of democratic rule and were able to push for further political reforms. For the course and outcome of the democratization process, it was not only the pressure in terms of quantity of protests that mattered; the quality of protest was also found to be relevant. In Thailand, the total number of protests with political content was limited, as was the level of specificity in their political demands. Protesters avoided addressing specific, problematic issues regarding their political regime, such as the voting system, which is, at least partly, responsible for the weak party system. By contrast, in Korea and Indonesia protests targeting political regime-related issues were more numerous and this type of protest increased markedly during the escalation of protest. The quality of political demands that are promoted during democratic transition will have an impact on the quality of the democratic outcome. Hence the importance of clearly formulated political demands. Many of the democratic flaws we still observe in the countries under study are issues that were not (successfully) addressed during regime change. The incapacity or unwillingness of the political opposition to raise certain issues might have prevented successful and lasting reform, as was the case in Thailand. But even if people mobilized around an issue, this could not guarantee its inclusion in the political negotiations with the authoritarian government. Korean protests against the restrictive National Security Law remained largely unsuccessful. The same is true for Indonesian protest calling for restrictions of the military’s powerful position in politics. Still, being a powerful negotiating partner during regime

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change helps the political opposition to shape the new political regime in their interest and assures the durability of what has been negotiated. This study has shown that contention is a way to ensure this power. 9.4.2

Durability and Quality of Democracy in the World: Recent Research on Democratic Backsliding

Are our three case studies representative of the development and state of democracy worldwide? Today, democracy is globally “in retreat”.2 The “decline in global freedom” started in the mid-2000s (Freedom House 2019a, p. 1). Accounts vary considerably according to world regions. Democratic regressions in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and to some extent the Middle East and North Africa are currently driving the global trend (The Economist Intelligence Unit 2020). However, democracy is also stagnating in all other world regions including Asia. 2019 was not only a year of democratic retreat, but also of popular protest in the developing world. The two developments can be interpreted as interrelated and opposing trends, with the latter expressing people’s demand for improved political representation (see ibid.). In academic research, the trend of democratic regression is reflected in the literature on democratic backsliding. The term refers to the “state-led debilitation or elimination of any of the political institutions that sustain an existing democracy” (Bermeo 2016, p. 5). What distinguishes today’s de-democratization processes from earlier ones, such as those we observed in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s,3 is their gradualness and ambiguity (Bermeo 2016). Democratic backsliding today is incremental rather than sudden. Classic coup-making, in which an elected government is illegally ousted by military or other state elites, is becoming less common. Such fast and clear-cut regime changes have made way for more subtle, ambiguous, and gradually imposed institutional changes. Democratic malpractices today often take the form of executive aggrandizement rather than executive replacement—and longer-term strategic election manipulation and opposition harassment rather than vote fraud on election day (ibid., pp. 7–8, 10–14).

2 See Freedom House’s (2019a) report on “Democracy in Retreat”. 3 These cases of regime change fall into what Huntington (1991a) defines as the second

“reverse wave”.

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Democratically elected officials limit political competition (by strengthening their powers at the expense of the legislative and opposition forces) and political accountability (by undermining press freedom and judicial independence). They induce these political changes with a popular mandate and within existing democratic institutions, with the effect of weakening and harming the latter.4 From the perspective of democratic backsliding research, Thailand’s return to authoritarianism takes a classic form. Some aspects of it are, however, typical of today’s slow-paced, less visible forms of backsliding. The military coups in 2006 and 2014 were blatant seizures of power in which democratically elected heads of government were overthrown. When seizing power in 2006, coup leaders, however, promised to restore democracy and to hold elections for this purpose. Elections took place in 2007, 2011, and, after the renewed coup, in 2019. Such coups, accompanied by coup leaders’ promises to intervene only temporarily and to establish a new democratic order, is a more widespread phenomenon today, referred to as “promissory coups” (see Bermeo 2016, pp. 8–10). Holding elections to give its regime the formal appearance of democracy might be a recent phenomenon in other countries, but not in Thailand. Thai authoritarian leaders have a history of strategically manipulating politics, including elections, without having to use much overt repression. While research on democratic backsliding sees international incentive structures as a main problem (see Bermeo 2016), domestic factors as identified in this book also seem to play a key role in explaining the trend. Seeking more covert forms of undermining democracy can be a “rational response” of national leaders, reacting to the emphasis which international democracy promotion put on formal aspects of democracy, such as elections and the rule of law (see ibid., p. 15). Reviewing the literature on democratic backsliding, Waldner and Lust (2018, pp. 14, 18) find that many researchers support—sometimes implicitly though—the idea of (changing) balances of power. For a democracy to exist, social forces need to be present which are capable and willing to impose democracy against anti-democratic social forces. Democratic backsliding becomes possible when no large pro-democratic coalition exists or when it either lacks organization or access to political institutions.5

4 For details, see Bermeo (2016). 5 Waldner and Lust (2018) refer here to arguments developed by Moore (1966).

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In conceptualizing the interaction between power holders and the political opposition challenging them, we argued in this book that political mobilization can be expected when actions by the ruling elite are visible and immediately interpretable (see Chapter 2). By contrast, elite actions dismantling democracy in a less overt, sometimes ambiguous manner, which is becoming more common today, are difficult to detect, and consequently more difficult to respond to by pro-democratic forces. When or what should be criticized and mobilized against? Institutional weaknesses that had existed before and were not successfully addressed during regime change are particularly easy to be exploited by incumbent rulers with new authoritarian tendencies. To prevent and reverse regressions in democracy, large pro-democratic forces need to be present in a country on a continuous basis. Whereas this book puts emphasis on the social forces that helped democracy come into being, the literature on democratic backsliding asks what the forces are that keep it in place. They can be, but do not have to be, the same. This book highlighted the role of political opposition parties and students in successfully pushing for democracy against authoritarian power holders in Korea and Indonesia. Generally speaking, students are more ephemeral as a political force than political opposition parties. Having less permanent organization structures and being situated outside the political establishment were qualities that made students a powerful force in mobilizing against the authoritarian regime in Indonesia. They collaborated with NGOs and also promoted minority rights. The current tendencies in Indonesia to restrict NGO activities and minority rights may be related to the reduced role that students play in politics nowadays. In Korea, the organizational and personal continuity among political opposition parties helped them act as a sort of guardian of the “pact” that they had struck with the authoritarian power holders. At least during the years immediately following regime change, they were in a position to push for continuous democratic reform. Today’s democratic regressions around the world, including the ones in established Western democracies,6 show that having large and sufficiently powerful pro-democratic forces is a constant challenge that democracies face.

6 See Kaufman and Haggard (2019), Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018), and Norris (2017).

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9.5 In a Nutshell: Contention and Regime Change in Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand In democratizing Korea and Indonesia, protest was taken to critical levels ahead of major political concessions by the authoritarian power holders in 1987 and 1997, respectively. In these cases, it is not possible to deny the impact of the popular upsurge on the transition process. In Thailand, in contrast, it is difficult to argue that democratic achievements were mainly obtained as a result of a power struggle by the people. Especially when compared to the more recent waves of protest that have been taking place in Thailand, we see that protest at the end of the 1980s and during the 1990s did not reach the same intensity and geographic outreach with protest spreading all over the country. The sense of uncontrollability and uncertainty that is typical for the early phase of a dynamic transition process has been higher during the more recent mobilization, i.e., between 2006 and 2014. In dynamic transitions, as we identified in Korea or Indonesia, we see quick and big changes in the size of overall protest, its geographic spread, the composition of protest actors, and their actions and demands. It is those dynamic aspects of mass mobilization that turn the power of “the street” into a critical challenge for authoritarian power holders. Our results suggest that for such dynamism in contention to unfold, certain organizational capacities need to be in place within the political opposition which are difficult to find in authoritarian settings. While the beginning of mass mobilization may often be accidental and take the form of spontaneous and local protest, we have found that important regularities exist once mass protest takes off (see below). An important finding of this book is that such regularities are related to the presence of certain protest actors and their organizational capacities. It is also the identity of actors and their organizational capacities that help explain repressive government behavior during regime change. According to our stylized dynamic transition process, which we can develop from our empirical cases, early large-scale protest will be led by spontaneously organized actors, such as students. Protest will become more organized and sustained and at the same time receive a clearer political orientation once more organized actors, such as political parties, join contention. This usually happens shortly ahead of regime change. At this critical moment in the transition process, we will see a fast rise and

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spread in protest characterized by temporary radicalization and transgression in protest actions, i.e., protest actions becoming more violent and demands becoming more of a direct challenge to the incumbent authoritarian government. At the same time, protest will be met by repressive government action and, in turn, trigger even more open and bold protest action. Once the authoritarian government concedes to free elections, we will see a drop in protest as well as in government action. Our cross-country analysis shows that democracy is nothing that will come automatically and necessarily last indefinitely. Our findings suggest that the composition of actors in contention during regime change is decisive for the course and outcome of transition. Students and political opposition parties, which we can both associate with certain organizational capacities, were largely absent in the Thai transition process. As a consequence, the mobilization of the masses on a large scale and the successful promotion of specific and well-timed political demands proved difficult. By contrast, in democratizing Korea and Indonesia, contention developed very dynamically. Contesters went through an open and strenuous power struggle and were able to put strong pressure on the authoritarian government with clear political demands. The government, in turn, was forced to take a position and decide on how to react to the popular upsurge. Through the mobilization process, in which actors became organized and created new political contents, “collective alternatives” emerged; this eventually led to political change toward a more open and democratic system. In the absence of all this, concessions made by authoritarian power holders will be neither of much substantive depth nor of a durable nature, as the case of Thailand shows.

9.6 Research and Policy Implications of This Book Today still, the democratization literature seems very much caught between the inevitability of structural explanations and the contextspecificity of agency-based explanations that highlight the importance of individual actors and their actions. The results of this book suggest, however, that the reality lies somewhere in between. Although neither the course nor the outcome of a transition process is predetermined, we have identified a number of patterns with regard to the actor groups that will get active at certain moments of regime change, to the typical form and content of their protest actions, and to the reaction we can expect

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from the authoritarian government. It is a methodological and theoretical challenge to distinguish between such non-accidental elements of democratization processes and more accidental aspects, which are also important in shaping the transition as a whole. More research is needed for this purpose. The research design of the present study can be described as rigorously comparative. We chose an approach that allowed us to quantify the power which people were able to project on their authoritarian governments during a critical political period of their countries. The results from the three cases studied, which need further research for confirmation, suggest that the higher the pressure challengers were able to exert on authoritarian power holders, the more concessions in their favor were made and the more durable was the resulting “pact” with the power holders. The advantage of our action-based analysis of events was that we were open about the actors. Furthermore, we could track the timing of their actions and their interests as they promoted them when they became politically active. The comparison of our three empirical cases has shown that political claims voiced during regime change may be very similar—one could even say universal, yet outcomes may vary significantly. This study shows the value or rather the necessity of adopting a dynamic and mid-level perspective in studying regime change. Statism is still a dominant feature of research in the field of democratization studies. Our study, however, takes the focus away from the concern of specifying (ideal) regime types or (ideal) conditions for democracy. It highlights the centrality of the transition process itself. It is only when we understand the transition process that we are able to understand how democratic flaws develop and how specific regime types, such as illiberal democracies and hybrid regimes, emerge. We share the view of scholars of actor-based democratization studies that particular attention should be given to political actors and political crafting. In explaining the course of transition processes, however, the focus of previous research has been on strategic interaction of individual elite actors. This study wanted to bring the attention to another analytical level and generate a better understanding of the various social groups that become active and shape the transition process. In this book, we highlight the importance of elite–mass linkages during regime change. We argue that it is only by understanding the broader societal realities of a transition process in which elite action takes place that we will be able to explain the democratic quality and, importantly, durability of the regime that results from such a process. This is an aspect

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that tended to be neglected in previous studies. The power and extent of elite action decisively depend on their linkages with the broader public. Embedding individual elite action during regime change into its broader social realities is an enterprise that needs further research. Studying the role of the various elements of a society in democracy-building is also relevant from the viewpoint of the recent literature on democratic backsliding as well as in terms of policy-making in democracies, including foreign policy-making. In recent years, there has been a backlash against democracy promotion and against democracy more generally (see, e.g., Bermeo 2016; Carothers 2009; Freedom House 2019). Still, democracy-building is a key foreignpolicy goal of many influential countries and, therefore, the question of who to support when and how—if at all—remains relevant to foreign policy-makers. Carothers (2009) identifies two main strategies in the practice of democracy assistance: a political approach, which is one of the approaches adopted by the United States, and a developmental approach, which is the approach favored by the EU. In the former, aid targets core political processes and institutions, such as elections and political parties. In the latter, aid is directed to a wider range of sectors and conceived over a longer time frame; it typically aims at the building of a well-functioning state and good governance. Based on the results of our book, we consider the development of an institutionally strong political society to be a top priority in view of democracy-building. In our empirical cases, political opposition parties were active at critical moments of regime change and managed to sustain political pressure beyond the peak of popular mobilization. They were comparatively moderate in their means and ensured that claims promoted during regime change were specific and political in nature. They also assumed an important role as coalition-builders within the opposition. Hence, successful democracy promotion should include the active support of political opposition parties. However, rather than giving ad hoc assistance to democratic forces at important conjunctural moments, as the political approach might suggest, we advocate measures to strengthen political parties in the long run. These should include actions against laws and policies that weaken or discriminate against political (opposition) parties. Also important in this context is the protection of key individual opposition leaders from repression; a good example is the positive impact which international interventions had in the case of Korean opposition

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leader Kim Dae-jung, who was abducted and later sentenced to death during authoritarian rule. This book also highlights the role which other social groups with their respective organizational skill sets may play during transition from authoritarian rule. In our empirical cases, students turned out to be important integrative forces with political consciousness and the capacity to quickly mobilize the masses. Thus, measures promoting the autonomy of student organizations and universities should be seen as worthy of support by advocates of democracy promotion. Thai authoritarian power holders, in the past, systematically and successfully prevented organizational capacitybuilding not only within universities, but also among workers and farmers. Civil society actors, while being in a position to potentially provide leadership and organization to a larger public, are usually less political and more accommodating vis-à-vis authoritarian power holders than other social groups and, therefore, not the primary target of repressive governments. This makes them ideal partners for adherents of the developmental approach of democracy promotion. In this book, we discussed, however, that civil society actors, such as churches in Korea or NGOs in Indonesia, also had an important protective function for politically prosecuted actors, such as opposition politicians. Generally speaking, fostering the organizational capacity within society at large should constitute an important pillar of democracy promotion.

References Bermeo, Nancy. “On Democratic Backsliding.” Journal of Democracy 27, no. 1 (January 2016): 5–19. Carothers, Thomas. “Democracy Assistance: Political vs. Developmental?” Journal of Democracy 20, no. 1 (January 2009): 5–19. Freedom House. “Freedom in the World 2019: Democracy in Retreat,” 2019a. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2019/democracy-retreat. ———. “Freedom in the World 2019: Indonesia,” 2019b. https://freedomho use.org/report/freedom-world/2019/indonesia. ———. “Freedom in the World 2019: South Korea,” 2019c. https://freedomho use.org/report/freedom-world/2019/south-korea. ———. “Freedom in the World 2019: Thailand,” 2019d. https://freedomho use.org/report/freedom-world/2019/thailand. Huntington, Samuel P. “Democracy’s Third Wave.” Journal of Democracy 2, no. 2 (1991a): 12–34.

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Karl, Terry Lynn. “Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America.” Comparative Politics 23, no. 1 (1990): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.2307/422302. Kaufman, Robert R., and Stephan Haggard. “Democratic Decline in the United States: What Can We Learn from Middle-Income Backsliding?” Perspectives on Politics 17, no. 2 (2019): 417–32. https://doi.org/10.1017/S15375927 18003377. Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown, 2018. Moore, Barrington. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966. Norris, Pippa. “Is Western Democracy Backsliding? Diagnosing the Risks.” Journal of Democracy (Web Exchange) 28, no. 2 (April 2017): 1–24. O’Donnell, Guillermo A., and Philippe C. Schmitter. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. The Economist Intelligence Unit. “Democracy Index 2018: Me Too? Political Participation, Protest and Democracy.” London: EIU, 2019. https://275rzy 1ul4252pt1hv2dqyuf-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/ 01/Democracy_Index_2018.pdf. ———. “Global Democracy in Retreat,” January 21, 2020. https://www.eiu. com/n/global-democracy-in-retreat/. Waldner, David, and Ellen Lust. “Unwelcome Change: Coming to Terms with Democratic Backsliding.” Annual Review of Political Science 21, no. 1 (May 11, 2018): 93–113. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050 517-114628.

Appendix

Appendix A: A Protest Event Dataset for Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand (1985–2005)1 The discussion below focuses on the challenges regarding traditional methods and data in protest event analysis (PEA). The emergence of computerized technologies has not only changed the “how” but also the “what” of PEA. Today, research projects exist that collect, aggregate, and share event data from online sources in almost real time (Fisher et al. 2019, pp. 3ff.). The universe of possible data types and sources that we can access and process for PEA has massively expanded. In this universe, news reports represent only one specific data type from one specific data source. New methods and data potentially bring significant advantages, for example, regarding the validity and reliability of event data, but also introduce new challenges. Examples are discrepancies in information using multi-sourced approaches or accuracy problems using Internet content (see ibid., pp. 6ff.). The changes in the information collected and the methods collecting it make today’s protest activity difficult to compare to historic protest activity (ibid., p. 8), the latter having been the focus of this study. 1 We are grateful to Godela Dönnges, Corinne Graessle, Benedikt Hofer, Samuel Nuspliger, and Mathias Winterberg for their research assistance in coding and entering the data. The Dataset can be accessed on forsbase.unil.ch.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Maduz, Contention and Regime Change in Asia, Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49220-5

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A.1. Why Newspaper-Based Data? Choosing the Type of Data In 2010, Hutter (2010, p. 121) observed that newspapers remain the most important source for PEA2 —although alternative data sources had been suggested and tested. Even in light of the computerized methods and new data sources which emerged over the past years, newspapers remain a popular source for PEA. This is related to certain qualities inherent to newspaper data: newspapers “report on a regular basis, are kept in public archives, and – at least regarding quality newspapers – need to maintain their credibility by covering events accurately” (ibid., p. 122). Koopmans (1998, p. 253) explains the attractiveness of newspaper data by the lack of alternatives. Alternative data sources used in the literature include police archives (see Bosi and Reiter 2014; Fillieule 1996) and survey data (see Andretta and Della Porta 2014; Klandermans and Smith 2002). Less common are other media data, such as television or qualitative interviews with journalists. However, with new computerized methods for data collection and processing, multimedia data, including image data, is becoming more popular for PEA. Each data source has its advantages and disadvantages. The purpose of a given study determines what data source is the most suitable. Newspaper data as a data source for PEA is also the preferred choice for this dataset, as it best suits the research design of the present study. Protest events studied in the scope of this analysis took place in a non-democratic setting in the past (for a discussion on problems related to censorship see the section further below on bias and selectivity issues): the events were compared across three countries, as well as across time. The choice of newspaper data as a data source made systematic data collection of events in retro-perspective possible, which would not have been the case with survey data. Furthermore, compared to any other type of data, newspaper data has the advantage of being more easily comparable across countries and across time. The comparability of data is a more complicated issue when it comes to police data, which is often collected at the local and regional level (Myers and Caniglia 2004, p. 522). To ensure comparability of such data across a huge territory such as Indonesia’s seems more than challenging.

2 For a very thorough overview and assessment of PEA studies, see Hutter (2010,

Chapter 5; 2014). Much of the information presented here draws on these studies.

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When studying protest in a non-democratic setting, we also need to be aware of problems regarding access to data. In authoritarian or transitional regimes, in the context of which our dataset was created, data on protest is particularly sensitive. Data availability becomes the major challenge. Surveys (on sensitive political issues) are not common in authoritarian settings. In the same vein, attempts to gain access to police data for the present analysis were not successful. Newspaper data, by contrast, was both accessible and available for the whole period of 20 years covered in this dataset. Were the data collection for this study be taking place in today’s setting, we would probably use additional methods and data. Particularly in authoritarian settings, non-official sources that are nowadays more easily available, such as private social media accounts, constitute an interesting alternative data source (see, e.g., Zhang and Pan 2019). A.2. Which Newspapers? Choosing a Specific Data Source Koopmans (1998, pp. 255ff.) has established six criteria for the choice of newspapers. The two criteria of continuous publishing of the newspaper throughout the period under study and of coverage of the whole national territory assure as continuous and as full coverage over time and space as possible. The two criteria of the paper being daily and of quality are important to ensure detailed and accurate coverage of protests. To reduce problems of comparability, the newspapers should, in addition, have a similar political orientation and “report on protest events with about the same kind of selectivity” (Hutter 2010, p. 123). These criteria limit the number of potential data sources. They exclude tabloids, non-daily newspapers, such as weekly newspapers, as well as newspapers with a clear sub-national focus. In the selection of a data source, basic decisions in the creation of this dataset concerned whether to use an international or national newspaper and whether to choose an English- or a native-language data source. For the purpose of comparative research, we have found national newspapers, as compared to international newspapers, to be the better choice.3 At first, the choice of a large international newspaper as a common source for a cross-country comparison appeared to be an interesting option.

3 On choosing an appropriate level of data collection, see, e.g., Nam (2006) or Rucht and Neidhardt (1998, p. 74).

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It would assure the comparability of data across countries.4 The New York Times and Reuters have been popular choices in the past for the construction protest event datasets.5 They also have the advantage that their reporting cannot be easily influenced by the national governments in office, thereby ruling out a potential source of endogeneity created by the use of national newspapers. In creating the present dataset, the New York Times, i.e., its first page, was tested as a potential data source. However, the coverage of events was very rudimentary for the selected countries, especially for the early period of the second half of the 1980s. This was the high time of protest in South Korea and a critical period also in Thai politics. This was not reflected in the New York Times. The reporting was not detailed enough to capture the course and pattern of protest mobilization in the countries. Rather, important international events, such as those related to the Cold War, determined the focus of reporting about the countries, thereby overshadowing more local news. There are arguments both in favor and against using non-nativelanguage newspapers, i.e., English-language newspapers in our case. English-language newspapers target an international audience within or outside the country. Critics could argue that reported protest events in English-language news are not or less representative of actual protest events than those in native-language newspapers. It is likely that events with consequences for the international community, again inside and outside the country, receive more attention than strictly local events. This problem, however, is more marked for international newspapers than national English-language newspapers. A less detailed reporting of subnational (and national) news does not disqualify a newspaper as a potential data source as long as it is not biased. The present study, for which this dataset was created, is interested in dynamics of protests related to changes in the political system at the national level. These are also the events of interest to the international community. One could argue to the contrary. In authoritarian contexts, where censorship applies, Englishlanguage newspapers even have the potential to be less skewed than native-language newspapers. Moreover, the political orientation and the 4 Reporting can be expected to be consistent as a consequence of the political orientation and the selectivity in reporting, which should be the same or at least similar throughout the newspaper. 5 For protest data based on the New York Times, see, e.g., Silver (2003). For protest data retrieved from Reuters, see, e.g., Francisco (2010).

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selectivity (and more generally the style) of reporting, since being less country-specific, are likely to be more comparable across countries for English-language newspapers. As mentioned in Sect. 2.3.1, the Korea Herald is the newspaper selected for Korea, the Bangkok Post for Thailand, and the Jakarta Post for Indonesia. A number of English-language newspapers exist in Korea, but the Korea Herald is the English-language newspaper with the highest circulation and is well established. In Thailand, The Nation is an Englishlanguage newspaper of similar quality as the Bangkok Post and could also have been used as a data source for Thailand. In Indonesia, the Jakarta Globe is another well-known English-language newspaper, but it does not cover the whole period under study. All three selected newspapers meet the criteria laid out in the first paragraph of this section: they are highquality, daily newspapers that cover the whole national territory and were published continuously throughout the period under study. A.3. Which News? Choosing a Sampling Strategy To reduce data collection costs in manual coding there are a number of established sampling strategies that appeared to be useful also in view of the construction of this dataset. For such a dataset, which encompasses data of three countries over the period of 20 years, data collection costs were considerable. The effort of manually screening a whole newspaper would have had to be multiplied by 365 (for each day), 20 (for each year under study), and 3 (for each country). In accordance with practices in the PEA tradition, this effort was reduced to a manageable level by focusing on certain newspaper editions and certain pages in each edition. The strategy adopted in creating this dataset, i.e., to focus on one newspaper edition per week and to only consider front page and national news, has already been outlined in Sect. 2.3.1. Below, details are provided on the strategy and how it is embedded in the literature. Previous research has come up with different strategies to pick a limited number from all editions of a daily newspaper. One possibility is to randomly select the days or weeks on which a newspaper is coded. However, this involves a risk of missing out major events during a given research period (Hutter 2010, p. 123). Another strategy is to select one specific weekday edition, such as the Monday edition (ibid.). This sampling strategy makes sense in the context of Western Europe, because here most protest activities take place on weekends, which are then reported in the Monday editions (see Barranco and Wisler 1999, p. 311;

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Rucht and Neidhardt 1998, p. 79). Such regularities could, however, not be expected, a priori, for the Asian context.6 Furthermore, the strategy to only code Monday editions has been criticized for not being representative for all events covered by a newspaper7 (Hutter 2010, pp. 123, 137). For this reason, we tried to equally cover all weekdays. The data for the present dataset was retrieved from newspaper editions on changing weekdays that had steady time intervals between them. Usually, the time interval was eight days. This way, the criteria of changing weekdays could be met. In the test phase of the coding process, longer time intervals, such as two-week intervals, were tested. It turned out that major events could not be captured because these intervals were too long. A more frequent scanning, by contrast, allowed a better tracking of events: for example, protests that were first announced were then reported in the following selected edition.8 If a given edition was missing, which, for example, could happen in Korea during the holidays, the edition that came out one day later was used. As a general rule, the interval between two selected editions should not exceed ten days. While the data for this dataset was also sampled with regard to the news sections considered, no selection was made based on the type of protest action. In constructing this dataset, the focus was on news at the national level. Therefore, only front-page news as well as news in the national news sections (“Domestic” or “National News”) were used for the coding. Different from research projects that selected only specific types of events, such as violent events, the approach in creating this dataset was to capture a broad variety of protest types.

6 In a less institutionalized, fast-changing environment as the one in the countries under study for the time period considered, regularities in protest behavior, such as the preferred weekday for mobilization, are more difficult to establish. Having completed the collection and coding of data, we know now that in all three countries mobilization was relatively stable over the weekdays, but with the fewest protest events reported for weekend days. In all three countries, the weekday that saw the most protests was Monday. 7 Some protest types, such as large protests, or protests by the extreme right, were found to be over-represented, while others, such as protests by farmers and workers, were under-represented (Barranco and Wisler 1999, pp. 311ff.; Braun and Koopmans 2010, p. 118). 8 The dataset not only included protest events that had already taken place but also events that were announced to be taking place sometime in the future. However, the final dataset excluded all future events, for which no specific date was indicated in the newspaper article.

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Some newspaper editions were not available,9 though, and in very rare cases articles could not be read due to the poor quality of the microfilm. Most of the data collection was carried out in archives and libraries in Europe, namely the Bavarian State Library in Munich for the Korea Herald, the University Library Johann Christian Senckenberg in Frankfurt am Main for the Bangkok Post, and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) in Leiden for the Jakarta Post. Some of the editions that were not available in these archives and libraries could be retrieved through contacts to institutions in the countries where the newspapers were published (Ehwa Womans University in Seoul for the Korea Herald; Bangkok Information Center for the Bangkok Post ). If a newspaper edition was missing on a specific date, an edition from a close-by date was taken and the coded events were duplicated. If editions for whole weeks or months were missing, close-by weeks and months were considered.10 For the duplicate, the date was changed to the date on which the newspaper edition was missing. This simple approach to handle missing data was chosen after the possibility was excluded that data was systematically missing. “Missing” here means that the newspapers were not available in the archives and libraries visited. It does not mean that they were not published. In Thailand, only two editions were missing, in Korea 13, and in Indonesia 141. In the latter, data for the whole year of 1987 (i.e., 52 editions) was missing. This period lies ahead of the time period that is of main interest to this study, for which the dataset was created. Over the whole period of 20 years, 1040 editions for each country were scanned and coded.

9 “Not available” here means that the newspaper edition was not available on the predefined date, nor was it possible to replace it by an edition issued within a period of ten days before or after that date. 10 Usually, editions in the time period before and after the missing editions were taken

into account. Aspects considered in picking the editions from which events were duplicated included the estimated protest intensity in a given month; (there were, for example, fluctuations over the year). For a smooth fit, it was also important to know if campaigns on certain issues were held during the period for which newspapers were not available. This interpolation resulted in the construction of 76 new data points.

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A.4. Protest Event Analysis: The Methodological Debate About Bias and Selectivity Issues PEA is both well established and criticized. The method has been widely used for the collection of protest data and identified as one of four major trends in social movement research (Oliver et al. 2003). At the same time, a big methodological debate exists (Earl et al. 2004; Ortiz et al. 2005). The main concern is that information retrieved from newspaper data based on PEA is selective and not representative of all protest events taking place. Different biases exist: selection bias means that “newspapers selectively report on protest events, and do not provide a representative sample of all events taking place” (Hutter 2010, p. 126). Other biases have been identified and discussed in the literature: description bias concerns “the veracity with which selected events are reported in the press” (Earl et al. 2004, p. 72). Finally, researcher bias “refers to coding and data entry errors” (Hutter 2010, p. 126). In the context of democratizing countries, censorship, and therefore selection and description biases, is a major concern. Relying on English-language newspapers has helped avoid censorship in a severe form. Nevertheless, some problems could be observed in the process of coding newspapers in Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia from the mid1980s on. Before liberalization started, reporting was most problematic in Indonesia. Often events were only indirectly and marginally mentioned, mostly figuring in articles that reported on actions by politicians, such as speeches, in which people were, for example, asked to calm down. With the political opening, reporting improved quickly. In Thailand, where print media was considered to be rather free (see Case 1996, p. 453), coders involved in this project assessed “purposeful description bias” to be the bigger issue than selection bias: while events were reported, many details were left out, such as the number of protesters or, more importantly, the goal of the protest. Over time, reporting improved in all three countries. In Thailand under the premiership of Thaksin, however, some censorship issues emerged again. The censorship problem in the present dataset mainly takes the form of understating protest events in the early phases of transition. Over time, the accuracy in the reporting of events, both with regard to their occurrence and the details about them, improved in all countries. The changes in reporting have been assessed by the coders as rather gradual; no abrupt changes in reporting have been observed. For the purpose of this dataset, mostly “‘hard news’ (i.e., the who, what, when, where,

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and why of the event)” (Earl et al. 2004, p. 72) was collected. Among the protest characteristics studied in Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are the forms of protest action, protest goals, and the type and organization of actors. If a protest event was reported at all (including full information on the goals of protesters), the reporting on these protest characteristics generally appeared correct. The validity of coders’ perception could be cross-checked by reference to qualitative studies on protests, at least for the larger ones. More problematic was the reporting on variables analyzed in Chapter 8, such as repression and the number of participants, which appeared less reliable. The censorship problem may also affect the comparison across the three countries. It may bias the analysis of the dynamics of interaction between the transition process and protest mobilization. If, during the democratization process, the reporting bias changed more quickly in one of the countries as compared to the others, the difference in the effect of democratization on reporting could easily be mistaken for a difference in the effect of democratization on protest mobilization. Since bias and selectivity issues were a concern in creating the present dataset, caution is in order in interpreting the results of studies using it. Because reporting under authoritarian and transitory rule has appeared to be consistent and not to have changed from one day to the next, statements about short-term trends in the level of contention within a country, which are a main interest of this study for which the dataset was created, do not seem very problematic. The same applies to the comparison of the relative importance of actor types and organization (considered nonsensitive data) at a given moment in time. An important question is, however, whether more radical forms of protest, i.e., which were either radical in terms of the forms of action or goals, were less often reported than others. This would also affect the relationships between variables that are analyzed in the scope of this book. While there are ways to handle the lack of information on the number of participants (see Chapter 8), the issue of repression not being correctly reported remains a problem for which there is no easy solution.11 For the results and conclusions, for which the issues related to bias problems appear most pressing, a discussion can be found in the result sections of the respective chapters.

11 But see Davenport (2010) on this.

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Another relevant problem in manually coding a large number of newspaper articles is that no single person can do this job within any reasonable period of time. As soon as several coders are involved, which has been the case for the construction of this dataset, the question of inter-coder reliability arises. When collecting data in a world region and time period not well-known to the coders, inter-coder reliability becomes all the more important. Often country-specific knowledge was required to be able to identify and make sense of a protest event, such as with regard to the claims protesters made. Defining actors in a very fast-changing environment, with many new groups being formed and dissolved again, also constitutes a challenge. Joint coding sessions at the beginning of the coding process and a shared document with the main instructions on coding procedures, which was updated by all involved coders, formed the basis for a close exchange of information between coders.

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Index

A Aceh, 113, 136, 218 Action, 2, 4–6, 8–10, 13–18, 20, 26, 35, 48–50, 54, 58–62, 64, 65, 67–71, 75, 76, 81, 84–90, 92–94, 100, 101, 103, 104, 114– 116, 120, 122, 124, 132, 133, 135, 139, 142, 144–146, 150, 152, 159–162, 164, 174–179, 185, 187, 191, 197, 198, 200, 202–204, 212, 218, 221, 223, 224, 230, 235, 236, 241, 245, 251, 252, 254–256, 258, 261, 267–271, 280, 282, 283 Action-based analysis, 3, 132, 270 Actor-centered, 131, 132, 163, 212 Actor composition, 257 Actors, 163, 257 Actors’ identity, 242–244 Actor types, 9, 68, 70, 77, 115, 135–137, 142, 144, 145, 153, 154, 156, 158, 174, 182,

195, 217, 219, 220, 228, 237, 257–259, 283 Addressee of protest, 219 Agency, 6, 49, 63, 69, 76, 130, 174, 211 Agriculture, 187, 198 Anti-communist, 26, 209, 213, 215, 216, 219, 220, 237, 245, 261 Apolitical, 4, 146, 159, 161, 165, 200 Asia, 6, 13, 24, 26, 33, 102, 105, 140–142, 146, 148, 149, 152, 157, 159, 202, 213, 215, 252, 261, 262, 265 Asian Financial Crisis, 32, 102, 203 Assembly of the Poor, 48, 160 Authoritarian context, 49, 57, 62, 88, 178, 212, 278 Authoritarian regime(s), 2, 13, 19, 30, 32, 33, 48, 50, 75, 94, 109, 119, 129–131, 135, 149, 156, 159, 161, 162, 164, 199, 202, 209, 212–216, 220–222, 267

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Maduz, Contention and Regime Change in Asia, Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49220-5

311

312

INDEX

B Bureaucratic-military regimes, 25, 216

C Campaign-building, 154, 240 Campaign(s), 18, 48, 61, 62, 68–70, 77, 79, 80, 91, 92, 115, 120, 121, 154–156, 158, 194–196, 220, 228, 231, 240, 244, 259 Capital, 2, 51, 53, 218, 227, 237 Challengers, 2, 17, 26, 50, 99, 120, 209, 211, 212, 251, 253, 262, 263, 270 Chaos, 48, 253, 254 Chatichai, 32, 185 Chun, Doo-hwan, 30, 158, 193 Churches, 133, 147, 159, 165, 272 Civil liberties, 9, 31, 101, 105–107, 115, 117–120, 123, 178, 262 Civil society, 24, 26, 30, 31, 133, 134, 140–142, 146, 159, 161, 215 Civil society actors, 9, 130, 134, 137, 138, 140, 142, 144, 146, 148, 150, 160, 164, 165, 173, 272 Civil society organizations (CSOs), 33, 70, 79, 115, 139, 142, 146, 148, 156, 164, 165 Claim-making, 61, 100, 219 Claims, 2, 4, 9, 10, 60, 68, 94, 99–103, 106–109, 111, 113, 115–119, 122–124, 145, 150, 159, 186, 187, 189, 191, 197, 200, 254, 256, 270, 271, 284 Class-based perspective, 204 Coalition, 18, 28, 33, 68, 69, 77, 80, 91, 92, 111, 120, 121, 149, 154–156, 159, 164, 184, 185, 194, 195, 202, 220, 228, 240, 259, 266 Coalition-builders, 154, 271

Coalition-building, 80, 92, 154, 196, 238 Coalitions, 92 Cold War, 26, 213, 215, 278 Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), 216 Confrontational action, 60, 64, 70, 71, 87, 88, 92, 218, 227, 230, 234, 235 Consolidation, 7, 14, 19, 20, 22, 27, 29, 30, 37, 50, 52–54, 85, 86, 114, 119, 133, 134, 145, 152, 163, 187, 221, 222, 224, 226, 229, 231, 233–241, 243, 245 Contagiousness, 254 Contain, 2, 35, 38, 61, 62, 90, 254, 260 Contention, 2–4, 6–9, 15–17, 24, 26, 47, 50, 54, 58, 60, 64, 66, 72, 76, 84, 86, 87, 93, 94, 100, 103, 111, 114, 123, 148, 152, 153, 174, 178, 181, 196, 202, 204, 209, 218, 220, 224, 251–258, 261–263, 265, 268, 269, 283 Conventional actions, 70, 81, 85, 88, 90, 92–94, 255 Conventional protest, 61, 70, 84 Cooperation, 68, 77, 78, 90–92, 94, 107, 120, 121, 134, 154–156, 164, 174, 194–197, 199, 200, 204 Critical junctures, 5, 14, 213 Critical moments, 14, 25, 31, 66, 75, 100, 109, 114, 117, 119, 123, 158, 163, 164, 254, 259, 261, 262, 264, 268, 271 D Dataset, 13, 34, 36, 66, 70, 107, 122, 156, 199, 218, 220, 223, 241, 252, 275–284 De-democratization, 265

INDEX

Democracy promotion, 266, 271, 272 Democratic backsliding, 265–267, 271 Democratic flaws, 262, 264, 270 Democratization, 3–9, 13, 14, 16, 18–28, 30, 32, 34, 37, 49, 52–54, 64, 65, 72, 76, 79, 84, 87, 99–101, 103, 105, 106, 109, 114, 116, 117, 119, 123, 129–136, 142, 145, 147, 148, 150, 151, 153, 157, 160, 161, 163, 164, 173–178, 183–187, 190, 192, 197–199, 201–204, 219, 221, 223, 225, 229, 234–236, 238–240, 242, 244, 245, 251, 257–260, 262–264, 269, 270, 283 Democratization studies, 4, 7, 13, 14, 21, 24, 123, 130, 163, 174, 202, 212, 245, 270 Democratization theory, 131, 174, 176, 177 Democratization wave, 7, 36 Demonstrations, 81, 93, 255 Demonstrative actions, 60, 64, 70, 71, 84, 85, 87, 88, 90, 93, 94 Disruption, 58, 60, 63, 73, 84, 113, 178 Durability, 10, 252, 262, 263, 265, 270 Dynamic(s), 2, 5, 6, 8–10, 15–18, 26, 27, 30, 37, 49–51, 53, 59, 65, 66, 72, 74–77, 85, 87, 88, 94, 99, 100, 109, 114, 119, 120, 123, 130, 132, 133, 135, 150, 152, 165, 211, 218, 219, 245, 251–257, 259, 263, 268, 270, 278, 283 Dynamic transitions, 10, 251–256, 261, 268

313

E East and Southeast Asia, 6, 7, 24–26, 31, 36, 148, 157, 209 Elite–mass, 131, 133, 263, 270 Elite(s), 3, 4, 13, 14, 17, 22, 24, 25, 32, 63, 69, 70, 79, 80, 90, 92, 120, 129–134, 141, 153, 157–159, 161–163, 195–197, 201, 210, 217, 218, 220, 239, 244, 263, 265, 267, 270, 271 Elite support, 69, 70, 77, 91, 92, 120, 121, 194, 195, 202, 228, 231, 239 Episode(s), 5, 8, 14, 16–18, 24, 27, 31, 47, 52, 100, 259, 263 Establishment, 22, 28, 60, 129, 130, 134, 136, 212, 263, 267 Experts, 38, 67, 70, 139, 146, 156 Extremists, 67, 71, 72, 87–90, 113, 136, 176

F Farmer(s), 9, 10, 26, 68, 70, 80, 136–138, 160, 173, 174, 176, 179–182, 187–189, 196, 198–200, 203, 204, 209, 213, 215, 219, 226, 228, 237, 238, 242–245, 258, 261, 272, 280 Farmers’ protest(s), 187, 199, 200, 203, 204 Forms of protest, 58 Founding elections, 20–22, 29, 51–53, 72–74, 78, 82, 83, 86, 110, 112, 118, 144, 151, 184, 188, 190, 225 Free elections, 21, 22, 27, 29, 32, 48, 50, 52, 113, 116, 142, 149, 164, 191, 221, 254, 256, 259, 261, 263, 269

314

INDEX

G GDP per capita, 103, 181 Geographic expansion, 53, 253, 255 Golkar, 28, 33, 150 Government strategies, 210, 257, 261 Great Labor Struggle, 184, 197

H Heavy violence, 70, 82, 84–87, 93 Highly dynamic transitions, 54, 65, 123 Historic, 8, 14, 61, 132, 141, 142, 149, 175, 189, 198, 199, 201, 216, 217, 239, 264, 266, 275 Historical dimension, 212, 214

I Ideological aspect of repression, 216 Ideological challenge, 213, 214, 217 Ideological dimension, 217, 219, 237, 244 Ideological factors, 226, 230, 237, 242 Ideology, 5, 26, 115, 141, 149, 210, 213, 214, 217, 220, 238 Individual political protesters, 152 Individual societal actors, 145 Indonesia, 1–5, 7–10, 25, 27, 28, 31–37, 47–49, 51–54, 58, 65, 67, 69, 71–77, 80, 81, 84–88, 90, 92–94, 99, 100, 102, 103, 106, 108–111, 113–119, 121–124, 130, 131, 135, 136, 140–156, 161–164, 174, 181–183, 185–204, 209, 210, 215–219, 222, 224–245, 251, 253–264, 267–269, 272, 276, 279, 281, 282 Industrialization, 140, 175, 178, 181, 183, 197

Influential individuals, 67, 69, 71, 72, 88–90 Institutionalization, 21, 22, 26, 27, 29, 34, 50, 52–54, 65, 73, 87, 118, 119, 145, 187, 191, 224, 229, 234–241, 245, 257 Institutional weakness, 260, 267 Interactive analysis, 245

J Joining of forces, 156

K Key events, 19, 21, 22, 256 Kim Dae-jung, 29, 30, 52, 153, 157, 272 Korea, 7–10, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 35–37, 47–49, 51–54, 58, 65, 67, 71–77, 79–81, 84–89, 91–94, 99, 100, 102, 103, 105, 107–111, 114–120, 122–124, 130, 131, 135, 136, 141–159, 163, 164, 174, 181–198, 200– 204, 209, 210, 215–217, 219, 222, 224–245, 251, 253–264, 267–269, 271, 272, 279–282

L Labor, 4, 26, 69, 70, 79, 92, 107, 111, 158–160, 179, 180, 183– 186, 188, 191, 194, 196–199, 209, 213, 215, 216, 220, 235, 237, 242, 260 Labor mobilization, 185 Labor protest, 183, 185, 186, 197 Leadership, 9, 25, 30, 32, 58, 63, 69, 72, 130, 131, 133–135, 138, 144, 150, 156, 159, 161–164, 181, 216, 258, 272

INDEX

Liberalization, 19, 21, 22, 27, 28, 30, 32, 37, 50, 52, 54, 64, 72, 74, 75, 85, 86, 93, 94, 110, 111, 117, 119, 123, 142, 151, 157, 182, 185, 190, 221, 224, 229–241, 245, 256, 282 M Mass, 2–4, 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 24, 25, 57, 58, 60, 62, 63, 65, 67, 74, 84, 93, 100, 115, 129, 132–134, 141, 142, 147, 149, 156, 158, 161, 162, 195, 202, 216, 251, 255, 260, 264, 268, 269, 272 Mass actors, 4, 13, 14, 25, 158, 162, 176, 180 Media, 60, 62, 115, 210, 212, 217, 220, 228, 229, 240, 244, 262, 276, 277, 282 Methods, 2, 4, 8, 14, 18, 35–37, 251, 275–277, 282 Middle class, 4, 9, 100, 173–177, 179, 180, 183, 191, 192, 196, 200–204, 262 Middle-class professionals, 68, 136, 137, 180, 182 Moderate forms of protest, 48, 64, 88, 93, 158 Moderating effect, 62, 88–90, 94, 122, 124, 220 Modernization, 175, 178, 191, 200 Modernization theory, 174, 175, 203 Muhammadiyah, 147, 161 N Nahdlatul Ulama, 140, 147, 161 Non-dynamic transitions, 10, 54, 65, 252, 253, 257 Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 70, 79, 115, 130, 131, 137–139, 142, 146–148, 156,

315

160, 163–165, 196, 200, 203, 262, 267, 272 Non-organized, 62, 66, 67, 71–76, 79, 80, 85, 88–90, 92–94, 135, 138, 140, 142, 144–146, 150–152, 195, 221 Non-organized political actors, 150, 152, 162 Non-organized protest, 66, 72–77, 80, 145, 165, 258, 260 Non-organized societal actors, 138, 145 North Korea, 102, 115, 193, 256, 262 O Opportunities, 13–16, 18, 20, 22, 49, 50, 63, 116, 178, 193, 210, 258, 263 Opposition in parliament, 154 Opposition parties, 28, 33, 130, 140, 153, 154, 157, 158, 258, 260 Opposition parties in parliament, 19, 70, 140, 153, 158, 162 Opposition potential, 63, 130, 132, 133, 135 Organization, 8, 9, 18–20, 48, 57–60, 62–74, 76–80, 88–94, 101, 103, 108, 115, 119–122, 124, 130, 131, 136, 138–142, 144, 146–149, 155, 156, 159–161, 163–165, 178, 179, 183–185, 193–197, 199–203, 213, 215, 217, 220, 230, 234, 238, 239, 244, 259, 260, 266, 267, 272, 283 Organizational factors, 174, 196, 203 Organizational structure(s), 62, 66, 68, 74, 122, 131, 140, 149, 164, 193, 199, 203, 220, 221, 238, 239, 258 Organized, 66, 142

316

INDEX

Organized actors, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 70–75, 77, 79, 80, 88, 94, 122, 133, 135, 138, 145, 158, 196, 239, 258–260, 268 Organized political actors, 138, 150–153, 158, 159 Organized societal actors, 139, 142–145, 160, 161, 163 Outcome of democratic transition, 263

P Pact-making, 263 Pacts, 24, 263, 264, 267, 270 Papua, 113, 136, 218 Park Chung-hee, 28, 30, 216 Party systems, 5, 26, 33, 134, 148–150, 157, 260, 264 Peasant, 175–177, 179, 196, 199, 200 Phases, 6, 13, 17–23, 27, 28, 33, 50, 52, 54, 64, 73–75, 79, 85–87, 105, 114, 116, 118, 119, 122, 123, 129, 143, 145, 191, 221, 222, 224–226, 229–236, 238–243, 245, 255, 256, 261, 280, 282 Political actors, 9, 15, 20, 70, 116, 135, 136, 138, 140, 143, 150–155, 160, 161, 164, 189, 197, 204, 258, 259, 270 Political demands, 9, 99, 109, 163, 193, 204, 230, 259, 264, 269 Political Left, 26, 215, 219, 237, 244, 261 Political opportunity, 15, 210, 211 Political opposition, 22, 30, 32–34, 52, 131, 149, 157, 263–265, 267, 268 Political opposition parties, 164, 259, 267, 269, 271

Political organizations, 9, 19, 68, 80, 133, 150, 152, 154–156, 159, 164, 258 Political parties, 5, 9, 19, 20, 24, 26, 70, 115, 133, 134, 140, 141, 148–150, 157, 220, 258, 259, 268, 271 Political processes, 15, 17, 100, 210, 271 Political rights, 9, 31, 101, 105, 106, 115, 117–119, 123, 178, 255, 262 Political society, 9, 30, 68, 129, 130, 133–136, 138, 140, 142, 148–150, 153, 154, 161, 164, 271 Political space, 22, 33, 50, 115, 185, 215 Power, 5, 7, 9, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 23–26, 28–34, 47–50, 52, 53, 57–61, 63, 66, 69, 70, 73, 75, 84, 93, 99, 101, 102, 107, 114, 119, 120, 129–136, 142, 147, 149, 150, 156, 159–161, 164, 175, 176, 178, 191, 196, 199, 200, 212–216, 218, 219, 222, 224, 236, 237, 239, 241–243, 251, 253–255, 259, 261–272 Power struggle, 7, 116, 153, 268, 269 Pressure, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10, 32, 58, 76, 87, 99, 116, 130, 134, 151, 179, 211, 253–256, 259, 263, 264, 269–271 Pro-democratic, 75, 174, 176, 179, 201, 266 Pro-democratic attitude, 178 Pro-democratic forces, 177, 178, 189, 199, 267 Protest cycle, 6, 16–18, 49, 50, 52, 53, 64, 65, 74–76, 84, 85, 87, 99, 100, 103, 122, 123, 144,

INDEX

145, 151, 195, 201, 253, 255, 257 Protest demands, 36, 99, 100, 103, 108–112, 117, 118, 120, 121, 143, 186, 188, 191, 192 Protest dynamics, 1, 18, 26, 47, 49, 51–54, 65, 75, 80, 85, 88, 110, 116, 119, 123, 130, 145, 162, 165, 218, 237, 253, 258 Protest event analysis (PEA), 8, 34–37, 47, 70, 275, 276, 279, 282 Protest forms, 8, 10, 48, 49, 58, 59, 61, 65, 81–84, 89–92, 185, 213, 218, 235, 242, 253, 255, 256, 261 Protest goals, 49, 94, 99–101, 104–106, 108, 110, 114, 116, 124, 138, 145, 150, 153, 158, 160, 189, 192, 196, 199, 219, 235, 236, 256, 283 Protest intensity, 8, 48, 49, 53, 281 Protest policing, 210–212, 243 Q Quality of democracy, 263, 265 R Radical, 4, 50, 57, 58, 60, 62, 65, 84, 88–90, 92, 93, 100–102, 108, 115, 116, 118, 122, 123, 132, 162, 193, 218, 235, 236, 242, 256–258, 261, 283 Radical forms of action, 94, 256 Radicalization, 8, 16, 50, 58, 62, 65, 87, 93, 100, 103, 114–116, 122, 123, 255, 257, 269 Radicalness, 49, 61–63, 70, 84, 87, 88, 99–101, 108, 111, 114, 116, 120, 218, 227, 230, 234, 244, 253, 255

317

Rais, Amien, 1, 161, 162 Regime change, 1–6, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16–22, 25, 26, 29, 31, 32, 49, 52–54, 58, 64–66, 71–78, 80, 81, 85–88, 93, 94, 100–103, 105, 108–111, 113, 114, 117–119, 122–124, 129, 130, 132, 135, 136, 140, 142–146, 149–151, 154–156, 161–164, 173–175, 177–179, 181–186, 188–194, 197–202, 204, 214, 224–226, 235, 243, 244, 251–259, 261, 262, 264, 265, 267–271 Regime outcome, 262 Regime-related claims, 9, 108–110, 118, 123, 135, 163, 255, 258 Regime-related demands, 101, 105, 106, 108–111, 113, 116, 117, 119–124, 143, 186, 188, 191, 219, 226, 227, 230, 232, 235, 236, 238, 242 Regime relevance, 108 Religious communities, 147 Religious organizations, 70, 80, 130, 138–140, 146–148, 164, 220 Repression, 2, 10, 15, 26, 28, 30, 33, 38, 50, 65, 69, 129, 148, 152, 162, 178, 185, 196–198, 201, 209–216, 218–224, 229, 231–238, 240–245, 256, 257, 260, 261, 266, 271, 283 Resource mobilization, 58, 59, 62, 63 Rulers, 5, 8, 21, 26, 28, 32, 54, 101, 123, 131, 140, 141, 165, 181, 214–217, 242, 244, 254, 257, 259–261, 263, 267 Ruling parties, 33, 75, 119, 140, 150, 154 S Sequencing, 6, 17, 81, 84–88, 94, 99, 100, 254

318

INDEX

Shinawatra, Thaksin, 7, 29, 53, 159, 160, 200, 204, 241, 242, 262, 282 Situation, 3, 6, 7, 26, 34, 57, 103, 189, 209, 212, 214, 217, 218, 222, 230, 234–235, 237, 242–244, 254, 263 Situational threat, 218, 227, 230 Situation-specific, 3, 236, 237, 243, 244 Social groups, 14, 19, 140, 147, 176, 270, 272 Social movement research, 6, 13–16, 18, 20, 49, 53, 57, 58, 76, 100, 174, 178, 193, 209, 210, 213, 251, 255, 257, 282 Societal actors, 135, 136, 138–140, 143, 144, 146, 164 Socioeconomic, 4, 5, 9, 14, 108, 109, 111, 116, 138, 173–177, 181, 193, 196, 200, 203, 259, 260 Socioeconomic actors, 193 Socioeconomic demands, 105, 107, 109, 111, 112, 115, 124, 255 Socioeconomic interests, 109, 164 Socioeconomic issues, 111, 185, 187, 193 Socioeconomic position, 173, 174, 182, 203 Socioeconomic structure, 3, 26, 102, 173, 181, 182 Socio-structural argument, 175 South Korea, 7, 25, 27, 34, 47, 51, 102, 156, 157, 196, 201, 262, 268, 275, 278 Spontaneity, 58, 73, 100, 253, 258 Spontaneous, 63, 64, 67, 71, 75–77, 88–90, 94, 152, 195, 197, 199, 202, 256, 268 Spontaneous forms of protest, 58, 68, 73, 94, 164

Spontaneous protest, 8, 73–77, 93, 124, 260 Spreading of protest, 254, 255 Stateness, 101, 102, 106, 107, 113–116, 153, 256 Stateness demands, 102, 105, 107– 109, 111, 112, 114–116, 119, 186, 188, 191, 219, 221, 227, 230, 235, 236, 243 Stateness issues, 101, 102, 106, 109, 113–116, 123, 235 Stateness questions, 102, 105, 106 State repression, 61, 186, 196, 210–213, 217, 221, 223–227, 230, 232, 234–242 State–society relations, 133, 140 Strategic, 4, 5, 13, 16, 26, 63, 69, 80, 81, 94, 99, 116, 119, 124, 142, 197, 199, 200, 202, 203, 218, 265, 270 Structuralist approach, 174 Structuralist tradition, 4, 175, 176 Structural logic, 203 Structural perspective, 63, 180, 202 Structural tradition of democratization research, 173 Structure, 4–7, 13–16, 20, 21, 31, 47, 57, 63, 76, 101, 102, 130, 132, 139, 141, 142, 149, 150, 159, 165, 174–176, 197, 198, 204, 210, 266, 267 Student mobilization, 9, 190, 191, 195, 201, 202, 239 Students, 1, 2, 9, 48, 68, 70, 80, 87, 111, 115, 119, 136–138, 158–160, 162, 174, 180–183, 189–196, 200–204, 214, 216, 217, 220, 228, 231, 235, 238, 239, 242, 244, 254, 256–260, 267–269, 272 Suharto, 1, 2, 28, 29, 32–34, 48, 52, 75, 86, 119, 161–163, 216, 243

INDEX

Sukarno, 33, 161, 162, 216 Sukarnoputri, Megawati, 28, 33, 152, 153, 161

T Tactic, 59, 111, 209, 210, 214, 217, 218, 227, 230, 234, 235, 237, 242–244 Thailand, 7–10, 25, 27, 28, 30–32, 35, 36, 47–49, 51–54, 58, 65, 67, 71–73, 76, 77, 80, 81, 84–89, 91, 92, 94, 99, 100, 102, 106, 108–111, 114–118, 120, 121, 123, 130, 131, 135–137, 141–156, 159, 160, 164, 165, 174, 181–183, 185–192, 194–204, 209, 210, 215–219, 222, 224–225, 227–245, 251, 253–264, 266, 268, 269, 279, 281, 282 Thai Rak Thai Party, 160 The left, 52, 160, 215, 216, 225 Threat, 10, 60, 115, 130, 158, 189, 200, 209, 211, 212, 214–221, 227, 228, 230, 231, 236–238, 240, 242–245, 253, 263 Threat model, 214, 239 Time, 1–4, 7–10, 14, 15, 17, 25–27, 30–32, 35, 37, 50–52, 54, 57– 59, 61, 62, 66, 68, 69, 72–76, 79–81, 84–88, 100, 103, 104, 110, 111, 113, 115, 118, 122, 132, 138, 139, 141, 144–147, 156, 157, 159, 161, 165, 173, 179, 181, 183, 185, 187, 192, 197–199, 204, 210–215, 217, 220–225, 229, 231, 233, 234, 240, 242–244, 254, 256, 258, 260, 268, 269, 271, 275–278, 280–284 Time-sensitive, 3, 5, 14, 18, 162, 221

319

Timing, 2–4, 6, 76, 81, 99, 103, 111, 117, 135, 136, 142, 145, 150, 152, 164, 165, 174, 179, 181, 184, 185, 187, 189, 197, 199, 202, 204, 256, 257, 270 Tinsulanonda, Prem, 31, 32 Transgression, 255, 261, 262, 269 Transgressive, 61, 62, 90 Transition, 2–4, 6–8, 10, 13, 14, 18–22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 32, 37, 47, 51–54, 57, 58, 65, 72–76, 78–80, 82, 83, 85–88, 93, 94, 99, 101–103, 105, 108, 110–112, 114–119, 123, 129, 132–134, 142–146, 151–153, 156–159, 163–165, 173, 176, 177, 180–184, 186–190, 192, 198, 201–204, 210, 214, 220, 222, 224–226, 230, 231, 233, 235, 238, 243–245, 251, 253–258, 260, 261, 263, 264, 268–270, 272, 282, 283

U University, 119, 139, 158, 160, 192, 196, 200, 281

V Violence, 4, 34, 48, 60, 67, 71, 81, 84, 85, 87, 90, 93, 107, 113, 114, 119, 185, 209, 211, 221, 224, 236, 243, 244, 253, 254, 256 Violent tactics, 236, 238 Visibility, 20, 71

W Wahid, Abdurrahman, 32, 34, 153, 161

320

INDEX

Weakness, 15, 50, 80, 132, 137, 165, 185, 196, 211, 212, 221, 239, 240, 244 Workers, 9, 10, 26, 48, 59, 68, 70, 80, 106, 107, 111, 123, 136–138, 147, 159, 173–177, 179–186, 193–198, 201–204,

215, 219, 226, 228, 237, 238, 242–245, 255, 258, 259, 261, 272, 280 Y Yudhoyono, Susilo Bambang, 29, 33, 52