Neither Repression Nor Concession? A Regime’s Attrition against Mass Protests
| Published date | 01 October 2017 |
| Date | 01 October 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321716674024 |
| Author | Samson Yuen,Edmund W Cheng |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321716674024
Political Studies
2017, Vol. 65(3) 611 –630
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321716674024
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Neither Repression Nor
Concession? A Regime’s
Attrition against Mass Protests
Samson Yuen1 and Edmund W Cheng2
Abstract
Protest activists employ various strategies to challenge regimes, and regimes deploy multifaceted
tactics to respond to such challenges. Existing studies on regime protest responses focus on
repression and concession, but little attention is devoted to toleration, which is often regarded
as government inaction. Drawing on primary sources and interviews, this article analyses regime
responses to Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement to expand the conceptualisation of toleration.
First, it demonstrates that regimes adapt multiple strategies to protesters’ reactions rather than
adhering to a single response. Second, it shows that toleration, other than ignoring protests, entails
proactive tactics that we summarise as attrition. While ‘tolerating’ street occupation, the regime
sought to eliminate political opportunities by maintaining elite cohesion, increase participation
costs by mobilising countermovements and bolster legitimacy by leveraging the court as a revered
institution. This new conceptual distinction thus captures regime innovation in counteracting
protests and broadens the typology of regime responses.
Keywords
contentious politics, regime response, occupy, Umbrella Movement, Hong Kong
Accepted: 28 July 2016
While protest activists employ various strategies to seek political changes or concessions,
regimes also adopt myriad tactical responses to address popular protests and defend
against challengers. Social movement research has generally followed three approaches
in studying regime responses. The first approach considers regime response as a depend-
ent variable and classifies regime responses via forms of repression, concession and tol-
eration (Cai, 2010; Franklin, 2009; Tilly, 1978). The chosen response is determined by
regime types and factors that include the acceptability of the action taken, protest size and
1School of Arts and Social Sciences, The Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
2Department of Government and International Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong
Kong
Corresponding author:
Samson Yuen, School of Arts and Social Sciences, The Open University of Hong Kong, Ho Man Tin, Hong
Kong.
Email: whsyuen@ouhk.edu.hk
674024PSX0010.1177/0032321716674024Political StudiesYuen and Cheng
research-article2017
Article
612 Political Studies 65 (3)
tactics and the balance of power between the regime and protest groups (Gamson, 1990;
McAdam, 1982).
The second approach considers regime response as an independent variable and exam-
ines its impact. Many studies focus on the impact of repression on protests – the ‘repres-
sion–dissent nexus’ (Lichbach, 1987). Some scholars find that repression decreases
dissent by impeding resource mobilisation (Jenkins and Perrow, 1977; Tilly, 1978) or by
raising participation costs (Hardin, 1982). Others argue that repression can increase dis-
sent when protesters consider the repression unjust (Hess and Martin, 2006; Opp and
Roehl, 1990; Rasler, 1996) or when repression is not severe enough (Olivier, 1991).
Similarly, researchers find that concession, like repression, can strengthen or weaken
protest actions (Klandermans, 1984; Muller and Opp, 1986). However, other scholars are
interested in their interactive effect. Goldstone and Tilly (2001) suggest conceptualising
threats as combinations of repression and concession influencing protester mobilisation.
A proper combination reduces protests, whereas the inconsistent use of repression and
concession fuels them (Lichbach, 1987; Rasler, 1996). The third approach conceptualises
regime responses by exploring variations within each category (Davenport, 2009; Earl,
2003). For example, Jennifer Earl (2003) builds on Charles Tilly’s work and proposes a
multidimensional conceptualisation of repression based on three variables: the repressive
agent’s identity and the repressive action’s character and observability.
These approaches suffer from two major limitations. First, they generally assume that
regimes use a single protest response mode, despite several exceptions that address the use
of mixed responses. This assumption oversimplifies the fact that regimes sometimes com-
bine different tactical responses and adapt their strategy accordingly. Doug McAdam
(1983: 736) calls this ‘tactical adaptation’, referring to ‘the ability of opponents to neutral-
ize the [tactical innovations] through effective tactical counters’, although the adaptation
is not always strategic or deliberate but rather contingent or necessity based. Second, most
studies focus heavily on repression and concession, devoting little attention to toleration as
a regime response. Among the exceptions are more recent studies of protests in China and
Latin America. Yongshun Cai (2010: 5) identifies ‘tolerance’ as a regime response when
examining protest outcomes in China, referring to situations in which ‘citizens’ demands
are ignored but the government tolerates their resistance’. Cai identifies three other
responses: repression, concessions and concessions with discipline. The Chinese govern-
ment, Cai (2010: 42) argues, is generally more tolerant of protests that do not threaten
regimes. Toleration is also more likely when upper-level authorities place constraints on
lower-level authorities, with such constraints resulting in ‘the relaxed enforcement of laws
and thereby creating political space for popular resistance’. Also focusing on Chinese pro-
tests, Peter Lorentzen (2013) contends that toleration permits discontented communities to
be identified and paid off, allowing the government to monitor local officials better. Similar
to Cai, James Franklin treats toleration as the absence of repression or meaningful conces-
sions. Turning to protests in Latin America, Franklin (2009: 702) argues that toleration is
the government’s model response because it is ‘likely to be least costly for governments in
the long term’. While toleration has no obvious short-term benefits beyond allowing
authorities to defer the use of repression or concession, Franklin argues that it can ‘cause
individuals and groups to lower their expectation of future success’ and is less likely to
‘lead to the type of outrage associated with repression’.
Nonetheless, apart from the limited attention to toleration, the concept is con-
strained by its weak definition in existing studies. Scholars generally follow Tilly’s
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