Resistance is mobile
| Author | Christian Davenport,Christopher M Sullivan |
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0022343317749273 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Resistance is mobile: Dynamics of
repression, challenger adaptation,
and surveillance in US ‘Red Squad’
and black nationalist archives
Christopher M Sullivan
Department of Political Science, Louisiana State University
Christian Davenport
Department of Political Science, University of Michigan
Abstract
An emerging consensus holds that achieving successful counter-movement outcomes requires combining overt
repression (e.g. raids, arrests, and targeted assassination) with covert repression (e.g. monitoring, agents provocateurs,
and wiretapping). Research in this article disputes the presumed complementarity between overt and covert repres-
sive tactics. When overt repression signals new information about the state’s covert intelligence collection program,
challengers respond in ways that frustrate efforts to accumulate new intelligence. These propositions are investigated
using original, weekly panel data on a black nationalist insurgent organization, the Republic of New Africa (RNA),
and US Red Squad counter-movement activities directed against this group (between 1968 and 1971). Using
archived materials generated by various policing agencies and their rivals in the RNA, the analyses provide new
understanding of dynamics rarely observed or analyzed systematically. Findings reveal that the two methods of
political repression can work at cross purposes. Overt repression motivates challenger adaption towards less readily
observable tactics and organizational forms; covert repression subsequently fails to identify challengers’ actions or
identities. These findings hold even while controlling for challenger mobilization and government investment in
covert repression. In addition to advancing our understanding of what happens to behavioral challengers when
governments repress, the results help to shed light on some of the factors that make defeating domestic challengers so
difficult. Each ‘step forward’ taken by counter-movement forces potentially makes the next one more difficult.
Keywords
political conflict, repression, surveillance
Intelligence obtained through covert repressive actions
(e.g. monitoring, agents provocateurs, wiretapping, etc.)
is crucial for political authorities confronting behavioral
challenges like protest, terrorism, insurgency, and riots.
With intelligence, governments are able to discern who is
involved, where these individuals are living, what they
are planning to do and/or where the challengers are
vulnerable. Without such information, authorities are
unable to target specific challengers with overt repressive
actions (e.g. raids, arrests, targeted assassination, etc.).
Essentially, state forces are left swinging in the dark.
But what determines the quantity and quality of gov-
ernment intelligence? Though intelligence is of primary
importance to theories of domestic conflict, there have
been few direct efforts to examine how governments
generate intelligence or how challengers attempt to sub-
vert such efforts. The principal obstacle has been evi-
dence. Few data exist describing how authorities
Corresponding author:
csullivan@lsu.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2018, Vol. 55(2) 175–189
ªThe Author(s) 2018
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0022343317749273
journals.sagepub.com/home/jpr
To continue reading
Request your trial