Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law (CISRUL)

Inter-disciplinary workshop

RADICAL PROTEST IN CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY

hosted by the

Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law (CISRUL)

at the

University of Aberdeen, Scotland

Monday 6th– Tuesday 7thJune 2016

Academic coordinator: Trevor Stack ()

Workshop administrator: Hanifi Baris ()

Topic

Protest is a hallowed right within constitutional democracy, allowing for political expression outside the electoral process and established public sphere channels such as the media. But to what extent and in what ways can and/or should constitutional democracy accommodate more radical forms of protest, and particularly illegal forms? What do particular varieties of protest reveal (empirically and normatively) about the scope and limits of constitutional democracy? And how do organizations which use radical protest in a constitutional democracy relate to those which choose not to? These are some of the empirical and normative questions that we pose for the workshop.

By constitutional democracy, although we are open to debates about the concept (e.g. Tulis and Macedo 2010; Ferrajoli 2011), we take the following criteria as our starting point: effective electoral institutions coupled with a set of basic rights, including freedom of expression and assembly, and rule of law in the sense that all are subject to law. We restrict our scope to constitutional democracy because it already offers by definition a number of opportunities for political expression, and therefore the choice of radical protest takes more explaining and/or justifying than under more authoritarian regimes.

We use the term “radical” primarily for the means of protest, and we take as our starting point that radical means are illegal ones, although we are open to discussion about other ways of defining radical, and we recognize that violence and incivility are commonly used as criteria, for example by state, media or civil society condemning groups of protestors. In any case, we will consider how states and other actors choose to define and police the legal and/or moral boundaries of protest, including claims that states are criminalizing or securitizing protest, and that the radical/moderate distinction is itself used to this effect.

An important emphasis will be on the many movements (from the UK Suffragettes to the Mexican Zapatistas) which defy legal prohibitions while appealing to constitutional (and/or international human) rights, and which may also claim to speak for “the people” as constituent power (Nobles & Schiff 2015; Smilov 2009).

Although our focus is primarily on radical means, we may consider the extent to which non-radical means (such as legal protest including through the courts) can be used to radical ends of far-reaching social transformation (Couso, Javier, Alexandra Huneeus, and Rachel Sieder. 2010). We will also bear in mind that radical means can be used to non-radical ends, as in the case of labour unions in some countries which use illegal protest to achieve conventional demands such as salary raises.

We will also consider the limit case of more revolutionary movements, understood as those who aim either to create a new constitution or to dispense with constitutionalism altogether (such as the Maoists in India).

We have a particular concern with the interface between organizations across the full spectrum of protest. This includes how organizations with radical means or ends are received by non-radical organizations that refrain from radical protest. Is their radical protest viewed sympathetically, or do non-radical organizations reject solidarity with radical protestors?

Here it may be interesting to consider whether organizations that engage in certain kinds of radical protest are or should be considered “civil society” (Alexander 2006; Gudavarthy 2012). A special case would be “civil disobedience” where protestors typically invite arrest albeit in non-violent ways as a strategy to highlight legally-sanctioned injustice (Nobles and Schiff 2015; Perry 2013).

Radical protest (as we understand it) need not, then, be violent, and yet some radical protest is violent. We ask not only why movements choose to use violence, but also how violence affects the interface with other movements. Violence may alienate other movements and undermine solidarity, while providing a pretext for societal backlash and state repression. But is this always the case?

We also consider how political parties, as key actors of constitutional democracy, relate to organizations which engage in radical protest, or whether they use such means themselves. It is also important to consider radical movements that go on to become political parties, as in the case of the Podemos Party in Spain.

We call for both empirical and normative responses to all these questions. Ideally, though, normative responses would include some reflection on their empirical referents, while empirical scholars would try to make explicit their normative assumptions.

Empirically, protest will be understood broadly to include public political expression beyond the electoral process and established public sphere channels such as the media. It includes varieties beyond the street demonstrations usually associated with protest. We are interested in historical studies such as of the Suffragettes (Nym 2000) or the US civil disobedience tradition (Perry 2013), as well as contemporary examples ranging from hactivism (Hampson 2012), boss-napping (Parsons 2013) and the Occupy movement, to hunger strikes, guerrilla warfare (Gudavarthy 2014) and terrorism (Khosrokhavar 2014). We are interested, among other things, in how technology can facilitate radical protest, for example by opening new spaces that are difficult to regulate or by speeding up communication through social media, or can alternatively hinder radical protest for example through enhancing state surveillance and policing.

Although we are open to empirical studies of Western Europe and North America, we are especially interested in studies of the many constitutional democracies beyond those regions, even though we are open to debate about whether constitutional democracy has more than a formal existence in particular contexts. We will consider, for example, Partha Chatterjee’s (2004) argument that most popular protest across most of the world happens with little reference to legality or civility, whether by popular organizations or in government response, and may also be said to use radical means to entirely non-radical ends such as securing urban services. It will also be important to observe how protest changes as a result of transitions to constitutional democracy, for example since the 1980s in Latin America.

Normatively, we are open to a full range of perspectives, and participants in previous workshops have taken liberal, Marxist, Maoist, Catholic, feminist, post-colonial, anarchist, and libertarian standpoints. We are as open, for example, to broadly liberal debates about the tensions within constitutional democracy, as to debates about whether contemporary protest takes “hegemonic” or “post-hegemonic” forms (Kioupkiolis and Katsambekis 2014).

Schedule

monday6THjune

9Tea, coffee and biscuits

9.30Introduction (Trevor Stack)

Regulating the freedom of assembly in constitutional democracy

10.10Tamas Gyorfi “Moral disagreement and political protest in constitutional democracies”

The aim of my presentation is to examine the role of and justification for political protest in different theories of political legitimacy. Although I will not attempt to define what radical means, I will suggest a couple of distinctions that might be helpful in locating the concept. The starting point of my analysis will be the widely held intuition that we should very often comply with laws even if we disagree with the content of those laws; and the idea of procedural fairness has a central role in accounting for this intuition. However, the two theories that dominate our constitutional discourse, give different role to procedural fairness. According to the first theory, what I will call rights-foundationalism, although procedural fairness is an important value, in some cases it should give way to substantive justice. According to the second theory, what I will call procedural democracy, procedural fairness should never be trumped by substantive justice. The two theories draw the boundaries of justified protest differently. More importantly, I wish to argue that both are hugely problematic. Rights foundationalism can justify protest against and disobedience to unjust laws, but cannot account for reasonable moral disagreement. By contrast, procedural democracy can account for reasonable disagreement, but it does not have a conceptual space for justified political protest.

10.30Orsolya Salát

10.50Discussant

11Open discussion

11.40Break (tea, coffee and biscuits)

Radical protest in 20th-century UK and US

12Malcolm Petrie“Radical protest, political extremism and the culture of democracy in inter-war Britain”

After 1918 public politics in Scotland and Britain underwent a profound alteration. In the mass democracy that emerged, the localized and confrontational popular political culture of the pre-war era waned, as the public traditions of radical protest came to be identified with a divisive politics of class, especially after the 1926 General Strike. In particular, Conservative propaganda sought to identify the Labour Party with a masculine and sectional culture of electoral rowdy-ism and political violence incompatible with the interests of the wider national community. For Labour, the refutation of such accusations required a transformation in how and where the party conducted its politics, in order to demonstrate the ability to govern in the ‘national’ interest.

This paper examines this change via a study of election meetings, marches, and demonstrations of the unemployed throughout Scotland between 1918 and 1939. The focus is on the rejection by Labour of longstanding radical traditions of protest, which came instead to be the preserve of a Communist Party excluded from mainstream political debate. The progressive decline in the importance of open public election meetings, and the censure that faced those who participated in mass rallies and demonstrations, reflected the growing dominance of the national political sphere, and the privileging of the casting of the ballot as the primary means through which individuals engaged with the political process. This paper thus traces a transition from a culture in which direct interaction between the public and politicians was tolerated, enabling radical groups to participate in public debate, to a national politics from which such traditions were excised.

12.20Tbc

12.40Discussion

1.20Sandwich lunch for all attendees (in break-out room)

Recent radical protest in UK and Europe

2.10Clare Saunders

Street demonstrations are by-and-large legitimate events that can hardly be said to stretch themselves so far as civil disobedience. Often, they are merely demonstrative marches from A to B, designed to rally public support and draw political attention to a cause. Sometimes, though, they become rowdy and enter into the realms of disobedience (the 2010 students protests are a case in point). Drawing on a data set of over 80 demonstrations between 2009 and 2012 from across Europe, I will explore the relationship between rowdiness (as measured by individuals on the protest) and police reactions. Is it the case that those protests that venture into the realms of civil disobedience are most heavily policed? Or do policing decisions seem arbitrary? And what is the relationship between the extent of civil disobedience and protesters perceived efficacy of a protest? How does harsh policing intervene in the relationship between perceived efficacy and civil disobedience?

2.30AthinaKaratzogianni“Firebrand Waves of Digital Activism 1994-2014: The Rise and Spread of Hacktivism and Cyberconflict”

This talk introduces four waves of in digital activism and cyberconflict. The rise of digital activism started in 1994, was transformed by the events of 9/11, culminated in 2011 with the Arab Spring uprisings, and entered a transformative phase of control, mainstreaming and cooptation since 2013 with the Snowden revelations. Digital activism is defined here as political participation, activities and protests organized in digital networks beyond representational politics. It refers to political conduct aiming for reform or revolution by non-state actors and new sociopolitical formations such as social movements, protest organizations, and individuals and groups from the civil society. The latter is defined as social actors outside government and corporate influence. Cyberconflict is defined as conflict in computer mediated environments and it involves an analysis of the interactions between actors engaged in digital activism to raise awareness for a specific cause, struggles against government and corporate actors, as well as conflict between governments, states and corporations. The rationale for these phases is solely based on political effects, rather than technological or developmental determinants.

During my talk, I provide a brief overview of the first (1994-2001) and second phase (2001-2007) of digital activism and cyberconflict. I provide a more detailed account of specific cases of digital activism in two further phases: between 2007-2010 and 2010-2014. In the first part of my talk I argue that the mainstreaming of digital activism will render it ineffective and inconsequential in the long term. I offer my thoughts on the future of network power and resistance in relation to high-level information warfare targeting infrastructure and grids rather than information content and network connections. My thesis is that there is a constant transformation of digital activism beyond its symbolic and mobilizational qualities, as we have experienced it since 1994. Digital activism is likely to enter a phase of mainstreaming as ‘politics as usual’: an established element in the fabric of political life with no exceptional qualities, normalized and mainstreamed by governments through collaboration with corporations and the cooptation of NGOs. Cyberconflict will revolve more around high-level information warfare of attacking infrastructure, rather than just using ICTs to mobilise or as a weapon for low-level societal largely symbolic attacks. The higher level character of conflict in digital networks will intensify to the extent that digital activism and cyberconflict of the last two decades shall pale by comparison.

2.50Cristina Flesher-Fominaya “Democratic citizens and the CitizenSecurity Law: The case of Spain”

Legal reforms that restrict the right to protest, and associated freedoms such as the right to freedom of assembly and expression, are one of the gravest threats to democracy, yet one that many people are unaware of. They can also be an unintended (and unwelcome) consequence of social mobilization. In this talk I will briefly trace the relation between mobilization and legal reform in the case of Spain, and show an example of how activists there are mobilizing to resist these reforms and questioning the security discourse that justifies the erosion of democratic and human rights.

3.10Discussion

4.10Break (tea, coffee and biscuits)

Radical protest in Central & Eastern European

4.30Ákos Kopper and Balázs Majtenyi “A critical discussion of the ‘attack’ on Hungarian border guards by refugees in 2015”

4.50Grzegorz Piotrowski “Radical activism in a post-socialist environment”

Among the years the dominant narrative about social movements in Central and Eastern Europe was highlighting smaller numbers of mobilizations in the region (Howard 2003). Recent studies have made this picture more complex, pointing to different ways in which movements from the region operate (Petrova and Tarrow 2007), the professionalization of the sector (Jacobsson and Saxonberg 2013) or to the changing arena of the protests (Jacobsson 2016). However, when it comes to radical activism little attention was given. Some scholars (Cisar 2013) point to the rejection of radicalism, in particular used by left-leaning groups, as there is growing empirical evidence of the rise of right-wing radicalism. However, while studying the alliance-making of Polish social movements one can observe that radicalism of social movements is at times used as a tool to leverage more moderate claims by the moderate actors of the coalitions.

This claim follows two kinds of logic. First it builds on the concept of ‘radical flanks’ (Haines 1988, 2013) that focuses on the internal ‘division of labor’ within social movements or coalitions and the effect it brings making moderate factions looking more ‘reasonable’, able to compromise or negotiate with the authorities or other actors using conventional channels of constitutional democracy. At the same time making the ‘radicals’ taking on the role of intensifying the level of contention around the issue at stake by engaging in more unconventional, sometimes violent, repertoires of action.

Second approach is the ‘transactional activism’ (Petrova and Tarrow 2007) that points out towards inter-organizational exchange – transaction – of resources, know-how, and information. Furthermore, it emphasizes how informal relationships between movement groups and actors within the polity create openings for directly affecting the political outcome, thus circumventing the need for mass mobilization and participation.

Previous studies on radical social movements often focused on the dynamics of radicalization, caused mostly by external (often structural) factors. In this paper I would like to shift the attention to the conscious use of radical tactics and claims in broader social movement contexts in order to make a more efficient push for their claims through conventional, democratic channels.

The empirical foundation of this paper comes from data (interviews and Protest Even Analysis) collected for the projects ‘Anarchists in Eastern and Western Europe: a Comparative Study’ and "Challenging the myths of weak civil society in post-socialist settings: ‘Unexpected’ alliances and mobilizations in the field of housing activism in Poland" where one of the focal points was the relations of radical groups (anarchists and squatters) with other actors, their cooperation and possible allies.

5.10Discussion

6 Buffet dinner for all attendees (in break-out room)

Tuesday 7th June

9Tea, coffee and biscuits

Radical protest in Mexico

9.30Rosie Doyle“The Mexican tradition of insurrection”

When the authors of the Zapatista uprising of 1994 defended their actions as recourse to the ‘constitutionalism of insurrection’ and swore to abide by the constitution provided it included their suggested reforms until a new constitution could be drawn up they drew on a traditional repertoire of Mexican insurrectionary practice beginning with a political form known as a pronunciamiento often referred to as a ‘controlled revolution’ that was central to the state building and constitution making process in early independent Mexico between 1821 and 1858. Through pronunciamientos political and social actors of all classes used the threat of insurrection and violence to negotiate with the frequently changing governments, forward ideas for new laws and constitution and reconstitute the nation. Pronunciamientos involved a range of techniques for engaging in negotiation and debate in the emerging public sphere including the ceremonial claiming of the public space, a demonstration of representation of the popular will through the accumulation of support from various sectors, the circulation of petition-like political plans and establishing procedures that mimicked those to the emerging constitutional procedures. Pronunciamientos introduced the notion of legitimate insurrection into the political repertoire in Mexico. Their legacy is notable in the techniques of the Mexican Revolutionaries between 1910 and 1920 and the neo-Zapatistas with their performance of insurrection, public processions and their prolific issuing of declarations, revolutionary laws and proposals for reforms to the constitution. The notion of ‘constitutional insurrection’ refers to an article of the 1917 revolutionary constitution. In analysing the use of these tropes of insurrectionary tradition in forms of social protest in Mexico since the Zapatista uprising of 1994 this paper explores a number of questions relating to constitutionalism, insurrection, revolution and protest in Mexico including: