Protest, Concession and Repression in Syria: divergent strategies? Steffy Roos du Maine Andrea Ruggeri University of Amsterdam Abstract The link between protest, concession and repression is an ongoing unresolved debate within the study of non‐violent collective action. Do citizens act strategically to repression? Are they influenced by concessions? And, do government forces act strategically in order to prevent protest using repression? We examine the non‐violent protest during the first months of the Syrian uprising using quantitative methods in order to study whether the regime and protesters use different strategic behaviors in pursuing their goals. Our quantitative research is based on a new database, consisting of daily events of acts of repression and concession of the regime, protests of the opposition and statements of the international community. The state ‐in the form of security forces, police or army‐ reacts to protests with repression only on the same very day, without a clear strategic pattern. Opposite to this direct behavior, protesters show a more strategic behavior; after concessions an increase in protests is visible. It seems that protesters, on the one hand, see windows of opportunity after a concession to increase their protest; they perceive the regime as weak. On the other hand, they protest to signal that regime concessions do not go far enough and they are made alongside with harsh repression. Moreover, protest tend to have a “focal point” for collective action every Friday, just after the pray, whereas the regime does not strategically prevent this focal point through repression. Our work‐in‐progress aims to contribute to the growing literature on strategic behavior of local actors employing both geographically and temporally disaggregated data. Paper to be presented at the workshop On Non‐Violent Conflict ENCoRe Network, Uppsala 12‐13 October 2012 THIS IS A WORKING PAPER, DON’T CITE COMMEENTS ARE VERY WELCOME 1 1.0 Introduction Protests in the streets, government forces trying to repress these demonstrations, a concession of the same government on the same day, international actors that do or do not provide supporting statements … An uprising can seem chaotic at first sight, without any pattern or logic. The aim of this paper is to find patterns and highlight possible logics and strategies among protests, repressions, concessions mainly based on the following research question: What are the strategies of protesters and the Syrian regime during the Syrian uprisings? During the first months of the Syrian uprising, the opposition took the streets to protest peacefully. The government reacted to this with repressive measures, as well as with concessions. This paper examines using a new events dataset whether the regime and protesters use different strategic behaviours in pursuing their goals. To do that, the research question will be broken down into several hypotheses. Firstly, the effect of protest on state actions will be examined. The state can react to protests with repression or concession. Because it sees the protests as a threat to their regime, it will want to counter this threat by repressive measure. The regime can also do concessions to accommodate the opposition, in the hope to stop the protesting. Secondly, the effect of repression and concession on protests will be examined. Both state actions can have an increasing or decreasing effect on protests. Repression raises the costs of protesting and can thus decrease protests, but it can also increase the wish for retribution among the opposition and therefore increase protest. Concessions can accommodate the opposition and decrease the need to protest, but it can also increase the benefits of protesting; it shows the government is weak, increasing the protests. When concessions do not go far enough, the opposition can protest more to signal their discontent to the regime. 2 Our preliminary findings suggest that the government has a strategic incoherence between repression and concession. Repression tend to be a reaction to protest but does not prevent protesters to get reorganized. On the other hand, protesters seem to have a more coherent strategic menu: they protest when the government provides concession , they protest after violence is perpetrated, and they protest after the Friday pray, a unique focal point under an authoritarian regime. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of popular uprisings, in particular of the one in Syria. Furthermore, this research aims to provide more evidence about the influence of repression, concession and protest on each other, expanding the usual research with responses of the international community as a possibly influencing factor The paper starts with a brief review of theories of state repression, concession, international responses and protest, followed by a theoretical framework where hypotheses are derived from. The next section outlines the research method, including the operationalization of the variables. The we present our preliminary findings and also a robustness section. 3 2.0 Previous Research This section reviews previous research on state repression, concession and their relationship with protest. 2.1 Repression & Protest There is a variety of academic literature written on the relationship between state repression and protests.1 Nevertheless, findings are mixed and the causality between the two variables is debatable: some scholars examine the effect of state repression on protest, others how protest influences repression, and lately there are some that argue for a dynamic relationship, meaning that both variables influence each other. The first group of scholars takes repression as independent variable and protest as dependent. Repression can be seen as having a decreasing effect on protest via incapacitation effects and deterrent effects, or an increasing effect via vengeance effects. The incapacitation effect reduces the protester’s ability to carry out other protests, for example when protesters are killed or held in detention, and thus decreases protests. This also holds for the deterrent effect; it causes fear at the opposition side and can therefore refrain the protesters from action. The vengeance effect however, means that repression can lead to more protest because the protesters wish to dispense retribution in response to the casualties and costs it suffers.2 Resource mobilization and rational choice theorists argue that protest will decrease as a consequence of repression, the first because repression impedes the ability of protesters to mobilize resources such as people, weapons and money3, the second because the expectation of repression will make individuals less inclined to Sabine C. Carey, ‘The Dynamic Relationship Between Protest and Repression’ in Political Research Quarterly (2006): 1‐12 2 David A. Jeager and M. Daniele Paserman, ‘The cycle of violence? An empirical analysis of fatalities in the Palestinian‐Israeli conflict’ in American Economic Review (2008): 1593 3 Charles Tilly, From mobilization to revolution (Michigan 1978) 1
4 join the protest.4 However, later research shows that repression has a direct negative effect on protest because repression is a cost, but it has an indirect positive effect via micro‐mobilization processes.5 6 Because repression makes people feel disillusioned with the government, they are easier to recruit to take part in protests.7 It has also been argued that there is no existent relationship8 and the debatable relationship is referred to as the Punishment Puzzle9. Secondly, there is the perspective that protest influences government repression. There seems to be the consisting finding that when challenges to the status quo take place, government authorities will employ repressive actions to counter or eliminate this threat.10 However, the employment of repression depends on the kind of political regime in a country.11 The costs of repression are believed to be higher for democracies, because if their actions are found to be unjustified they can be voted out of office.12 So non‐democracies ‐like Syria‐ will generally be more inclined to use repression as an answer to protests than democracies. There are also findings that hint to another answer to protests; some governments that experience Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge 1965) and Russell Hardin, Collective Action (Baltimore 1982) in Karen Rasler, ‘Concession, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution’ in American Sociological Review (1996): 132‐152 5 Karl‐Dieter Opp and Wolfgang Ruehl, ‘Repression, Micromobilization and Political Protest’ in Social Forces (1990): 1‐47 6 Carles Boix and Susan Carol Stokes, The Oxford handbook of comparative politics (Oxford 2007): 374 7 Karen Rasler, ‘Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution’ in American Sociological Review (1996): 133 8 Gurr and Moore, ‘Ethnopolitical rebellion: a cross‐sectional analysis of the 1980s with risk assesments for the 1990s’ in American Political Science (1997): 1079‐1103 in Christian Davenport, Paths to state repression: Human rights violations and contentious politics (Oxford 2000): 8 9 Christian Davenport, Paths to state repression: Human rights violations and contentious politics (Oxford 2000): 8 10 Christian Davenport, Paths to state repression: Human rights violations and contentious politics (Oxford 2000): 7 11 Sabine C. Carey, ‘The Dynamic Relationship Between Protest and Repression’ in Political Research Quarterly (2006): 1‐2 12 Christian Davenport, Paths to state repression: Human rights violations and contentious politics (Oxford 2000): 10 4
5 domestic dissent will accommodate instead of repress.13 This relationship will be discussed in the next section; concessions. The third and last perspective argues that both variables can have an effect on each other; protest and repression are interdependent. In that case the conflict between protesters and the state can be characterized as a cycle; behaviour of one of the actors causes behaviour by the other actor, and this behaviour in its turn increases the behaviour that caused the behaviour in the first place.14 2.2 Concession & Repression Concession could be seen as a mechanism to decrease protest behaviour; when the opposition feels attention is paid to their grievances and has less need to fight against the government, protest could decrease. The opposite relationship is however dominant in the literature, arguing that government concessions have an increasing effect on protests. Concessions to opposition groups seem to enhance their perceived influence and thereby it increases the probability that others will join them to act against the government.15 Moreover, victories for the opposition ‐in the form of government concessions– assure protesters their activism is paying off, hence these concessions show people they are on their way to reach their goals, resulting in more protests.16 When a government makes a concession, the opposition perceives this as a signal of the government’s weakness, increasing the chance of success for the opposition.17 This encourages people to participate in the protests, Will H. Moore, ‘The Repression of Dissent: A Substitution Model of Government Coercion’ in Journal of Conflict Resolution (2000): 107‐ 127 14 David A. Jeager and M. Daniele Paserman, ‘The cycle of violence? An empirical analysis of fatalities in the Palestinian‐Israeli conflict’ in American Economic Review (2008): 1591 15 Edward N. Muller and Karl‐Dieter Opp, ‘Rational choice and rebellious collective action’ in The American Political Science Review (1986): 484 Karen Rasler, ‘Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution’ in American Sociological Review (1996): 134 16 Dennis Chong, Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement (Chicago 1991): 171 17 Karen Rasler, ‘Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution’ in American Sociological Review (1996): 134‐135 13
6 because it raises the potential benefits of success. Furthermore, a government that makes concessions lowers the costs of protesting.18 Similar to the relationship with repression and protest, the causality of this relationship can be reversed. The effect of protests on concessions is however not always clear. States can react to the opposition with material concessions or rights concessions. Research finds that states (dictators) facing financial constraints provide fewer material concessions, but more rights concessions. Providing concessions is also dependent on the manner in which the opposition is incorporated in the regime. Moreover, the President does not decide unilaterally about concessions; hardliners and soft‐liners in the ruling elite often differ from opinion about how to respond to protests. Therefore the state typically responds to opposition with a mixture of repression and concessions. 19 Democracies seem most likely to accommodate protesting groups, compared with authoritarian regimes.20 2.3 Reactions of the international community Other research on the relationships among protests, repression and concession does generally not take into account any control variables. This paper will however control for a variable, namely the support from the international community for the opposition. Existing research about the role of the international community in internal conflict is mostly focused on third party interventions like mediation and economic or military interventions. Since these interventions are considered to be a form of conflict management, one would expect that these interventions will reduce the duration of a conflict. However, empirical evidence shows that most third party Sabine C. Carey, ‘The Dynamic Relationship Between Protest and Repression’ in Political Research Quarterly (2006): 3 19 Courtenay R. Conrad, ‘Constrained concessions: beneficent dictatorial responses to the domestic political opposition’ in International Studies Quarterly (2011): 2 20 Sabine C. Carey, ‘The Dynamic Relationship Between Protest and Repression’ in Political Research Quarterly (2006): 3 18
7 interventions tend to extend expected durations, instead of shorten the duration of a conflict.21 In this paper, however, we will take into account a less severe intervention of third parties: reactions in the form of responses to the internal protest, repression and concession dynamics. These responses are most likely to be in the form of statements and condemnations of great power governments, international organizations and non‐governmental organizations. Although little research exists about the relationship between protest, repression, concession, and the responses of the international community to these events, a somewhat similar logic is applied with the moral hazard of humanitarian intervention 22 ; the perverse consequence of the emerging norm of humanitarian intervention. This norm raises the expectation of military and diplomatic intervention to protect weak groups, creating a moral hazard by encouraging vulnerable groups to participate in risky rebellious behaviour, because the expectation of outside intervention lowers the expected cost and increases the likelihood of success of the rebellion. However, with this rebellion the vulnerable group triggers genocidal retaliation by the state, without humanitarian intervention being on time or adequate to protect these vulnerable groups.23 3.0 Theoretical framework The Syrian uprisings started with a merely peaceful phase of protesting. Unarmed protesters took the streets to ask for more freedom and an end to the emergency law. In this section, our theoretical framework is outlined to understand possible strategic behaviour of the actors. Patrick M. Reqan, ‘Third party interventions and the duration of intrastate conflicts’ in Journal of Conflict Resolution (2002): 2 22 Timothy W. Crawford and Alan J. Kuperman, Gambling on humanitarian intervention: moral hazard, rebellion and civil war (Routledge 2008) 23 Alan J. Kuperman, ‘The Moral Hazard of Humanitarian Intervention: Lessons from the Balkans’ in International Studies Quarterly (2008): 49–80 21
8 It is evident that our theoretical framework rests on several assumptions. The actors important for this theory are treated as unitary actors, and the actors are assumed to be rational, meaning that their behaviour results from cost and benefit calculations.24 These actors will be the state (President Assad, government and state officials), protesters (opposition and activists, people protesting in the streets) and the international community (major powers such as the US, UK, France, Germany and Turkey, and international governmental organizations such as the UN). Preferences differ per actor; the state prefers to stay in power and prefers not to make many concessions. Opposition’s preferences contradict with those from the state, it aims to change government policies or the government itself. Stated preferences of the protesters have evolved over time from rather moderate wishes such as end to corruption, to more severe demands as the overthrow of President Assad. The international community prefers stability in Syria and the region. Strategies to establish these preferences also differ. The state can repress protesters by violent and non‐violent means, but it can also do concessions to the protesters. Both will have the aim to decrease protests and assure its continuance in power. The opposition can use protesting as its strategy to influence the government in adjusting its policies according to the protester’s wishes. The international community has a range of actions it can undertake to either influence the government to stop repressing its people or do concessions, or it can protect protesters against their repressive state. Actions that can be taken are responses to the situation (naming and shaming), sanctions against government officials or trade bans. Chosen strategies depend on a cost‐benefit analysis of the interaction between actors: direct costs and benefits as well as potential costs and benefits. Costs of protesting include the costs and opportunity costs of this act, such as not being able to work. Potential future costs (more uncertain) are the possible repressive reactions from the state, including the risk to be arrested, beaten or shot while protesting. Sabine C. Carey, ‘The Dynamic Relationship Between Protest and Repression’ in Political Research Quarterly (2006): 2‐3 24
9 Benefits from protesting are –apart from any personal feelings about the satisfactions of fighting for one’s rights or values‐ the influence protesters hope to have on the concessions the government will do. Costs for the state can be attached to repression as well as concession. Repression bears costs in terms of employed personnel and the arms and materiel they use. Furthermore, repression can trigger the international community to get involved, meaning potential future costs of repression are damaging statements, boycotts, sanctions, or even military intervention. Other potential costs are that it can increase grievances among (potential) protesters, resulting in more protests. Benefits of repression are that it stops protests that can threaten the regime and it can send a signal to other (potential) protesters that protesting will not be allowed. The opposite of repression, concession, bears costs in the form of actual costs of the concession it does, for example installing commissions, and potential future costs in the form of possibly encouraging protesters to protest more, since their claims are being heard. On the other hand, possible benefits of concession can be that the protesters and/or the international community believe the state is giving attention to the protester’s claim and will stop protesting or be involved, respectively. This theory expects that the state will react to protests with repression because they believe it is an effective strategy to counter threats to their regime. Moreover, this theory hypothesizes that concessions will not logically follow to protests, because concessions bear costs to the regime while its effect can be increasing the protests. The last actor, the international community, bears costs by responding to the situation in Syria by jeopardizing their relations with Syria and its allies. Furthermore, more severe responses such as sanctions, boycotts and military intervention bear costs in terms of trade losses in the first two instances and personnel, material and a threat to their personnel in the last. Moreover, the international community does not know how Syria will react to these responses; foreign involvement could escalate and worsen the situation. Benefits are that foreign involvement can influence Syria to halt violence against its citizens; avoiding 10 an unstable situation in the country and the region and stopping human rights violations. This theory forecasts that the international community will respond to repression by supporting the protesters, while this support will decrease when the government does concessions. The effect of the international responses is expected to be decreasing on repression and increasing on concessions, because this is the reason the international community gives these responses. Moreover, the effect on protest is also believed to increasing, because protesters will feel strengthened in their goals. Based on this theory, the overall expectation is the protests will escalate; the regime will answer protests with repression, and the protesters will react to repression with more protests. Concessions will further increase the protests. This theory therefore expects that due to increasing levels of protest and repression, the protests will eventually result in a civil war, with more and more casualties when the protests and repression acts increase. This will be avoided in three scenarios. In the first scenario, repression is so high that protest is virtually impossible. When the ´s strength of the regime is higher than that of the opposition, the regime will “win” and stay in power. The second scenario holds that concessions are so high that there is no need for the opposition to protest anymore, for example then the President steps down. The last scenario takes the international community into account; when it decides to intervene heavily ‐for example militarily‐ the power balance between the regime and the opposition will shift towards the former. 3.1 Testable Hypotheses Based on the literature review and our theoretical framework, several hypotheses can be derived. These hypotheses will be reviewed in three blocks; firstly the effect of protest on state actions, then the effect of state actions on protests, and lastly the effect on and of responses from the international community. 11 3.1.1 The effect of protest on state actions The effect of protest on repression appears in the literature to be positive, protest will increase repression because the regime wants to counter or eliminate the threat protests create to their existing. In this paper we also hypothesize that protest increases repression, because we believe an authoritarian regime like the Assad‐
government will try everything that is possible to halt a threat to their power. H1: Protest increases state repression. The effect of protest on concession does not seem to be so straightforward. Considering the findings that democracies are most likely to accommodate protesting groups
25
and the authoritarian nature of the Syrian regime, we hypothesize that the government does not use concessions as a strategic answer to protests. Therefore the effect of protests on concessions is unclear. H2: Protest does not have a clear effect on concessions. 3.1.2 The effect of state actions on protest There is no consensus about the effect of state repression on protest in the literature, but it seems that repression can have positive as well as negative effects on oppositional protest. In our research we hypothesize that repression increases protest behaviour; we suggest that Syrian people felt disillusioned by the Syrian government that represses their peaceful demonstrations and will protest more out of retribution. H3: Repression increases protest. This hypothesis contains a mechanism based on grievances, but in my research we not directly measure these. However, examining whether protest rises or falls after state repression gives insights about the considerations and possibilities of protesters. Sabine C. Carey, ‘The Dynamic Relationship Between Protest and Repression’ in Political Research Quarterly (2006): 3 25
12 The opposite reaction of the government ‐concession‐ to protests is in most literature considered to also increase protests. The fourth hypothesis embeds this positive effect of concessions on protest. H4: Concession increases protest. This hypothesis could seem to be contradicting the previous hypothesis (repression increases protest). However, it has been seen in other revolutions that concession as well as repression resulted in even more protests. Rasler finds these two opposite government reactions both increase protests in the Iranian revolution.26 3.1.3 The effect of responses from the international community. As a control variable, the influence of responses of the international community on protests and state actions will be taken into account first. Secondly, the effect of state actions on international responses will be examined, to see whether the international community responds strategically to the actions the regime undertakes. Empirical evidence in the literature about the role of the international community in internal conflict shows that third party interventions tends to extend the expected durations of a conflict. 27 Another branch of studies focuses on the moral hazard of humanitarian intervention. And although state violence in Syria is not genocidal, a similar logic can be applied to this case. Supporting reactions of the international community to protesters raise the expectation of this international community to protect protesters when state violence runs out of control. The anticipation of this ‘insurance’, perceived by protesters in supporting responses of the international community (such as statements condemning state violence against protesters or sanctions against government officials), therefore increases protests. Furthermore, protesters will feel strengthened in their mission and goals when they notice the international community stands behind them. Karen Rasler, ‘Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution’ in American Sociological Review (1996): 134 27 Patrick M. Reqan, ‘Third party interventions and the duration of intrastate conflicts’ in Journal of Conflict Resolution (2002): 2 26
13 H5: Supporting responses from the international community to protesters increase protest. This hypothesis takes the international community into the equation. Although the definition of a civil or internal war 28 is focused on what happens within the boundaries of one country, I believe the response of the UN, regional organizations or great powers that might intervene or send support, can have an impact on the activity of protesters. Since the aim of these reactions from the international community is to support protesters, one would expect these reactions to have a decreasing effect on state repression and an increasing effect on state concessions. H6: Supporting responses from the international community to protesters decrease repression. H7: Supporting responses from the international community to protesters increase concession. 4.0 Research Design This section outlines the research design used in this paper, starting with the explanation and operationalization of our new variables: protest, repression, concession and responses from the international community. Whether a variable is seen as dependent or explanatory in this research depends on the hypotheses we have highlighted above. In this section each variable will be defined and operationalized. It is important to keep in mind that every act by a different actor, with a different target or in a different city will be coded as a new event. On one day, several events can thus take place. For each event, the date, week number, location, In the case of Syria, the protests started rather peaceful; therefore it is not called a civil war but civil uprisings. 28
14 actor and target have been coded. Furthermore, the database lists whether the event was an act of protest, repression or concession, or whether it was a response of the international community. We employ as unit of analysis province‐day (T= 84; n=14), for a total of 1175 province‐days. However, only for the data on protest and repression we have coded a geographical location, for the concession and responses from the international community, or as we call it “external voice”, we have coded only the days and not the province, since they are either coming from the Syrian central government or the International community. 4.1 Protest behaviour Protest is defined as “any confrontational activity by domestic non‐governmental actors that disrupts and challenges any government actor, agency, or policy.”29 This includes violent and non‐violent actions. Protests during the first few months of the uprisings are mostly peaceful; large numbers of people take the streets and chant slogans against the regime and people hold sit‐ins. Incidentally acts of violence by the protesters are reported; so did demonstrators set fire on government buildings in Latakia.30 Hence, as an act of protest every event is coded where a group of people openly showed their discontent with the Syrian regime. 4.2 Repression Repression is defined as any action taken by the government in an effort to continue its regime through some form of restriction or violation of political and civil liberties. 31 This government action raises the protester’s cost of participation in collective action. 32 We focus on repression directed to the halt or prevention of Sabine C. Carey, ‘The Dynamic Relationship Between Protest and Repression’ in Political Research Quarterly (2006): 2 30 Staff and agencies, ‘US will not intervene in Syria as it has in Libya, says Hillary Clinton’ in The Guardian (2011‐03‐27) via: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/27/report‐12‐killed‐syrian‐
port‐city on 2012‐06‐14 31 Christian Davenport, Paths to state repression: Human rights violations and contentious politics (Oxford 2000): 6 32 Charles Tilly, From mobilization to revolution (Michigan 1978): 100 29
15 demonstrations, including stopping the protesters by using teargas, water cannons, mass arrests, shooting in the air and shooting at protesters. We thus not measure arrests outside the framework of protests, since there is not enough information available; secrecy and weak documentation makes it not possible to code this in the database. 4.3 Concession A possible opposite reaction of repression to protests is concession.33 A concession is an act of the government that has the intention to accommodate protesters. Concessions the Syrian government has made are the ending of the emergency law34 and the start of a national dialogue35. An act of concession is one event that offers the opposition some form of accommodation, so on one day several concessions can take place. For example on the 19th of April 2011, three concessions were made. The government approved a new law that approved peaceful protests, President Assad lifted the emergency law and he abolished the state security court.36 4.4 Supporting responses from the international community to protesters Responses of the international community that give support to the protesters are concrete actions and symbolic statements from other countries, regional and international organizations. Concrete actions include sanctions and boycotts, statements include the condemnation of state violence and calls to President Assad to step down. The international community will be viewed as international governmental organizations (IGOs, such as the European Union, Arab League and United Nations) and major powers (US, Germany, France, Great Britain, etc). Will H. Moore, ‘The Repression of Dissent: A Substitution Model of Government Coercion’ in Journal of Conflict Resolution (2000): 107‐ 127 34 ‘Syria protests: Bashar al‐Assad lifts emergency law’ in BBC News Middle East (2011‐04‐21) via: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world‐middle‐east‐13161329 on 2012‐06‐14 35 ‘Syria opens ʹnational dialogueʹ with opposition’ in BBC News Middle East (2011‐07‐10) via: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world‐middle‐east‐14096981 on 20120‐06‐14 36 Al Jazeera and agencies, ‘Syria to lift decades‐old emergency law’ in Al Jazeera (2011‐04‐19) via http://www.Al Jazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/04/2011419135036463804.html on 2012‐06‐14 33
16 Statements of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) will not be included in the research, since these actors have criticized Syria for a long time their statements are not expected to have a great influence on the conflict dynamics. With the IGOs and great powers this is not the case, they are considered to have had more friendly relationships with Syria. Therefore a change in their attitude can have an influence on the behaviour of state or opposition actors. Various acts of international responses can happen on the same day, when several actors make statements or undertake sanctions. It is sometimes visible that when one country has acted, several others follow this example. So did the Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both call for an immediate end to the crackdown in Syria after talks they had in Rome. France followed their statements.37 4.5 Coding and Sources A coding system has been used to systematically list all events that happened during the Syrian uprising from 2011‐03‐15 to mid‐June 2011 on a daily basis according to news report media. As a starting date 15 March of 2011 is chosen, because it indicates the start of the civil uprisings according to various sources38; it is seen as the first day explicit demonstrations against the Syrian regime took place. The weeks before only some small demonstrations took place, but most of them were outside Syria. Al Jazeera then called the country a “kingdom of silence”.39 Since we focus on non‐violent protests and how the government reacts to this, the data end when the country is sliding into a civil war. In mid‐June 2011, the opposition takes up arms to http://blogs.Al Jazeera.net/live/middle‐east/syria‐live‐blog‐may‐5 on 2012‐03‐23 ‘Interactive: Timeline of Syria unrest’on Al Jazeera via: http://www.Al Jazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2012/02/201225111654512841.html on 2012‐03‐11 BBC Arabic: ‫ةرﻩاظم‬ ‫جاجتحا‬ ‫يف‬ ‫قشمد‬ ‫بلاطت‬ ‫تايرحلاب‬ (translated: Protest in Damascus, demanding freedoms) http://www.bbc.co.uk/arabic/middleeast/2011/03/110315_syria_protest.shtml on 2012‐03‐11 Katherine Marsh and Simon Tisdall, ‘Syrian troops shoot dead protesters in day of turmoil’ in The Guardian via: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/22/syria‐protests‐forces‐shoot on 2012‐03‐
12 39 Al Jazeera: Syria: ʹA kingdom of silenceʹ via http://www.Al Jazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/02/201129103121562395.html on 2012‐03‐12 37
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17 fight against the army. In the week before, the army has been shelling several cities; thousands of people fled. Moreover, over 100 government forces have been killed, which means mutiny in the forces or the beginning of an armed revolt, or probably a combination of the two. 40 The number of civilian deaths then exceeds 1.000 and the stadium of mainly peaceful protests has ended, a stadium of a beginning civil war has begun. The coding system used for the database is based on an extensive examination of various news resources. The primary news resources that have been used are the Al Jazeera live blog on Syria41, the New York Times timeline on Events in Syria42, the Al Jazeera timeline of Syria unrest43 and the Syria timeline of key events from IRIN (a service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) 44 , the Reuters archive 45 each day on Syria, and the LexisNexis database46 of worldwide news articles on Syria from each day. Because Al Jazeera translates Arab sources, as does the BBC Monitoring Middle East (covered with Lexis Nexis), our sources present an extensive coverage of the Syrian events, from English as well as Arabic news resources, witnesses, journal reports, television transcripts and local reporters. We have double checked if events reported by different sources in different days do not actually overlap with the same events, in this case we have coded just one event. We have collected control variables for the different provinces , however non‐
time variant: level of population, size of the province in squared kilometres, Mariam Karouny, ‘Analysis: Civil war fears grow in Syria’ via: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/10/us‐syria‐war‐idUSTRE7592T320110610 on 2012‐05‐09 41 http://blogs.Al Jazeera.net/liveblog/Syria on 20120‐03‐19 42 ‘Events in Syria: A Chronology’ in The New York Times via: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/timestopics/syriatimeline.html?pagewanted=print on 2011‐11‐10 43 ‘Interactive: Timeline of Syria unrest’on Al Jazeera via: http://www.Al Jazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2012/02/201225111654512841.html on 2012‐02‐23 44 ‘SYRIA: Timeline of key events since mid‐March’ from IRIN (a service of the UN Office for the 40
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on http://www.irinnews.org/printreport.aspx?reportid=92464 on 2012‐02‐23 http://www.reuters.com/news/archive/syria for each day on 2012‐03‐19 http://academic.lexisnexis.nl on 2012‐03‐19, search on “Syria” on a particular date and as sources “Major World Publications (English)” 45
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18 population density, if the day was on Friday, distance of the provincial capital from Damascus , number of Manitaq ( sub‐provincial administrative units). 5.0 Preliminary Findings As stated in the introduction, this versions of the paper is explicitly a first attempt to analyse our data on on‐violent protest in Syria. Therefore, our findings, at this point , must be taken with a pinch of salt. We use two different operationalisations for the dependent variables , either the number of events or a dummy variable if protest or repression occurred a certain day and in a certain province. At this point we have opted for a robust negative binomial regression allowing the standard errors for intragroup correlation when our dependent variable is a number of events 47 . However, we have also run models with different estimators, Poisson regression, order‐logit and OLS with log of number events. Main results do not change. For our dependent variable as dummy, we use a rare logit regression 48 with cubic polynomial approximation49 for temporal trends. ‐
Figure 1 About Here ‐ In Figure 1 we graph the two trends of protest and repression events from mid‐
March up to mid‐June 2011. We have used a line‐graph for Protest and spikes‐
graph for Repression : just with an simple eye‐test we can notice that our new data suggest : a) a relation between the two phenomena, peaks of protest tend to correlate with peaks of repression; b) there is some seasonality in data or recursive peaks; c) there is a an escalation trend in both repression and protest. In Table 1 we have two models on protest , the first one with a panel negative binomial regression Long and Freese 2006 Tomz,King, Zeng 2003 49 Carter and Signorino 20120 47
48
19 and the second one with a rare logit regression. We have tried several autoregressive temporal lag structures, and the only one significant where a one day lag structure and 7 days lag structure. Therefore, the number of protest events appear to be influenced by the number of protest events the day before and a week before. Moreover, a strategy of concession , both present the same very day and a day before, tend to increase the level of protest. The only effect that we were able to detect of repression events on level of non‐violent protests is the level of repression the same very day. We did not find temporal lag effects of repression on protest. These results are comparable with the result of our rare logit regression, both for concession and repression. We should highlight that External Voice form the International Community does not seem to influence the protest pattern. The only control variable that is consistent with the two models is the Friday Pray variable that tends to increase the odds of protest. ‐
Table1 About Here ‐ In table 2 we report our first findings for level of repression. We find a 1 day autoregressive effect, but a week lag effect as the opposite direction. If we should interpret this, it seems that repression tends to happen in provinces that there was repression the day before, but a puzzling finding is about a negative week effect. We could speculate that repression over time targets different location systematically, therefore negative effect over time since province that have been punished a week before, tend to have less repression, but now we do not feel we can push this argument. Moreover, the other possible strategy of the government, Concession, does not appear to explain ether variation of number of repression events or its likelihood. Though, the level of protest a certain location increase the level of repression the very same day, but not the day before. Hence, not a punishment strategy but, we could speculate, a reactive strategy of repression. Again, 20 external signals from the international community, External Voice, do not explain the variation of repression. Distance from Damascus tend to decrease repression risk, but not the number of repressive events; whereas on Fridays Prays repression tend to be higher. ‐Table 2 About Here ‐ ‐Table 3 About Here ‐ In table 3 we report the percentage change in odds for protest based on the rare logit model of table 1. In the column %StdX we report the percentage change in odds for one standard deviation increase of the explanatory variable, this effect has a significant test as well. A strategy of concession increases the level of protest of 31.1 % change in odds, this effect, though with different magnitude, is present for both concession on the very same day and the day before ( we did not find any other significant effect for other lags). In line with previous research we could emphasize two possible mechanisms: one on signalling weakness of the state apparatus, and therefore a single of windows of opportunity for protest. A second, option could be that concession could be understood as cheap talk, since also accompanied with repressive strategies and, therefore, increasing civilian protest. On the relationship between repression strategy and protest, we find that indeed they have a positive effect on each other ( see also results with % Change in odds for Repression). Yet, for the moment, it is difficult to disentangle the direction of the effect. Put it differently, it is hard, just from observational data, to suggest that is repression that begets protest, or that repression is just a response to protest happening the same very day. Though, we do not find evidence that in a province there is higher chance of protest if the day before there was repression. The “talks” from external actors, External Voice, on our overall analysis seem to not influence neither protest, repression or 21 concession50 patterns. Protest however seems to happen more likely during ( or the same but , perhaps just after) the Friday Pray. Theoretically this seems a focal point for coordination as suggested by Schelling, and event though, Friday Pray positively influence both protest and repression, the marginal effects on the change in odds seem more important for the protest ( 326.5 %*** versus 51.4%**). One speculation, therefore, could be that under an authoritarian regime where revealing private preferences and coordination is extremely difficult and risky51, a focal point where there is coordination without an explicit communication is quite crucial. We could read, therefore, the findings on protest, repression and Friday Pray, as that civilian tend to protest in certain days that are focal points, and then the government repress this coordination. It should be noticed that the autoregressive models from protest and repression have different temporal lag structures. Though, repression is more likely to occur in a province that experience repression the day before , a week lag does not have a coherent effect. On the contrary , for protest a week lag is significant and could highlight, considering the Friday Pray finding, a higher lelvel of strategic coordination among protesters. ‐
Table 4 About Here ‐ If we focus on table 4 ( %Change in Odds Repression) we find that a decision of concession strategy does not affect the repression strategy. As we have noticed above protest in a province increases the odds of having repression the same very day and also the Friday pray has the same direction. However, in the case of repression , we found that more distance from Damascus decrease the odds of repression. It is to be noted that models and quantities of interests reported can have 50
In this paper we do not report our model with dependent variable Concession; we have run
plain time series, since Concession does not vary over province but is a national event.
Though, we could not find any statistical significant effect from other explanatory variables
( Repression, Protest and External Voice) with several lag structures. However, the pattern of
temporal autoregression of concssion is very puzzling since temporal lags are constantly
negative and then positive, suggesting unstable changes in the concession strategy.
51
Kuran 1987, 1989.
22 different specifications, but we have run several specifications and we report the most consistent results. 5.1 Robustness 5.1.1 Using our Data: comparing media sources – Western Media vs Al Jazeera In our data sources section we have described we have been triangulating sources in order to verify how trustworthy an event is and how we have attempted to avoid inflation of the event. However, it could be stressed that Western media news could either have a content bias but also a reachability bias. Therefore, we run models using just events coded using western sources and, then, models using only al Jazeera sources. We have coded for the period March 2011 to June 20122 a total of 771 evens, of these were reported as main source Al Jazeera 495 (69%) and as main source a Western medium 222 events (31%). In table 5 we report models with as dependent variable protest but in the first column all media sources, in the second only Western media and in the third column only Al Jazeera. The major differences between the two sources, is that only the model with Al Jazeera source shows a week temporal lag structure of the dependent variable. Though, we would be more sceptical for the finding if this would be the case when using only Western Media. Moreover, there is a difference in the Concession effect, in the Al Jazeera model, Concession given the same very day increase the number of protest event, where in the model with only Western sources, suggest that both same day and day before Concession influence protest. The findings on Repression are the same but there are some interesting differences on the effect of External Voice given different sources. External Voice with Western media decrease the level of protest, whereas according to Al Jazeera both External Voice the same very day and for the day before increases level of protest. It should be noticed that the difference between source can be also a difference in time coverage, perhaps Al Jazeera was able to cover more events before the Western media. 23 ‐
Table 5 About Here ‐ In table 6 we report result using the different samples but for Repression. Here the results are less stable and especially the autoregressive results. A one day lag of repression is no more significant and the weekly lag is significant at border level only for Al Jazeera. Though, still repression happens in location where there is the same day protest and, for Al Jazeera sample, the day before as well. Again, but just for the Al Jazeera sample, External Voice actually increases the level of repression. ‐
Table 6 About Here ‐ 5.1.2 Using other data: Comparing Protest/Repression with Casualties Data Though we have been able to challenge and test the results of our own data according different sources, we employ an alternative measure of repression. These data come from the Center of Document Violation in Syria(CDV), it is an opposition organization that has been collecting data since March 2011 on civilian deaths and other forms of violence. Though, it is clear the political bias of this group , this data source has been used by many international actors and among them the United Nations. At the moment we have collected only the data at provincial level per day of civilian deaths ,however we plan to extend the data collection to other categories (missing civilians, detentions). In figure 2 we show the trend of our Repression 24 event data base on news sources compared with Civilians Deaths data from CDV. Though in same periods (especially second half of April and from mid‐May to mid‐
June), media data and CDV data seem to have a similar trend, in some other periods ( first half of April and first half of May) our data tend to overestimate the level of repression if conceptualize/compared with Civilian Deaths. ‐
Figure 2 About Here ‐ Hence, our goal is to compare first the quality of our data based on news and data based on local reports collected by this organization. We want to investigate whether our data have a bias toward more populated places, distance from the Capital, or different sub‐administrative units (Manitaq) in the provinces since in area more populated and closer to the capital we would expect a higher presence of journalists. Therefore, we have run u a panel a fixed effects bivariate regression that explains the level of Civil Deaths compiled by CDV with our repression events data, then we have predicted the residuals. As a second stage we have run a regression using as dependent variable the residuals of the previous regression and as explanatory factors population, Population Density, Distance From Damascus, Manitaqs, and Friday Pray. We found a negative relation with distance from Damascus, number of sub‐provincial administrative units (Manatiqs). This could mean that our data, compared with the CDV data, tend to under estimate repression in more distant areas from the capital and provinces with more complex sub‐
provincial administration ( not just size of the province, since the Area variable is insignificant). On the other hand, in provinces with higher population and on Friday our data tend to have higher residuals,: this could suggest that data based on news tend to overestimate repression in more populated areas and on Friday. 25 ‐Table 7 About Here‐ We found this comparison important to stress the limitations of our data , but of course we cannot assume CDV data as golden standard. However, if it is true that our data tend have common bias to the event data based on news report, using as alternative proxy of repression number of civilian deaths could provide a further robustness check. In table 8 we report regression models with first as dependent variable Civilian Deaths and, then, as dependent variable protest events. ‐Table 8 About Here‐ We found that the level of civilian deaths in one province has one day lag structure, higher casualties if there were casualties the previous day, but not a one week lag effect. Both protest events of the same day and the day before tend to increase the level of repression. There is not a strategic coordination with concession and the level of civilian casualties do not depend on External Voice. Again, distance from the capital decreases the numbers of casualties and on Fridays we find higher level of civilian casualties. Level of protest can be explained by the number of civilians killed the day before and not the same day, suggesting a reaction to killing, and moreover tend to be higher when the government offers concession ( both same day and one day before). Furthermore, the level of protest is not just explained by the level of protest the day before but also a week before and Friday Prays. 6.0 Findings Discussion 6.1 Repression and Protest We find some support for H1 ( Protest increase state repression), though it is not clear if there is strategic use of repression or a more quick reaction to protesters on streets. We do not find longer temporal structure of protest on repression, but usually a short term reaction of the government. In fact, it is not often witnessed that after a 26 repression, protesters go on the street the same day again. When protests are put down, the regime makes it difficult to protest again. Security forces for example arrest people that took part in the protest,52 so these people cannot go out to protest again that day. Protesters can also be prevented from protesting again because they got wounded and have to go to the hospital, or because they are killed during the protests. Therefore, it seems that repression is more a reaction to protest the very same day then vice versa . However, protesters tend to go back on the streets the day after that there was repression ( H3). 6.2 Concession as Strategy Concession as strategy for the government increases the level of protest by civilians but it has a very short term effect, it does lead to more protest the same very day that the government offers concessions. It must be stressed that the effect of protest on concession, if any, is on the opposite direction, with few days lag ( 2 or 3) it tends to diminish the concession. Therefore, we can speculate an effect of concession of protest behaviour. Apparently , there is not a coordination between concession and repression. The level of concession does not predict the use of the alternative strategy repression., and alternatively repression does not explain variation in concession. It should be recalled that concession strategies cannot be located geographically whereas repression can. Therefore, it seems that , first, there is not coordination between concession and repression, second protest does not influnce concession, but concession ( same day and one day before) tend to increase protest level (H 4). Al Jazeera states that the people see a concession as a sign of weakness. This in turn causes them to increase their demands53 and protests. An example of this behaviour is witnessed at the 17th of April 2011. On this day, protesters rally in large numbers in Suweida, Homs and Aleppo, while a day before the President vowed to Al Jazeera and Agencies, ‘Many arrested in Syria after protests’ in Al Jazeera (2011‐04‐02) via: http://www.Al Jazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/04/20114211257594538.html on 2012‐06‐19 53 http://blogs.Al Jazeera.net/live/middle‐east/syria‐live‐blog‐april‐23?sort=asc on 2012‐04‐15 52
27 lift the emergency in a week. This is a concession the protesters have been asking for quite some time, but still the opposition called for protests the next day to ʺbolster Syriaʹs popular uprising and ensure its continuityʺ. 54 In addition, the opposition believes some concessions do not go far enough and are not credible because they go hand in hand with harsh repressions. This is also witnessed with regard to the lift of the emergency law. The opposition called this concession a sham, which was designed to mask the continued brutal repressions of the regime. Because while the emergency law might be lifted, the opposition will still need a permission from the Interior Ministry to demonstrate legally. Moreover, while the government was talking about concession, a leading opposition figure was arrested. The government’s concession was thus not enough to accommodate the opposition, and the protests continued.55 An additional example on strategic incoherence, on the 19th of April, the government does a concession in the form of allowing peaceful protesting, but it also imposed a total ban on demonstrations. On that same day, President Assad lifted the emergency law ‐after many pledges and promises to do this before‐ but protesters are also shot dead by security forces in Homs that day.56 There is thus not much logic to be found in when and why the regime makes a concession. Al Jazeera also stated that in terms of concessions, the regime does not know how to respond to the protests.57 In the general discussion of the results, the variable concession was mentioned as a quite rare event, making up only 4% of the total number of events. 6.3 Protest as Strategy Al Jazeera and Agencies, ‘Syrians protest despite Assad concessions’ in Al Jazeera (2011‐40‐17) via: http://www.Al Jazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/04/2011417131422534165.html on 2012‐06‐19 55 Paul Peachey, ‘First repression then concession, but still Syriaʹs revolt intensifies’ in The Independent (2011‐04‐20) via: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle‐east/first‐repression‐then‐
concession‐but‐still‐syrias‐revolt‐intensifies‐2270110.html on 2012‐05‐28 56 Al Jazeera and Agencies, ‘Syria to lift decades‐old emergency law’ in Al Jazeera via: http://www.Al Jazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/04/2011419135036463804.html on 2012‐06‐19 57 http://blogs.Al Jazeera.net/live/middle‐east/syria‐live‐blog‐april‐23?sort=asc on 2012‐04‐15 54
28 Though, it is hard to discuss very short term reaction function between protest and repression, it seems that there is a consistent finding on strategic coordination of protest in mid‐term lag structure ( one week) and in a specific day that carries the characteristics of focal point. In fact, apart from state actions, protest itself seems to influence protest. In everyday life, Syrians are not allowed to come together in groups. But every week on Friday, large groups of people gather in the mosques to pray. Because this is a natural way to gather, it has become a focal point for protests. Normally it is difficult to coordinate protests, 58 but the mosques with Friday afternoon prayers provide a solution; it is a focus on convergence because people expect other people there to be as well, and they have the expectation that others expect them to be there.59 6.4 External Intervention We do not find any substantial effect of external intervention ( statements or ‘voice”) on the level of protest. Some weak finds are present but divergent , when we split our sample between Western and Al Jazeera sources. 6.0 Final Remarks What we present in this paper is a first attempt to apply previous research on protest, repression and concession on the recent Syrian case. We have collected original event data and compared with other recent event data. We clearly suggest to take these findings , for the moment, with a pinch of salt. However, it could be sustained that, first, the Syrian government did not have a coherent strategic choice between concession and repression, second, that the repression strategies is usually a reaction to protest instead of a prevention and, third, the repression patterns do not Andrew M. Colman, ‘Thomas C. Schelling’s psychological decision theory: Introduction to a special 58
issue’ in Journal of Economic Psychology (2006): 603–608 Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge 1960): 57 59
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killed‐syrian‐port‐city on 2012‐06‐14 ‘Syria opens ʹnational dialogueʹ with opposition’ in BBC News Middle East (2011‐07‐10) via: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world‐middle‐east‐14096981 on 20120‐06‐14 34 ‘Syria’ in Amnesty International via: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=11579 on 2012‐05‐28 Syria — Protests (2011) in New York Times via: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/syria/index.html on 2011‐11‐22 ‘Syria protests: Bashar al‐Assad lifts emergency law’ in BBC News Middle East (2011‐04‐21) via: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world‐middle‐east‐13161329 on 2012‐06‐14 ‘SYRIA: Timeline of key events since mid‐March’ from IRIN (a service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on http://www.irinnews.org/printreport.aspx?reportid=92464 on 2012‐02‐23 ‘Syria uprising: Key events’ in Al Jazeera via: http://www.Al Jazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/20111111113440490791.html on 2011‐11‐24 Tilly, Charles, From mobilization to revolution (Michigan 1978) ‘Youth Exclusion in Syria: Social, Economic and Institutional Dimensions’ Dubai School of Government’s Wolfensohn Center for Development: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/international/youth‐exclusion‐in‐syria‐
economic/ 35 Figures and Tables Figure 1
36 Figure 2 37 Table 1 # Protest Events Risk Protest XTNBREG, average effect Rare Logit Protest_Lag1 Protest_Lag7 Concession Concession_Lag1 Repression Repression_Lag1 External Voice External Voice_Lag1 Population Density Manatiq Distance Damascus Friday Pray 0.370*** (0.077) 0.228*** (0.051) 0.202*** (0.055) 0.169*** (0.057) 0.704*** (0.083) 0.092 (0.110) 0.027 (0.037) ‐0.014 (0.037) 0.000 (0.000) 0.071 (0.050) 0.002*** (0.001) 1.562*** (0.208) ‐3.062*** (0.581) 0.390** (0.180) 0.310** (0.128) 2.292*** (0.599) 0.105 (0.137) ‐0.036 (0.099) 0.118 (0.096) 0.000** (0.000) 0.067 (0.069) 0.001 (0.001) 4.016*** (0.392) ‐0.437*** (0.089) 0.018*** (0.005) ‐0.000*** (0.000) ‐2.523*** (0.707) 1,078 1,162 12.00*** Time since last protest Time2 Time3 Constant Observations R2_overall R2_between R2_within Likelihood‐ratio test vs. pooled Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 38 Table 2 # Repression Events Risk Repression XTNBREG, average effect Rare Logit Repression_Lag1 Repression_Lag7 Concession Concession_ Lag1 Protest Protest_Lag1 External Voice External Voice_Lag1 Distance Damascus Friday Pray 0.388*** (0.115) ‐0.203** (0.099) ‐0.035 (0.072) ‐0.019 (0.075) 0.677*** (0.060) 0.091 (0.069) 0.017 (0.047) ‐0.064 (0.061) ‐0.001 (0.001) 0.823*** (0.121) ‐2.037*** (0.367) ‐0.198 (0.137) 0.055 (0.155) 1.397*** (0.346) 0.114 (0.163) 0.073 (0.103) ‐0.038 (0.082) ‐0.002** (0.001) 1.156*** (0.415) ‐0.216*** (0.082) 0.005 (0.003) ‐0.000 (0.000) ‐1.497*** (0.410) 1,078 1,162 56.24*** Time since last repression Time2 Time3 Constant Observations R2_overall R2_between R2_within Likelihood‐ratio test vs. pooled Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 39 Table 3 % Change in Odds Protest z P>z %StdX Concession 2.175 0.030 31.1 Concession_Lag 1 2.385 0.017 23.5 Repression 3.917 0.000 227.2 Repression_Lag1 0.661 0.509 4.6 External Voice ‐0.388 0.698 ‐4.4 External Voice_Lag 1 1.254 0.210 15.1 Population Density 2.020 0.043 35.2 Manatiq 1.019 0.308 20.7 Distance Damascus 0.753 0.452 15.6 Friday Pray 10.388 0.000 326.5 Time since last protest ‐5.099 0.000 ‐99.7 % Change in Odds Repression z P>z %StdX Concession ‐1.539 0.124 ‐13.5 Concession_Lag 1 0.313 0.754 3.4 Protest 4.128 0.000 200.2 Protest_Lag 1 0.633 0.526 8.3 External Voice 0.705 0.481 8.8 External Voice_Lag 1 ‐0.474 0.636 ‐4.4 Distance Damascus ‐2.008 0.045 ‐30.8 Friday Pray 2.812 0.005 51.4 Time since last repression ‐2.784 0.005 ‐98.5 Table 4 40 Table 5 Protest_Lag1 Protest_Lag 7 Concession Concession _Lag 1 Repression Repression _Lag 1 External Voice External Voice _Lag 1 Population Density Manatiq Distance Damascus Friday Pray Constant Observations Protest All Sources Protest Western Protest Al Jazeera 0.370*** (0.077) 0.228*** (0.051) 0.202*** (0.055) 0.169*** (0.057) 0.704*** (0.083) 0.092 (0.110) 0.027 (0.037) ‐0.014 (0.037) 0.000 (0.000) 0.071 (0.050) 0.002*** (0.001) 1.562*** (0.208) ‐3.062*** (0.581) 1,078 0.703*** (0.256) 0.090 (0.117) 0.266* (0.141) 0.448** (0.176) 1.861*** (0.138) 0.674** (0.327) ‐0.265** (0.107) ‐0.023 (0.150) 0.000** (0.000) 0.078 (0.049) 0.003*** (0.001) 2.004*** (0.314) ‐4.740*** (0.613) 1,078 0.384*** (0.042) 0.297*** (0.061) 0.139** (0.063) 0.087 (0.067) 0.846*** (0.086) 0.176* (0.106) 0.080* (0.044) 0.049** (0.024) 0.000** (0.000) 0.083* (0.049) 0.002*** (0.001) 1.548*** (0.231) ‐3.572*** (0.532) 1,078 Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 41 Table 6 Repression Repression Repression All Sources Western Al Jazeera 0.388*** 0.170 0.189 (0.115) (0.558) (0.137) ‐0.203** 0.115 ‐0.353* (0.099) (0.346) (0.213) Repression _Lag 1 Repression _Lag7 Concession Concession _Lag1 Protest Protest_ Lag1 External Voice External Voice _Lag 1 Distance Damascus Friday Pray Constant Observations ‐0.035 0.036 ‐0.101 (0.072) (0.174) (0.071) ‐0.019 ‐0.197 0.018 (0.075) (0.217) (0.086) 0.677*** 1.489*** 0.866*** (0.060) (0.095) (0.093) 0.091 ‐0.108 0.189*** (0.069) (0.279) (0.057) 0.017 ‐0.090 0.066* (0.047) (0.117) (0.036) ‐0.064 ‐0.010 ‐0.026 (0.061) (0.100) (0.054) ‐0.001 ‐0.002 ‐0.001 (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) 0.823*** 0.855*** 0.683*** (0.121) (0.288) (0.154) ‐2.037*** ‐2.845*** ‐2.416*** (0.367) (0.375) (0.352) 1,078 1,078 1,078 Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 42 Table 7
Residuals Distance Damascus ‐0.000*** (0.000) Manatiq ‐0.010*** (0.002) area km2 0.000 (0.000) Population 0.000*** (0.000) Friday Pray 0.064*** (0.020) Constant 0.190*** (0.016) Observations Number of prov. 1,176 14 r2_w 0.0572 r2_b 0.508 r2_o 0.101 Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 43 Table 8 #Civilian Deaths #Protest XTNBREG XTNBREG CDVdeaths 0.011 (0.011) Protest 0.683*** (0.238) CDV deaths_lag1 CDV deaths_lag 7 Concession Concession_lag1 Protest_lag1 Protest_lag7 External Voice External Voice_lag1 Population Density Manatiq Distance Damascus Friday Pray Constant Observations 0.053*** 0.019* (0.013) (0.010) ‐0.025 0.001 (0.029) (0.005) ‐0.162 0.220*** (0.185) (0.062) ‐0.396 0.114* (0.272) (0.058) 0.488*** 0.421*** (0.145) (0.098) ‐0.058 0.260*** (0.182) (0.053) 0.022 0.023 (0.072) (0.040) 0.049 ‐0.011 (0.112) (0.050) ‐0.000*** 0.000 (0.000) (0.000) 0.021 0.076 (0.085) (0.058) ‐0.005*** 0.002* (0.001) (0.001) 1.406*** 1.901*** (0.535) (0.193) ‐0.170 ‐3.078*** (0.759) (0.658) 1,078 1,078 Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 44 Appendix Table of coded variables and explanations Name
Time
Week
Date
Location
Actor
Actor code
Action
Target
Target code
Protest
Repression
Concession
External
Source
Al Jazeera
Explanation
The day of the uprising the event takes place, starting with t=1 on 201103-15
The week of the uprising the event takes place, starting with week 1 as
the first week from 2011-03-15 to 2011-03-21
The date the event takes place, starting at 2011-03-15
Name of the town the event takes place
Name of the entity conducting the action
Code of the actor, coded as:
1xx: government
2xx: opposition
3xx: international community
The sort of action conducted by the actor
Name of the target
Code of the actor, coded as:
1xx: government
2xx: opposition
3xx: international community
1: This event is an act of protest
0: This event is not an act of protest
1: This event is an act of repression
0: This event is not an act of repression
1: This event is an act of concession
0: This event is not an act of concession
1: This event is a supporting statement to the protesters of the
international community
0: This event is not a supporting statement to the protesters of the
international community
News source
1: This event is reported by an Al Jazeera News Source
0: This event is reported by an Al Jazeera News Source
Variable
Number
Number
Number
String
String
Number
String
String
Number
Number
Number
Number
String
String
45 #Repression over Population
(.0000192,.0000451]
(7.50e-06,.0000192]
(2.40e-06,7.50e-06]
[0,2.40e-06]
46