When Repression Fails

Repression aims to increase the costs of participation in contentious politics. Such repression needs not necessarily be real to be effective. Expected or feared repression might have the same effect. In this presentation I will present data on the impact of expected repression. Citizens of nine countries varying in democraticness were asked whether they expected repression in response to participation in contentious action. Theoretically, four possible configurations can be conceived: {expect repression/intent to participate} {expect repression/no-intention to participate}{no-repression expected/intent to participate}{no repression expected/no intention to participate}. In this paper I am especially interested in citizens who expect repression but who nonetheless are prepared to participate in collective action re issues they care about. As it appears, repression is not always effective. Substantial proportions of a population previews to participate in collective action despite the repression expected. We try to understand what the perceived socio-political context looks like of citizens who participate in collective action despite the expected repression.