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I don't think I've ever seen a literature review sentence that more thoroughly buries the lead than this one in green. Nepstad and Mitchell each conducted a comparative analysis on the Tiananmen movement, with diametrically opposed takes.Permalink On twitter.com
Mood -2 🙁
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For Sharon Nepstad, Tiananmen protesters failed in large part because they did not stay nonviolent. She concludes that the Eastern European revolutions of the same year succeeded because of their nonviolent discipline.On twitter.com
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(I'm still gobsmacked by this because the decision to massacre Tiananmen protesters largely preceded any "breakdown in nonviolent discipline," aka decision to fight back against tanks. Also, far less nonviolent discipline in the successful Romanian uprising of the same year.)Permalink On twitter.com
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For Liesel Mitchell, on the other hand, Tiananmen 1989 was an example of *maintaining* nonviolent discipline, but one where it did not contribute to movement success.Permalink On twitter.com
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In a dramatic conclusion of a Tiananmen / Gwangju comparison, Mitchell highlights that while both were repressed in the short term, the violent uprising in Korea as well as the memory of mass repression led to long-term change.Permalink On twitter.com
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There are obviously many important factors beyond violence / nonviolence that distinguished the political trajectories of China and South Korea!Permalink On twitter.com
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But the invisibility of Gwangju in global historical memory is definitely a sign that we are often missing very important events.Permalink On twitter.com
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It's possible that the authors missed that Mitchell's conclusions are the exact opposite of Chenoweth & Stephan's and Nepstad's. Or that they carefully finessed their opposite conclusions into a single, technically true, sentence.Permalink On twitter.com