CarwilBJ's avatarCarwilBJ's Twitter Archive—№ 36,413

      1. In October 2003, Bolivian movements faced the deadliest repression in a quarter century, and yet they succeeded in overthrowing a president. This is "backfire," a moment when repression dramatically fails for those who initiate it. The subject of my newly published article.
        oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their APIoh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API
    1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
      Lethal repression often fails, "leading to power shifts by increasing the internal solidarity of the resistance campaign, creating dissent and conflicts among [regime] supporters, [and] increasing external support for the resistance campaign" (Chenoweth & Stephan 2011).
  1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
    But "backfire," a concept articulated by Brian Martin, has an uncertain relationship with the kinds of tactics that predominate in Bolivian movements, what I call "unarmed militancy."
    oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API
    1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
      Unarmed militants refuse to yield in confrontations with state forces; they fight back in uneven contests in order to hold physical space, obstruct the flows of daily life, and impose social costs.
      1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
        Unarmed militants often maintain cooperative, even immersive, relationships with larger mass movements, particularly in mass movements of the Global South. The relationship can be mutually beneficial. woborders.blog/published-elsewhere/unarmed-militancy/
        oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API
        1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
          However, theorists of backfire (Martin, Sharp, Lakey, Chenoweth & Stephan) are generally skeptical of any fighting back, something that runs counter to the tradition of nonviolence from which it, and the equivalent "political jiu-jitsu" emerged.
          1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
            Chenoweth and Stephan argue that both the likelihood and the strength of backfire are amplified when a movement maintains nonviolent discipline and clear contrast between their nonviolent means and the violence used by their state opponents.
            1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
              Chenoweth's advice: "‘neither fighting back with their own counterviolence or … retreating in disarray." But Bolivian movements responded differently, fighting to hold space, and sometimes causing fatalities among security forces. What happened then? x.com/CarwilBJ/status/1783876854421549205