Critical junctures, eventful protest and backlash events: Examining the evidence on the conditions and effects of transformative events

Abstract

Scholars of violence and protest have explored the decisive impact of discrete transformative events on the trajectory of contention, pointing out how they are followed by "moral shocks" which compelled formerly contention averse people to take to the street in large numbers. Often generated by blatant acts of violence, these moral shocks raised such a sense of public outrage that individuals were mobilized in the absence of prior networks of recruitment and even when structural conditions were ‘not ripe’ for protest. This recurrent unintended consequence of state repression has been referred to as the backlash effect. Prominent examples referred to in the literature as transformative and highly mobilizing events are massacres like the ‘Bloody Sunday Massacre’ in Northern Ireland or the Rabaa massacre in Egypt, as well as individualized acts of killing, such as the murder of Khaled Said in Egypt or, more recently, the arrest and killing of Jina Mahsa Amini in Iran. But even the most brutal and indiscriminate violence does not automatically produce protest. It is only when events on the ground affect people’s hearts and minds that they develop affective power and can inspire backlash. Little, however, has been said about what actually makes people realize that it is the moment to act. When are violent events perceived and realized as transformative? And what meaning making structures mediate between the production of violence and its effects? Recentring analysis from the mere material properties of repression to the qualities attributed to focal events, as well as their affective, discursive and temporal situatedness, this panel aims to explore the socio-political and cultural parameters that condition the impact of violent events on social mobilisation.

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