Abstract
When autocrats face threats of nonviolent mass mobilization, they are likely to respond with repression. However, when will the autocrat initiate, step up, or downscale repressive behavior during such protest events? We propose that signals of support from great power patrons play a pivotal role in emboldening rulers to engage in and intensify repressive behavior. To probe this hypothesis, we analyze how supportive and nonsupportive actions and statements of the great powers in the United Nations Security Council shape the repressive behavior of authoritarian regimes during three recent, and similar, cases of protest events: Burma 2007, Zimbabwe 2008, and Burkina Faso 2014. The cases show that the more unequivocal and consistent patron support for the besieged regime is the firmer and more violent are the responses to the domestic challengers.
Keywords
Introduction
When autocrats are challenged by mass protests, they are likely to use violence to protect their power (Krain, 2012; Murdie & Davis, 2012, see, for example, Wood, 2008). However, the use of large-scale coercion is a potentially costly and risky strategy; repression may backfire (Martin, 2007; Nepstad, 2013), lead to international shaming and sanctioning (DeMeritt, 2012; Krain, 2012; Murdie & Davis, 2012), and trigger defection among elites and the rank and file (Bellin, 2012). What further complicates such situations is that information about these risks is often scarce and unreliable. Consequently, rulers and their coercive agents will base their decisions concerning the use of repression on those bits of information that are readily available to them and that tell them something about the relative strength and determination of the opposing sides (Weyland, 2009).
In this article, we focus on those cues of information that domestic actors receive from abroad. We argue that the decision and ability to apply and effectually carry out substantive violence against protesters is affected by signals sent from the most powerful states of the international arena. The main hypothesis is that authoritarian regimes will be more prone to meet demonstrators with brute force in the first place, and they will be more likely to step up violence over the course of a longer lasting protest event, if they receive credible signals of support from a great power patron. When a supportive signal is sent from a powerful patron, it triggers inferential shortcuts among relevant actors in both the regime and the opposition, emboldening autocrats and their coercive agents to stand firmer and fight back to preserve power and dissuading opposition actors. On the contrary, the absence, or wavering, of such a supportive patron triggers the opposite—the weakening of the dictator’s resolve and his control over his coercive apparatus and the strengthening of those that mobilize against him. Thus, we expect that dictators intensify or minimize repression against their challengers in accordance with the character of signals they receive from powerful actors from the outside.
Although political scientists increasingly look to international factors when trying to explain political phenomena at the domestic level, this proposition has not been thoroughly theorized nor systematically scrutinized empirically. Among students of regime change and democratization, a whole subliterature has recently emerged that analyzes how external actors undergird and bolster authoritarian regimes (Ambrosio, 2014; Tansey, 2016; Tolstrup, 2015). Also in the literature on state repression, several studies point to external factors when accounting for cross-national patterns of coercion (DeMeritt, 2012; Hafner-Burton & Tsutsui, 2005; Krain, 2012). However, neither of the two has systematically addressed the relation between third-party signals to autocrats and their repressive behavior during mass protests. But if external powers may indeed induce governments to apply coercion through signals of support, we must pay more attention to these if we want to understand when (timing) and how (intensity) coercion is used during periods with mass protests.
To probe our proposition empirically, we set up a comparative case study guided by a most similar system design logic. Across three cases of nonviolent protest events in entrenched autocracies, we analyze how actions and statements of the most powerful actors in the international arena—the permanent members in the United Nations Security Council (UN SC)—shape the propensity and ability of the incumbent regime to apply coercion. More specifically, we compare two positive cases of varying degrees of patron support (Burma 2007 and Zimbabwe 2008) and one negative case, in which support is withdrawn as domestic instability grows (Burkina Faso 2014). The case studies show that both the initiation of repression and the later intensification or reduction of it fluctuate with the character of the signals received from the great powers of the UN SC.
The article proceeds as follows. First, we discuss how mass uprisings challenge authoritarian rule and how incumbents face constraints on their ability to respond to this challenge with repression. Second, we explain how signals of support from external patrons can help the autocrat overcome some of these constraints, thus facilitating the use of repressive campaigns. Finally, we discuss issues connected to our research design and then analyze each of the three cases in turn.
When Autocrats Face Mass Uprisings
The use of nonviolent mass protests is becoming increasingly common and frequently result in the unseating of autocrats around the world (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011; Kendall–Taylor & Frantz, 2014). 1 Occasionally, dictatorships are toppled when demonstrators seize power directly, forcefully ousting the ruler and government officials from their offices and taking control of key institutions. However, it is more likely that persistent protests destabilize authoritarian leaders indirectly by causing splits in the ruling coalition. Either elite supporters and members of the coercive apparatus defect to the opposition, or powerful insiders seek to make use of the moment and challenge the autocrat themselves (Celestino & Gleditsch, 2013, pp. 387-389). Thus, when dictators face massive protests, they are forced to react if they want to preserve power.
Most often, mass protests cannot be appeased through cooptation measures alone (Frantz & Kendall-Taylor, 2014) or by waiting out the unrest. Dictators therefore frequently resort to repression (Celestino & Gleditsch, 2013, p. 390; Davenport, 2007b), what Davenport (2007a, p. 7) terms the “law of coercive responsiveness.” An abundance of studies have analyzed the structural factors that affect average levels of state repression between countries (for a recent overview, see Hill & Jones, 2014), but we know very little about the “event-by-event sequences” that facilitate the use of repression and affect the intensity with which it is applied (Shellman, 2006, pp. 564-565). This also applies the nonviolent mass protests under investigation here. We know surprisingly little about when during a protest event dictators are inclined to launch, step up, or decrease repression against demonstrators.
From recent studies, we have learned that past experience with the use of large-scale violence solidifies the ruling coalition in times of crisis (Levitsky & Way, 2010) and makes it more likely that repression will be applied once again (Carey, 2010). Several studies also point to the size and character of the ruling coalition as an important determinant of how core elite supporters perceive their chances of retaining political influence after a regime transition and, thus, of how reluctant they will be to engage in costly repressive activities (Geddes, 1999). For example, Ulfelder (2005) shows that the narrow coalitions of personalist dictatorships are more likely to “circle the wagons” when threatened by the masses. Similarly, Bellin (2012), in her study of the autocracies of the Middle East, finds that the core of the coercive apparatus is more likely to employ repression when they belong to a ruling minority group or have entrenched interests in the survival of the regime (see also Barany, 2013; Nepstad, 2013). Thus, characteristics of the incumbent regime clearly shape its average propensity to use violence when challenged by the masses. Still, we often see immense variation in the coercive responses of otherwise similar regimes and even within the same regime across a single protest event. The timing, the intensity, the steadfastness, and the success of coercive responses can vary a lot. Thus, there is clearly something missing in our understanding of how dissent and repression should be modeled.
Recently, a number of studies have pointed to the fact that important dynamics at the international level may be at play. Within the state repression literature, it has been shown that naming and shaming practices from human rights NGOs and international organizations (DeMeritt, 2012; Krain, 2012, 2014; Murdie & Davis, 2012) and dependency on foreign direct investments (Hafner-Burton & Tsutsui, 2005; Richards, Gelleny, & Sacko, 2001) can dissuade the use of repression. In this body of literature, many of the actions by the international community meant to restrain and pressure authoritarian rulers who have been analyzed, but less attention is paid to those that might spur and facilitate the use of coercion. However, as a recent formal modeling study shows (Chyzh & Labzina, 2018) and a proliferating literature on the international dimension of authoritarianism indicates, third parties may be very important in this regard. For example, a number of studies have documented how dictators look to international partners, now frequently referred to as “black knights” or “autocracy promoters,” for diplomatic and material support when trying to bolster their rule and deal with domestic challengers (Ambrosio, 2014; Tolstrup, 2015). But also in this tradition, the question of third-party influence on the onset and subsequent development of repressive campaigns in connection with nonviolent antiregime protests has so far not been systematically scrutinized across cases or specified theoretically. Without this perspective of an external push factor, we risk overlooking important aspects of how decisions concerning the use of repression are formed and carried out.
Powerful Patrons and Signals of Support as Drivers of Repression
The use of repression can be thought of as a two-stage process. First, the autocrat must decide to opt for a coercive response. Second, the security forces choose whether to comply. As mass protest often protract for days, weeks, and even months, and as coercion need not serve its purpose immediately, the incumbent regime is forced to go through this process several times during a period with uprisings. At both stages, the relevant actors will often vacillate due to two factors: (a) they know that the use of repression can be a risky strategy, and (b) they often lack information to adequately assess the magnitude of those risks.
Most importantly, the employment of large-scale coercion against peaceful protesters can backfire in a number of ways. It may anger and defy active protesters and even spur hitherto passive supporters to also take to the streets (Escribà-Folch, 2013; Martin, 2007; Nepstad, 2013). Coercion against civilians is also likely to attract the attention of the international community, adding mounting external pressure to an already unstable domestic situation (DeMeritt, 2012; Krain, 2012; Murdie & Davis, 2012). Finally, it is possible that the onset of popular protest itself and the order to use excessive repression against it trigger splits within the regime itself. When leaders as well as the rank and file of the coercive apparatus start to question the cohesion of the regime, uncertainty can spread like a wildfire, and it becomes increasingly probable that critical parts of the military refuse to follow orders (Bellin, 2012; Celestino & Gleditsch, 2013, p. 390).
What further complicates this process is the fact that assessments of these risks are often based on imperfect information (Pierskalla, 2010). Neither dictators nor agents of the coercive apparatus know for certain how domestic opponents, international actors, and regime insiders will react to a coercive campaign. According to Weyland (2009, pp. 400-402), this makes actors vulnerable to heuristic shortcuts. In heated situations such as mass uprisings, opposition and regime actors alike will be prone to overestimate the importance of recently emerged information that help them assess the relative strength and determination of the opposing sides. Consequently, we should expect cues of information that picture the regime as strong and cohesive to help alleviate the concerns with employing coercion that both dictator and coercive agents have. Contrariwise, cues of information that portray the incumbent regime as fragile and its opponents as unstoppable are likely to amplify those concerns.
Information cues that affect the behavior of domestic actors during uprisings may emerge from both within and outside a country’s borders (Weyland, 2009, 2016). Consequently, we hypothesize that signals sent from great powers during protest events can work as important information cues that these actors use to evaluate the strength of the incumbent regime. Great powers are those actors in the international arena that are most prone to and capable of influencing events on the ground in countries around the world. When they issue statements or carry out actions in connection with events in a country, they send observable signals that actors in other states use to estimate the position and the intentions of the great power (Fearon, 1994; Trager, 2015). When mass demonstrations unfold, we should therefore expect regime and opposition actors to pay careful attention to the words and actions of great powers (cf. Thyne, 2006). Through the interpretation of these signals, they establish a sense of the “degree of permissiveness” of the international context (Krain, 2012, p. 576). In particular, we should expect attention to be directed toward those great powers that have stood up for the incumbent autocracy in the past. We term these great power patrons.
Mechanisms
We propose three mechanisms through which supportive signals from great power patrons may affect decisions to employ and intensify repressive campaigns in authoritarian regimes challenged by mass protests. The first one operates on both the autocrat and his coercive agents, the second mechanism affects regime actors indirectly through the actions of the opposition, and the third works on the dictator alone.
First, a signal of support may indicate that the international actor will provide additional backing to the regime in the near future, if necessary. For the ruler and his supporters, the promise of future provisions of political, economic, or military support is reassuring in case the standoff with the domestic challengers intensifies or drags out. A supportive signal makes it clear that the regime’s longer term capability to repress and distribute rents will not be crippled because of a lack of resources. In addition, a signal of support gives domestic actors indications of the degree to which the sender is willing to stand up against other international actors seeking to condemn and penalize repression through the use of political and economic sanctions (cf. Early, 2011). In both scenarios, the probability of defection from regime ranks is lowered; ruling coalition members will be less likely to fear that the regime will crumble because of economic hardship or international isolation, and coercive agents will feel that they have been shielded against naming and shaming practices and potential legal punishment.
Second, supportive signals may dissuade and cripple the mobilized antiregime forces. For mass mobilizations to succeed, a sense of invulnerability among demonstrators is crucial; they must believe that victory is within reach (see, for example, Ginkel & Smith, 1999, pp. 293, 301). Signs that indicate that the regime is weakened will boost such feelings among the opposition and improve its ability to sustain and increase participation in the antiregime campaign (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011; Schock, 2013, p. 283). Signals of outside support to the regime do the exact opposite; they leave the opposition and those sympathizing with it with the impression that they now face a stronger, more enduring, and perhaps even emboldened, opponent. This will make it more difficult for the opposition to continue and escalate their fight (cf. Pierskalla, 2010, p. 123). Convincing passive supporters to join the mobilization and active supporters to stay engaged and continue their resistance is more difficult in the light of such dissuading information. Contrariwise, for regime supporters and coercive agents, the opposition’s inability to escalate the conflict is interpreted as a reassuring sign of weakness. They will consequently feel more certain that repression will be an effective tool for quelling the uprisings, and perhaps even see this as a window of opportunity to root out the opposition once and for all. Thus, initiating and upscaling a repressive campaign against regime challengers who are losing momentum and faith in immediate victory will be perceived as an attractive, risk-free strategy likely to generate significant benefits to the regime.
Finally, some supportive signals are meant for the dictator alone and can be interpreted as a security guarantee for his personal safety should the regime fall. Outgoing dictators may suffer terrible posttenure fates (Goemans, 2008) and will therefore be wary to accept negotiated transfers of power unless their challengers, or others, can offer them credible guarantees of protection. As the opposition is rarely in a position to do this, exile will often be the only peaceful solution to this dilemma (Escribà-Folch & Krcmaric, 2017). A signal of support from a great-power patron may thus reassure the ruler that with the help of the patron, he will be able to find a safe haven abroad. Such an exit option will initially make the dictator more prone to gamble as the costs connected to an unsuccessful use of repression are lowered. With nothing to lose, he will likely respond to the first popular mobilization by ordering repression—even when he is uncertain that it will indeed serve its purpose and secure his power. However, if subsequently the situation worsens, a credible exit option is likely to operate in the exact opposite direction. This may happen if protests in spite of the initial use of repression continue to swirl or become more threatening in character, or if divides within the regime itself deepens. In such scenarios, the ruler will hardly risk his life and well-being by clinging to power at all costs and will therefore be more open to abort the coercive strategy altogether.
Recapitulating, signals of support are likely to harden the resolve of the dictator, minimize uncertainty among members of the ruling coalition and the coercive apparatus, and dissuade opposition actors and their supporters. With signs of protection, rulers will be more likely to order and step up repressive campaigns, core supporters will be less likely to defect, and coercive agents will be more willing to carry out and intensify repression. Only when rulers interpret signals of support as a personal security guarantee, and only when the mobilization against the incumbent persists and support for him within his coalition declines, will patron signals of support have a suppressing effect on the use of repression.
Design
Even though cross-sectional time-series data on protest events and aggregated measures of the use of repression do exist, they do not allow us to tease out how interactions between international and domestic actors develop across a particular event and how this affects changes in coercive behavior on the ground. To understand these processes, we need case studies. In what follows, we conduct a comparative case study guided by a most similar system design logic (see, for example, Lijphart, 1971). Across three cases, we analyze how signals of support from great powers in the UN SC affect the use of regime-sponsored repression when autocrats face challenges to their power in the form of persistent, large-scale, predominately peaceful protests: Burma under the Saffron Revolution in 2007, Zimbabwe during the popular unrests connected to the heated parliamentary and presidential elections in 2008, and Burkina Faso during the Burkinabé uprisings in late 2014.
Patron Signals of Support
We know that signals from international actors will only affect the ways domestic actors think and behave if they are observable to them and deemed credible (see, for example, Trager, 2015). We therefore restrict the analysis to a special kind of patron signal that we expect to have equally high visibility and high credibility across different cases: those issued by the five great powers in the UN SC during or in immediate connection with SC meetings. When great powers issue statements in connection with UN SC meetings on a particular issue, they openly commit themselves to a certain position from which backtracking can be quite costly. And when they make use of veto powers and other obstructive actions (which we discuss below), they risk incurring substantial international reputational costs (see, for example, Fearon, 1994; Thyne, 2006, pp. 939-940). If the patron stands up for the regime in the Council even when the whole world is watching and perhaps even when other powerful international actors push for applying pressure, then it probably means business and the signals it sends can therefore be interpreted as credible.
So what kind of actions by the permanent members of the UN SC should count as supportive signals? Primarily, we discriminate between two types. One is endorsing statements issued shortly before, under, or after UN SC meetings. The general character of the statements indicates whether the patron will be likely to stand up for the challenged regime, and the wording used indicates the determination with which the patron approaches the issue. The other way to send signals of support is through obstructive actions made in connection with Council meetings. Permanent members may either formally or informally use their veto powers to block any Security Council action. The strongest signal is when patrons fight vehemently to keep a case off the agenda in the first place and thus effectively inhibit further actions. 2 If a case reaches the agenda even in spite of objections from a permanent member, that state may still formally or informally use its veto power to block Security Council actions in the form of presidential statements or resolutions. And even if decisions are adopted, great power patrons can show their support by demanding that the negative wordings of statements are toned down or scrapped from the final text entirely, by taking the worst bite off economic sanctions (cf. Early, 2011) or by making mandates for military interventions as weak as possible (Roberts, 1995).
Apart from these two types of signals, we also, where relevant, pay attention to those signals that patrons send when they make statements or perform actions vis-à-vis the country in question that happens outside of the UN SC forum, albeit only if in close connection to it temporally. If, for example, a protective stance in the council is supplemented with a great power patron shipping weapons or making encouraging diplomatic visits, this of course makes for an even stronger signal of support. Without attention to those bilateral interactions that can augment supportive or unsupportive UN SC signals, we risk overstating or understating their independent effects.
Case Choice
Turning to the case settings, three considerations guide our choice. First, to study the effect of patron signals in connection with UN SC meetings, we need cases that meet two criteria: (a) autocrats face large-scale, predominately peaceful protests, and (b) the event reaches the minimum threshold of being discussed, or being considered to be discussed, in the Council. The second criteria, of course, dramatically reduces the case universe as by far most mass mobilization events are never brought up in the UN SC. But those that do reach (or come close to reaching) the Council’s agenda are likely to be examples of protest events, where regime and opposition actors across cases will pay particular attention to positions and actions of the great powers.
Second, we opted for cases that are relatively similar across a number of potential confounding factors that might otherwise affect both the behavior of the great power patrons and the domestic actors. For one, we keep the international order constant (Davenport, 2007c). With cases close to each other temporally, the relative power and the broader interests of the great powers, including their view on the appropriateness of using repression, are accounted for.
In addition, we seek to control for the severity and the character of the threat by only analyzing protest events that feature repeated, escalating and regime-threatening, but predominately peaceful, mobilization against the incumbent regime. As noted earlier, we do not rule out that our theoretical proposition could not also apply to more violent forms of mass protests or to less threatening scenarios. But as it has been argued that it is easier to legitimize and carry out repression, and to win support for it in the international arena, if challengers resort to overt violence (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011), we can make more robust inferences based on our case studies if this factor is held constant.
Finally, with cases relatively similar to each other in domestic characteristics, we control for a number of factors normally associated with state repression that might also affect the propensity with which and the way in which great powers would interfere. All three countries analyzed constitute examples of poor, long-standing, entrenched autocracies. Studies have shown that low development levels and regime persistence have a significant positive effect on the level of state repression (Hill & Jones, 2014). So does prior experience with using hard repression (Carey, 2010; Levitsky & Way, 2010). Thus, we should, ceteris paribus, expect all three incumbents to stand firm and fight their challengers. Moreover, when carrying out the three case studies, we found no evidence indicating that any of the three regimes where considered particularly weak or obviously fragile at the time when the popular uprisings began, something that otherwise might affect both the perceived cost of repression on the side of the incumbent regime (Pierskalla, 2010) and the readiness of the great power patron to stand up for its protégé.
Finally, with the case choice, we also rule out two additional prominent alternative explanations. Following Ulfelder (2005), we should expect the personalist regime of Burkina Faso to be more prone to “circle the wagons” and employ indiscriminate violence than the Zimbabwean party regime and the Burmese military regime (cf. Geddes, 1999; Ulfelder, 2005). We observe the exact opposite. Also the theory that emphasizes that minority-led regimes are more likely to fight back with excessive violence (Barany, 2013; Bellin, 2012; Nepstad, 2013) cannot explain our cases as neither represents examples of such ethnic stacking of the coercive apparatus.
As our third and final criteria, we wanted cases that are diverse (Seawright & Gerring, 2008), meaning that they ensure representative variation on the main independent variable (patron support in the UN SC) and the dependent variable (the use of repression). Burma is a case in which the regime enjoys strong, albeit not unconditional support, mainly from China but also from Russia; Zimbabwe represents a case of resolute and consistent protection from both Russia and China; in Burkina Faso, support from the United States and France is withdrawn as pressure against President Compaoré mounts. While both the Burmese and the Zimbabwean regime initially resort to severe violence to maintain power, only in Zimbabwe is the high-intensity coercion maintained throughout the full event period. In contrast, the Burkinabé President flees the country after only half-hearted use of coercive means. The chosen cases thus represent two positive cases (with varying degrees of patron support and varying degrees of repression) and one negative case (in which prior strong support is suddenly withdrawn and coercion is aborted).
Analytical Strategy
A key challenge with testing the validity of the central theoretical propositions of this article is the opacity of the processes involved. We cannot expect autocrats, coercive agents, or key opposition actors and ordinary protesters to openly acknowledge the role that international signals play (though in some of the analyzed cases they actually do so). In the absence of smoking-gun evidence in most individual cases, we must necessarily lend weight instead to the observable implications and the overall pattern that emerges from within-case and cross-case comparisons.
For each country case, we analyze how the protest event develops across time, tracking not only when repression is applied for the first time but also how the use of coercion varies across the full event period. Trends in the use of repression is held up against the behavior of the great powers of the UN SC across the analyzed period. Each issuance of patron signals at the UN level and developments at the domestic level thus constitutes a number of within-case observations (Gerring, 2004, pp. 343-344). Do we, across these cases, find that the timing of the initial use of repression and the stepping up of it follows signals of support from great power patrons, then we take this as evidence of our general hypothesis. Similarly, do we find that the full stop to coercive campaigns or the reduction of repressive activities happens after patrons issue signals that indicate a withdrawal, or a substantial reduction, of support we also count this as supportive evidence. Finally, can we muster evidence that the relevant actors—such as autocrats or opposition activists—actively seek to influence the actions of the great powers in the UN SC, or they openly acknowledge the patron’s importance for the development of key episodes, we can be even more certain of the validity of our main claim. From case to case, we discuss the strength of the available evidence and, where relevant, hold it up against the most likely alternative explanation.
Burma 2007: The Saffron Revolution
In mid-2007, the “Saffron Revolution” hit the entrenched Burmese military dictatorship. The demonstrations, that were triggered by a drastic slashing of fuel subsidies on August 15, 2007, constituted the most significant protests against the Junta since the massive uprisings of 1988. The cut in subsidies had an immediate impact on the cost of food, transport, and electricity in the capital Rangoon and across the country (McCarthy, 2008, p. 307). Small and scattered protests followed immediately, and from mid-September, civilians in rising numbers took to the streets and called for broader political and economic reforms, including demands for democracy (Hlaing, 2008, p. 130; Selth, 2008, pp. 281-283). Across the country, large-scale demonstrations with more than 100,000 participants took place. Protestors, led by Buddhist monks (as in the 1988 uprising), now openly called for an end to military rule and clearly showed their support for the opposition party of longtime regime-opponent Aung San Suu Kyi.
The de facto-leader of the Junta, Senior General Than Shwe, reacted in accordance with the “law of coercive responsiveness.” On September 26, security forces were ordered to squash the popular rebellion. The police used tear gas and shot directly into the crowds, and numerous protesters were beat up with bamboo sticks. Thousands were arrested, and a large, however disputed, number was killed (Hlaing, 2008, pp. 132-133; McCarthy, 2008, pp. 307-310). Even though smaller protests took place in several towns during October and November, this major crackdown effectively took the steam out of the revolution (International Crisis Group, 2008, p. 3). Nonetheless, the Burmese regime surprisingly adopted a more accommodating stance toward its opponents. Throughout the fall, Than Shwe showed hitherto unseen restraint and willingness to negotiate with the opposition. As we show below, an important explanation for this coercive pattern is to be found in changing signals sent from powerful great power patrons.
Russo–Chinese Signals of Support and Their Effects on Regime Repression
When the Saffron Revolution hit Burma, the military Junta knew that it had strong allies in Russia and China in the Security Council. Tellingly, the two patrons had, through the use of the hidden veto, shielded Burma from even entering the Security Council agenda several times prior to the revolution. In fact, Burma did not figure on the UN SC agenda until September 2006 (International Crisis Group, 2008, p. 6; United Nations [UN], 2006). But even after this, Russia and China upheld their protective measures (UN, 2007a, 2007c), albeit also emphasizing a greater need for the regime to show willingness to cooperate with and listen to the international community. However, when the protests swirled, the two patrons did initially reaffirm their unconditional support. Only later they sent more restrained signals of support, which had a clear impact on the coercive strategy applied by the Burmese leadership.
Already in the beginning of September, when frequent, albeit small, protests were picking up, Burmese authorities officially requested a meeting with its Chinese allies. On September 13, 2007, the Foreign Minister U Nyan Win met with the Chinese State Councilor, Tang Jiaxuan. In a press conference, the latter expressed the hope that Burma would “push forward a democracy process that is appropriate for the country” and “restore internal stability as soon as possible”. 3 This intentional ambiguous statement constituted the first clear signal that China intended to support the regime during the rapidly escalating crisis.
In the following weeks, demonstrations in Rangoon and Mandalay swelled and gradually spread to other parts of the country. Western countries, with the United Kingdom and the United States in the lead, urged the regime to refrain from repression and threatened to implement bilateral sanctions and push for actions through the UN. 4 But Burma’s patrons stood firm by its side. China’s Foreign Ministry made its support for the principle of noninterference very clear in a statement issued on September 25, 2007, and Russia concurrently declared that it considered the events “internal affairs” of Burma. 3 It is noteworthy that these signals of support were given on the same day that both demonstrations and pressure from the West reached its apex. Even more striking is it that on the very next day, September 26, 2007, the de-facto leader of Burma, Senior General Than Shwe, ordered a massive and brutal crackdown on monks, opposition activists, and ordinary protesters. It may perhaps not be surprising that the regime decided to use force to quell the Saffron Revolution given that widespread repression and severe human rights violations had previously been its hallmarks. However, it is interesting that this took place immediately after patrons in the UN SC signaled that they would oppose UN-sponsored punitive measures. The timing of the initial use of repression is the first evidence in support of our main hypothesis.
Moreover, we know that disagreements within the regime was growing. In the past year, defections from the army had been on the rise, and during the early phase of the protests, soldiers had refused to use violence against the demonstrators. Finally, we know that the head of the army, Vice Senior General Maung Aye, directly opposed Than Shwe’s hard stance toward the protesters. 5 All this speak against the use of high intensity coercion on the September 26, 2017, or at least it should make it much less likely. We do not know whether the rank and file paid attention to the actions of the country’s great power patrons, but it is indeed likely that the signals of support hardened the resolve of Burma’s de facto leader in a highly uncertain situation. It is also plausible that it did help him maintain the upper hand within the regime at a time when internal opposition was growing.
Immediately following the violent crackdown, the Security Council convened for a closed emergency meeting (Security Council Report, 2016). The council unanimously supported the Secretary General’s decision to dispatch the UN Special Adviser to the region, Ibrahim Gambari, but China and Russia blocked a U.S.-sponsored resolution that would have condemned, and possibly constrained, the Burmese Junta’s ability to implement further coercive actions (Storey, 2007). Thus, at the height of the uprisings, China and Russia not only sent the initial signal that they would accept a violent crackdown should the Burmese leader decide to pursue such actions, but they also, through their veto power in the UN SC, made sure that Than Shwe would not be disturbed in his attempts to quell domestic dissent. The coercive apparatus in Burma responded swiftly in an attempt to clear the streets before the arrival of the UN Special Advisor. In the following days, “any protesters who dared to march were met with tear gas, baton charges and, on several occasions, lethal force” (Selth, 2008, p. 283). Had China and Russia not signaled their support for the crackdown, the international pressure on the regime and its coercive agents would have been much more intense. In particular so as the regional organization, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to which Burma is a member, for the first time ever spoke out loudly against the violence in a statement unanimously adopted on the same day as the UN SC meeting was held (Emmerson, 2008, pp. 72-73; Selth, 2008, p. 285).
Although China explicitly ruled out further Security Council actions, it soon made it clear to the Burmese leadership that it had to cooperate with the UN special envoy, Gambari, including giving him access to meet both senior generals as well as the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (International Crisis Group, 2008, p. 6). The Junta eventually bowed to the international pressure and allowed Gambari to enter the country and meet twice with Aung San Suu Kyi (on September 30 and October 2, 2007; International Crisis Group, 2008, p. 7). Thus, the Chinese effort, which was explicitly noted by UN special envoy Gambari at his briefing to the Security Council on October 5, 2007 (UN, 2007d), did have an effect on the Junta’s willingness to accept international mediation. Coercion and intimidation could have continued unabated as it did during the 1988 uprisings, but the Burmese leader chose to reduce it significantly. Again the timing of the change of strategy speaks in favor of our main hypothesis. So does the contrast to the persistent use of coercion that the regime applied in 1988.
On October 2, China and Russia unexpectedly changed course and supported the adoption of a Human Rights Council resolution criticizing the violent crackdown. Even though China now publicly urged restraint in the government’s response to the opposition (Kleine-Ahlbrandt & Small, 2008), both Russia and China insisted that the language of the resolution was softened. 3 The day after, the United States requested yet another Security Council meeting on “the situation in Myanmar” which eventually took place on October 5. At this point, it does indeed seem that Than Shwe sincerely feared that UN sanctions might be the outcome. The day before the meeting, the Burmese incumbent surprisingly offered to negotiate with the opposition and meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. While the offer was effectively meaningless because of a number of unreasonable conditions, it is remarkable because it is the first offer by Than Shwe to meet with the opposition leader. 6 Had he not cared about the reaction of the international community, or had he received signals of unconditional support from his great power patrons, he would most likely never have made such an offer. 7
However, at the Security Council meeting on October 5, China reaffirmed its support for the Burmese leadership by publicly announcing that it supported the good offices of the Secretary General but nothing more, stating that “the current situation does not pose any threat to international or regional peace and security” (UN, 2007e, p. 9). A similar statement was made by Russia. As an indication of the importance that the Burmese authorities attached to this meeting, the regime later in the UN General Assembly publicly expressed its “deep appreciation to the members of the Security Council” that hindered any actions at the open meeting on October 5, 2007 (UN, 2007e, p. 18).
Even though the very first Presidential Statement on Burma was surprisingly adopted by the UN SC 6 days later, on October 11, in a closed meeting (UN, 2007c), its powerful supporters had effectively shielded the country from UN sanctions and only supported calls from the international community for a de-escalation of the conflict when the Junta had effectively dealt with the initial, massive protest wave. However, based on the public statements of the Burmese authorities and the timing of Than Shwe’s changes of strategy, it appears that the incumbent understood that he could no longer count on Russia’s or China’s unconditional support. In sync with increasingly restrained signals of support from his great power patrons, Than Shwe for the first time chose a less defiant and more accommodating stance toward the domestic opposition. A change of position was continued in the following months (Hlaing, 2008, p. 141).
Summing up, the sequence of the events clearly favor the interpretation that Than Shwe acted in accordance with the signals sent from his patrons at the UN level. When China and Russia sent supportive signals, Than Shwe stood firm against his challengers and unleashed a brutal violent crackdown. When more restrained signals of patron support were sent, he embraced a strategy of dialogue and concessions. The main alternative interpretation is that Than Shwe feared that the continuance of violence would endanger the internal cohesion of the regime. Cracks among the ruling elites were growing and the rank and file were showing signs of increasing discontent. However, this seemingly only made Than Shwe more dependent on the position of his external patrons. When Russia and China showed unconditional support, he defied his soft-liner opponents within the regime. When this support became more conditional, he turned to the more accommodative stance that both satisfied the demands of his great power patrons and that of his opponents within the regime.
Zimbabwe 2008: Popular Protests and Electoral Violence
On March 29, 2008, parliamentary elections and the first round of presidential elections took place in Zimbabwe, a country ruled for more than two decades by President Robert Mugabe and his hegemonic party, ZANU-PF. According to most observers, the leader of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, had won the majority of the votes in the first round of the presidential race, and Mugabe was, apparently, ready to acknowledge his defeat and step down from power (Schaefer & Tkacik, 2008). However, hardliners in the army pushed him for fighting back and, as we will show, Russia and China repeatedly sent signals of support that convinced and enabled him to follow through with it.
For the next 33 days, the regime-controlled electoral commission delayed the announcement of the official results, and in the period until the second round of the presidential elections 3 months later, the country was marred by popular protests and a downward spiral of ever more horrific state-sponsored violence, primarily carried out by pro-Mugabe war veterans and youth militias. On June 22, 2008, Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, clearly fearing for his life, sought safety at the Dutch Embassy in the capital Harare and announced that he was withdrawing from the presidential runoff vote. Mugabe went ahead as scheduled and won the vote unopposed. In the following, we show how changes in Mugabe’s coercive campaign can be linked directly to the signals of support sent from great power patrons willing to assist his attempts to reclaim power.
Russo–Chinese Signals of Support and Their Effects on Regime Repression
President Mugabe had several allies to count on in the UN SC in 2008. As he officially announced his “Look East” foreign policy in 2003, bilateral relations with China had grown considerably stronger (Hodzi, Hartwell, & De Jager, 2012, p. 87), and Beijing had become a major donor of aid and loans and figured as the main foreign investor. 8 A similar story can be told with regard to Russia, from which Mugabe secured numerous favorable trade agreements during the 2000s (Chigora & Goredema, 2010, pp. 195-197). As with the case of Burma, Russia and China had also protected Zimbabwe in the UN SC on numerous previous occasions (Kleine-Ahlbrandt & Small, 2008; UN, 2005). Besides close ties to Russia and China, the Zimbabwean regime also enjoyed the support of South Africa, a longtime Mugabe ally, which was an elected member of the Security Council during this period and even chaired sessions in April 2008 when the crisis escalated.
From the very outset of the Zimbabwean crisis of 2008, China and Russia were reluctant to support any Security Council interventions. Both patrons vehemently opposed the U.S. and U.K. pressure for even including Zimbabwe on the agenda. South Africa also actively sought to hold Zimbabwe off the table. 9 The Security Council did discuss the events in Zimbabwe informally twice (on April 16 and 29, 2008) but only as part of a wider debate on the Peace and Security in Africa. 10 Thus, in the early phase of the political crisis, Mugabe was given free hands to build up support within his regime to deal with domestic challengers as he deemed fit. In this period, regime soft-liners were effectively sidelined, while regime hard-liners gained ground.
However, the first major escalation of the conflict did not follow until directly after the first UN SC meeting on April 16, 2008. The meeting was held the day after opposition leader Tsvangirai had called for a nation-wide general strike and demonstrations meant to paralyze the Zimbabwean economy and force Mugabe out of power. Although Zimbabwe was not on the formal agenda, the Western powers used the UN SC meeting to call for free and fair elections and demand the release of the delayed election results (at this point, more than 2 weeks had passed since the vote). South Africa, on the contrary, argued that any outside interference in the election was to be handled exclusively through the regional organization, Southern African Development Community (SADC), known to constitute no real threat to Mugabe’s rule. Russia and China backed this position, and neither mentioned the Zimbabwean issue in their statements given at the meeting (UN, 2008a). On the same day, South African President Mbeki, who officially mediated Zimbabwe’s conflict on behalf of the SADC, met with Mugabe in Harare and publicly declared that there was no political crisis in Zimbabwe. 11
Clearly, China and Russia along with South Africa tried to keep the rapidly escalating conflict depoliticized at the international level. In addition, around the same time, China sent a shipment of weapons to Zimbabwe. Although the weapons were apparently delayed for months 12 or never reached its target, 13 this shipment, in combination with the signals of support in the UN SC, left Mugabe and his coercive apparatus reassured that his patrons had provided him with a carte blanche for a major crackdown and would channel the necessary resources to him if needed. Following these flows of supportive signals, repression immediately turned much more brutal and became more widespread and, not least, more systematic (Bratton & Masunungure, 2008, p. 51). On April 25, 2008, this first round of high-intensity coercion peaked when heavily armed police officers rounded up and intimidated hundreds of people gathered at the headquarter of MDC. The raid signaled a “sharp and very public escalation” of the political crisis, which immediately after the first election had been constrained to far less visible rural areas. 14
However, the supportive signals not only affected Mugabe and his regime but also those challenging the status quo. The opposition desperately looked to the international arena for signals of support that could make regime supporters and perpetrators of repression think twice and provide the impetus for a remobilization of opposition activists and the population at large. On April 21, 2008, opposition leader Tsvangirai met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and urged him to push for an UN intervention. A week later, MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti flew to New York City to brief the UN SC on the situation in Zimbabwe at the informal meeting held on April 29, 2008. Biti made plea for a “strong and decisive” UN SC resolution against the Mugabe regime and called for the dispatch of a UN Envoy or fact-finding mission to the country, like in Burma the year before. 15
However, at the meeting, Russia, China, and South Africa staunchly opposed this and, instead, reiterated the argument that SADC should remain the lead actor (International Crisis Group, 2008, p. 12). Again, a clear signal was sent to both the Mugabe regime and the opposition that the incumbent was granted a safe conduct by its patrons. Any talks of UN-sponsored interference, say good offices mediation or sanctions, were off the table. With complete equanimity, Mugabe could therefore, on May 2, more than a month after the vote, announce that Tsvangirai had won the first round, albeit not with enough votes to avoid a runoff. The second round of the elections was scheduled for June 27. Immediately, violence again intensified despite the fact that discouraged and frightened MDC supporters increasingly stayed off the streets. According to a report by Zimbabwean doctors, state repression reached “a level of brutality unprecedented in Zimbabwe’s violent past decade.” 16 Throughout May and in the beginning of June, large-scale repression continued unabated though the threat to the immediate survival of the Mugabe regime had long abated.
On June 12 and 18, a few weeks before the scheduled second round of presidential elections, closed informal meetings on the situation in Zimbabwe were again held in the UN SC but, once again, without any results. The United States pushed hard for gathering support for UN SC actions against Mugabe. On June 19, U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, again convened a closed, informal meeting with diplomats and humanitarian groups urging the Security Council to take stronger actions against Mugabe (Security Council Report, 2008), 17 but once again, China, Russia, and South Africa ruled out all further UN actions. 18
Reaffirmed in the belief that the international community remained incapable of taking action as long as his three patrons stymied all attempts, Mugabe found the road paved for regaining the presidency. Violence and intimidation reached yet another peak with more than 100 opposition supporters killed, thousands injured and tortured, and widespread destruction of opposition-related property. With the banning of public rallies by the police and the politics of fear and repression effectively carried out in the streets, it was becoming increasingly difficult for the opposition to mobilize protesters (Ploch, 2008, pp. 7, 10). Fearing for his own life and those of his supporters, Tsvangirai on June 22 announced that he was withdrawing from the upcoming elections.
Immediately after, the Chino–Russian and South African position was softened. On June 23, the Security Council held its first formal meeting with Zimbabwe on the agenda during the crisis. China and Russia did not call for a vote on the adoption of Zimbabwe on the agenda, and the Council even managed to agree on a Presidential Statement (UN, 2008b). However, the statement was much watered down by Russia and China. 19 Although violence was condemned and a call for a free and fair election was made (something that was meaningless now that Tsvangirai had withdrawn from the vote), the Statement did not, like the Presidential Statement on Burma (UN, 2007c), urge authorities to engage in further cooperation with specific UN institutions (UN, 2008c). In Zimbabwe, attacks on the opposition supporters therefore continued undaunted, even after Mugabe’s reelection on June 27, 2008.
Hence, in contrast to the Burmese case, Beijing and Moscow firmly and consistently rejected any kind of UN intervention, including the good offices of the Secretary General. Concordantly, and again in contrast to the case of Burma, the Mugabe regime rejected UN mediation throughout the election crisis. We cannot rule out that Zimbabwe’s longtime ruler would not have opted for repression had he not received supportive signals from his allies in the UN SC. However, we can conclude that the peaks of repression are clustered around the points in time when firm signals of support were sent from patrons in the UN SC. Moreover, repression intensified immediately after supportive signals even when the opposition was showing signs of deep despair and stayed off the streets. As final evidence, Mugabe himself publicly emphasized the importance of this support from the outside on several later high-profile occasions such as his inaugural address to the newly elected parliament in August 2008, at the opening sessions of the UN General Assembly a month later (Tansey, 2016, p. 119), and after a meeting in Moscow in May 2015 with Russian President Putin. At this event, Putin tellingly reassured Mugabe: “In the future, as in the past, we do have it in our power to support Africa and to support Zimbabwe, in particular, in the Security Council.” 20
Burkina Faso 2014: The Burkinabé Uprising
In late October 2014, Burkina Faso’s President, Blaise Compaoré, resigned and fled the country to neighboring Côte d’Ivoire in the wake of massive popular protests. Compaoré had held sway over the gold-rich country and its 15 million deeply impoverished citizens for 27 years, and on numerous occasions, he had vehemently fought, and survived, challenges to his rule. In the first months of 2014, tens of thousands protested against the President’s alleged attempts to make constitutional changes that would allow him to extend his term limits, 21 and during the spring of 2011, disloyal groups within the military led several uprisings that spread among the opposition and the wider population. Compaoré had survived a handful of popular uprisings during the last two decades, 22 and on several occasions, he had shown that he was not afraid of making use of the loyal Presidential Guard to restore order. 23
In light of this history, it was therefore quite surprising that President Compaoré fled the country on October 31, 2014, after just 4 days of mostly nonviolent, albeit massive, popular protests. The day before, the parliament was set to decide on extending the President’s term limits to make it possible for Compaoré to run for yet another round in the upcoming 2015 presidential elections. The opposition had been mobilizing for months, and smaller protests had been simmering. On October 28, 2014, protests swelled dramatically. Around 100,000 people took to the streets, demonstrating against Compaoré’s attempts to make constitutional changes and calling for his departure from power. Demonstrations of a similar size continued the next day. Compaoré soon responded by declaring martial law, and the police used tear gas to disperse the crowd. Three people were apparently shot dead by the military. 24 However, the martial law was surprisingly rescinded after only a few hours, and instead, Compaoré offered the opposition to negotiate on a transitional government, stating that he had “heard the message” from the protesters and understood “the strong desire for change.” 25 Nonetheless, protests continued unabated, and on October 30, 1,500 protesters defied tear gas and bullets, broke through road blockages, and torched and ravaged several government buildings, including the parliament. President Compaoré first declared the withdrawal of the controversial bill, and the next day, he resigned and fled the country. 26 In the following, we show that a number of signals indicating that support from the great power patrons of France and the United States was waning played an important role for this rapid and surprising change of strategy of the longtime personalist ruler of Burkina Faso.
The Loss of Western Patrons in the UN SC and Its Effects on State Repression
When the popular uprising hit Burkina Faso in late 2014, President Compaoré had good reasons to believe that he would enjoy support from his longtime Western allies, France and the United States. As leader of a former French colony and a hub for U.S. Special Forces in the fight against terrorism in West Africa, President Compaoré had for long benefited from good relations to the West (Santiso & Loada, 2003, p. 404). 27 Compaoré’s strategic importance had even grown in the wake of the coup in neighboring Mali in 2012 and the country was in a U.S. State Department report from 2013 considered “a strong U.S. security and defense partner in the region.” 28
In contrast to both Burma and Zimbabwe, and because of this support from Washington and Paris, Compaoré had never had problems with interference from the UN SC. No Western great power had pushed for placing Burkina Faso on the agenda, not even when Compaoré had resorted to repression in the past. After the 2011 protests, the United States, in a report on the fight of terrorism in West Africa, praised the government in Burkina Faso for its resilience to “threats and dangers posed by terrorist organizations,” deliberately downplaying the fact that instability resulted from military mutinies and student demonstrations. Following the massive January 2014 demonstrations, the West did not put pressure on Compaoré but rewarded him with additional U.S. aid funding 29 and increased French military presence in the country. 30 These examples reveal that President Compaoré had no reason to fear international interference in his bid for constitutional changes and yet another 5-year term as President.
However, in early October 2014, President Compaoré received a first warning that support from the two patrons might be waning. On October 7, French President Francois Hollande sent the incumbent a personal letter in which he urged him to pursue a career in international institutions instead of trying to extend term limits. Hollande even offered to help Compaoré find a good way out and appealed to him to take a decision that would make his nation a model to follow for the region. 31 Should the president choose not to comply, he could expect to face sanctions from the international community. 32 Hollande thus effectively signaled, albeit exclusively to the incumbent and perhaps those closest to him, that protection from UN-sponsored interventions could now be a thing of the past. However, with the letter, he also showed that if Compaoré chose to step down and leave the country, France would help find a destination for exile, thus offering him the personal security guarantees that his domestic challengers could not deliver.
As we hypothesized, this personal security guarantee initially made the incumbent prone to gamble. On October 21, Compaoré announced that a Constitutional Amendment Bill would soon be presented in Parliament. This immediately sparked what was to become a wave of protests. At first, the gamble seemed to succeed. Over the next heated days, France and the United States remained silent, and even though several meetings were held in the UN SC, Burkina Faso was at no point sought added to the agenda. Had Paris or Washington been bent on obstructing Compaoré’s bid for a third term, they could have made a first attempt at one of these meetings. Thus, the threats issued by Hollande in early October now seemed less credible to the longtime ruler of Burkina Faso. Likewise, insiders and coercive agents saw no reasons to question the durability of the regime.
This changed on October 28, 2014. That day, the protests in the capital Ouagadougou exploded with around 100,000 people on the streets. France immediately appealed to all sides for restraint and stated that it expected Compaoré to adhere to the laws drawn up by his peers at the African Union (AU) and not to push through the constitutional reform. 33 The opposition interpreted this statement as a clear sign that the power of the president was waning. Protests continued unabated even though police forces repeatedly fired tear gas against the crowds. On October 30, the parliament was to vote on the proposed constitutional changes. Protesters sought to enter the parliamentary buildings and were met with bullets. The U.S. embassy in Ouagadougou, however, made a timely interference. The State Department declared that it was “concerned by the spirit and intent behind the proposed amendment to lift the term limits,” and urged “all involved, including Burkina Faso’s security forces, to adhere to non-violence, and to debate this issue in a peaceful and inclusive manner.” 34 Within a few hours, the AU echoed the call for restraint and “urged the government of Burkina Faso to respect the wishes of the people,” and UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon vowed to dispatch an envoy to the country to follow the situation closely (a message that would be unthinkable had he not cleared it with the United States and France in advance). Almost simultaneously, cracks in the security apparatus began to appear as military officers and rank-and-file cadres refused to follow orders and sided with the opposition. 35 In the afternoon, the French ambassador openly held talks with opposition leaders, clearly signaling that Compaoré should no longer be counting on assistance from Paris. 36 The number of defections now increased rapidly.
The longtime president of Burkina Faso was clearly losing his grip on power, and his ability to employ violence to restore it was fading too. The complete pullout of support from the side of his two former patrons served to both trigger and speed up the process, and the fact that France assisted Compaoré in finding an exile destination 37 most likely explains why the man who had ruled the country for 27 years decided to rescind martial law after only a few hours and instead offered to negotiate the terms for a transitional government. In contrast to the Burmese and Zimbabwean cases, brute repression was no longer an option, and a way out was on offer. The next day, Compaoré resigned and, with president Hollande’s help, fled the country to neighboring Cote d’Ivoire, where he has now been granted Ivorian citizenship. 38 Again the character of signals sent from great power patrons had shaped the coercive strategy of a dictator faced by massive domestic protests.
Conclusion
In line with recent publications that stress the importance of international factors for domestic developments, this study shows that mere signals of support from powerful patrons bear influence on the propensity to which and the severity with which autocrats use repressive means to mitigate domestic challenges to their rule. Authoritarian rulers who receive signals of support not only seem more likely to survive challenges to their power, but they also behave more resolutely and aggressively toward their domestic opponents. Where patron support to a dictator is unexpectedly withdrawn, rulers and their followers become more hesitant to use force, eventually putting regime survival at risk. Studying signals of support thus seems crucial if we wish to understand the timing and the changing character of repressive campaigns in authoritarian regimes. To learn more about the factors likely to condition the relationship, more research—both across cases and more in depth within cases—is needed. Here, we have made a first step, showing that this is likely to be a fruitful endeavor.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a grant for the project CODE (Conflict and Democratization, 4110-00002B) from the Innovation Fund Denmark.