Unintended Consequences of Repression: Alliance Formation in South Korea's Democracy Movement (1970-1979)

• Main Author: CHANG, Paul Y.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2008
• Subjects: Social movements; South Korea; democracy; Asian Studies; Political Science; Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/617; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/1616/viewcontent/Unintended_conseq_afv_2008.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Research regarding the impact of repression on social movements has yielded conflicting findings; some argue that repression decreases the total quantity of protest events while others argue that it motivates protest. To move beyond this impasse, various scholars have suggested exploring how repression influences the quality of social movements. This study assesses the impact repression had on the information of alliances between different social groups participating in South Korea's democracy movement. Results from negative binomial regression analyses show that repression facilitated the formation of alliances between movement actors at a time when the overall number of protest events decreased. This study contributes to the literature on coercion and mobilization by pointing to the possibility of movement development during low levels of a protest cycle.