Suchergebnisse

Transitions from authoritarian to democratic governments can provide ripe scenarios for the emergence of new, insurgent political actors and causes. During peaceful transitions, such movements may become influential political players and gain representation for previously neglected interests and sectors of the population. But for this to happen, insurgent social movements need opportunities for mobilization, success, and survival. This text looks at Mexico's Zapatista movement, and why the movement was able to mobilize sympathy and support for the indigenous agenda inside and outside of the country, yet failed to achieve their goals with regard to the Mexican state.

Using negative binomial models, I analyze the effects of repressive threats and procedural concessions on Zapatista protests from 1994 to 2003. Some of the results appear consistent with previous findings in the literature. Repressive threats had a negative initial effect and a positive delayed effect on protest activity and its simultaneous location across cities. However, procedural concessions had statistically insignificant negative initial and delayed effects on protests and their simultaneous location. Also contrary to the literature, when procedural concessions and repressive threats were combined, they had statistically insignificant positive initial and delayed effects on protest activity and its simultaneous location. Finally, democratization changes decreased Zapatista protests in the short and long term and helped to focus mobilization efforts on the remaining closed environments. Thus, democratization openings and an inconsistent use of repressive threats and procedural concessions did not strengthen the development of the movement; they contributed to the movement's relative weakness.