Subnational State Capacity and the Repression of Protest: Evidence from Mexico

• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Heather Sullivan
• Date: 01 September 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912920919494
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920919494

Political Research Quarterly

2021, Vol. 74(3) 587 –598

© 2020 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912920919494

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Article

In April 2005, the governor of the Mexican state of San

Luis Potosi fired five employees for attempting to join the

state bureaucrats’ union. The workers demanded respect

for their labor rights, staging two small sit-ins, one in

front of the governmental palace and the other in front of

the governor’s official residence. After a few days, both

protesters’ camps were forcibly dismantled by state police

and three people were arrested. At the protest site in front

of the official residence, the nine female protesters were

removed by approximately thirty policemen. When

bystanders attempted to come to the women’s defense,

they were beaten by the officers. In January of the same

year, less than 120 miles away in the neighboring state of

Zacatecas, an ostensibly more threatening protest

occurred. Over two thousand teachers from the dissident

teachers’ union occupied the regional ministry of educa-

tion offices and the governmental palace to denounce the

governor’s replacement of over twenty education offi-

cials for what were perceived to be political reasons.

Although the governor publicly refused to cede to pres-

sure from protesters, the protests were not repressed and

the governor entered into negotiations with the dissident

teachers.

These two examples, from the thousands of protests

that take place in Mexico, demonstrate several important

facets of protest politics. First, neither of these protests

targeted the central state and neither produced a response

from national actors. Second, there are important subna-

tional variations in response to protest. While a large

protest occurred without sparking a repressive response

in one Mexican state, a smaller, seemingly less threaten-

ing protest was the target of repression in another. In

interviews with the author, Mexican academics, journal-

ists, and activists regularly cast blame for repression nei-

ther at the federal government nor at the local police, but

at state governors. They described particular governor’s

actions as “clumsy” or “blunders” and asserted that repres-

sion was related to state governments’ failures in estab-

lishing conditions for successful negotiations (Academic

from Morelos 2009; Oaxacan Activist 2009; Oaxacan

Journalist 2009). Drawing on an original dataset of

responses to protest in Mexico, this paper suggests that

to explain the repression of protest, at least in federal

countries, we must examine subnational politics, more

919494PRQXXX10.1177/1065912920919494Political Research QuarterlySullivan

research-article2020

1Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Heather Sullivan, Government Department, Hamilton College,

198 College Hill Rd., Clinton, NY 13323, USA.

Email: hasulliv@hamilton.edu

Subnational State Capacity

and the Repression of Protest:

Evidence from Mexico

Heather Sullivan1

Abstract

While protests occurring in nationally democratic contexts rarely represent fundamental threats to the central state,

they still need management when and where they occur. Thus, this paper suggests that, especially in federal countries,

to explain the repression of protest, we must examine subnational politics. Subnational political elites, often tasked

with protest management, can engage protesters and call for police restraint, but their capacity and authority affect

their ability to carry out these tasks. The paper tests the theory using original event-level data on Mexican protests

and responses and leverages within-country variations in democracy and state capacity. The paper shows that where

subnational governments have bureaucratic capacity and where citizen linkages to the state cause them to see

state agents as relevant, problem-solving authorities, protest events are less likely to be managed using a repressive

response. In addition, the paper highlights a key difference between explanations of overall human rights violations and

repressive responses to protest, namely, that electoral competition is not a significant factor reducing the likelihood

of repressive responses to protest.

Keywords

repression, protest, state capacity, subnational politics, Mexico