Youth movements in post-Communist societies

Serbian Otpor youth opposition marching, October 1998. Image: Blic Online

Olena Nikolayenko, a visiting scholar from Stanford University, presented a paper entitled: “Youth Movements in Post-Communist Societies: A Model for Nonviolent Resistance,” at last month’s  2009 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.

An abstract of the paper:

Over the past decade, the rise of youth movements applying nonviolent methods of resistance against autocratic incumbents occurred in the post-Soviet region. This protest cycle was set in motion by the spectacular mobilization of Serbia’s social movement Otpor against Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Similarly, Ukraine’s Pora in 2004 and, to a lesser extent, Georgia’s Kmara in 2003 mobilized large numbers of young people to demand political change in the aftermath of fraudulent elections. In contrast, Belarus’ Zubr in 2001/2006 and an assortment of Azerbaijan’s youth groups in 2005 were less effective in staging nonviolent struggle against autocratic incumbents. This paper provides an explanation for divergent social movement outcomes in non-democracies by investigating the dynamics of tactical interaction between challenger organizations and the ruling elite. The paper argues that both civic activists and autocratic incumbents engaged in processes of political learning. Hence, tactical innovation was vital to the success of youth movements, especially late risers in the protest cycle.

Nikolayenko begins with: “Over the past decade, a wave of youth mobilization against repressive political regimes has swept the post-communist region. Thousands of young people took to the street to demand political change at a critical juncture in domestic politics, the election period.”

She argues throughout her paper that tactical innovation (experimentation with the choice of frames, protest strategies and interaction styles with allies) was vital to the success of youth movements.

Can the tactics used by these youth movements in post-Communist societies be replicated in a post-Castro/post-Communist Cuba?

Predicting such a happenstance is possible as Cuba’s future political landscape may change with one repressive ruling elite supplanted by another (through force, succession, or democratic transition) challenged by an increasingly younger demographic that has become a vocal opposition, e.g. bloggers.

Moreover, historically recent instances described in this insightful paper are worthy of examination.

[H/T: iRevolution]

Tagged as: Azerbaijan, Belarus, civic activists, nonviolent resistance, Otpor, Pora, post-Castro, post-Communist Cuba, post-Communist societies, Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, Ukraine, youth movements, Zub