This dissertation draws attention to the interaction between insurgents and the target state as the appropriate context for explaining the motivations of suicide bombers, the rationales of the organizations that support them, and the popularity in certain societies of suicide bombing. Based mainly on data collected from 88 interviews conducted in 2006 with senior leaders of six Palestinian political organizations and close relatives and friends of a 25 percent representative sample of Palestinian suicide bombers during the second intifada, it demonstrates the following: (1) During the second intifada, changes in the political opportunity structure, especially extreme state repression, were chiefly responsible for growing public support for suicide bombing, the development of organizational rationales justifying suicide bombing, and the crystallization of suicide bombers’ motivation to act. State repression produced a widespread desire for revenge at all levels of Palestinian society. (2) Cultural forces, notably the growing popularity of fundamentalist Islam and its embodiment in the political culture of certain militant organizations, were of secondary importance in causing the spread of suicide bombing. (3) Strategic calculations (“rational choice”) aimed at speeding the liberation of occupied territory were of tertiary importance in motivating suicide bombers but they figured more prominently at the level of organizational rationales. (4) While the literature often invokes creative agency, psychopathology, and material deprivation to explain the rise of suicide bombing, little or no effect was discovered for these variables.

This dissertation draws attention to the interaction between insurgents and the target state as the appropriate context for explaining the motivations of suicide bombers, the rationales of the organizations that support them, and the popularity in certain societies of suicide bombing. Based mainly on data collected from 88 interviews conducted in 2006 with senior leaders of six Palestinian political organizations and close relatives and friends of a 25 percent representative sample of Palestinian suicide bombers during the second intifada, it demonstrates the following: (1) During the second intifada, changes in the political opportunity structure, especially extreme state repression, were chiefly responsible for growing public support for suicide bombing, the development of organizational rationales justifying suicide bombing, and the crystallization of suicide bombers’ motivation to act. State repression produced a widespread desire for revenge at all levels of Palestinian society. (2) Cultural forces, notably the growing popularity of fundamentalist Islam and its embodiment in the political culture of certain militant organizations, were of secondary importance in causing the spread of suicide bombing. (3) Strategic calculations (“rational choice”) aimed at speeding the liberation of occupied territory were of tertiary importance in motivating suicide bombers but they figured more prominently at the level of organizational rationales. (4) While the literature often invokes creative agency, psychopathology, and material deprivation to explain the rise of suicide bombing, little or no effect was discovered for these variables.

This study analyzes one of the most active memories of state repression during democracy in Argentina: the memorial advertisements (recordatorios) of those disappeared by the most recent military dictatorship (1976-1983), which are published on a daily basis in the newspaper Página/12. In this thesis, I focus on the pictures of the victims of state repression that appear within the frame of these memorials as the expression of both cultural and personal memory. The leader of Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto, published the first recordatorio on the tenth anniversary of her daughter’s death, in August 1988. During that same year, 20 relatives of disappeared people went to the newspaper and followed Carlotto’s footsteps, publishing advertisements themselves. Currently, more than 20 years after the first advertisement was published, three to five recordatorios appear in the newspaper every day. The emergence of the recordatorios inaugurates a new discursive genre as contradictory as the disappearance itself. On the one hand, they are connected to the announcements related to the search for missing people (serving the goal of finding a person alive). On the other hand, the recordatorios also resemble obituaries (making a tribute to someone that has passed away). The recordatorio thus emerges as an impossible reality, following the logic of both genres, thus performing both functions in a paradoxical way. This study focuses on the family pictures that appear in the recordatorios and sheds light on how they illustrate the entanglement of the family and the public sphere, and contribute to the debate on the role of personal subjectivity in the construction of collective memory. From a multidisciplinary perspective, the present thesis aims to capture the complexity surrounding these texts and the familial imagery they include, looking at the inherent tension between the private tragedy of a family that has lost one of its members and the public character that stems from their publication in one of Argentina’s national newspapers. / text

The radical animal rights movement has been labeled a terrorist movement by federal law enforcement and elected officials, and there have been laws passed making direct action in the name of animal rights a federal offense of domestic terrorism. This dissertation explores the ways in which terrorism has been socially and politically constructed to marginalize the animal rights movement, to the benefit of powerful and well connected interests. I do this by comparing the radical animal rights and extreme anti-abortion movements, especially in the ways each gets labeled by federal law enforcement. The animal rights movement is more likely to be referred to as a terrorist movement, even though the extreme anti-abortion movement has been responsible for the murders and assaults of health clinic workers and doctors. This in spite of the fact that no one has been physically harmed by the animal rights movement. I examine the ways in which the pharmaceutical and bio-medical industries have been able to get laws passed, at both the state and federal levels, criminalizing animal rights activism. I also explore the various ways animal rights activists have faced political repression based on their political beliefs, as well as the response of animal rights activists and civil liberties lawyers to this form of state repression.

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This research studies protests after fraudulent elections in a collective action framework, examining the impact of the potential cost, benefit and likelihood of success of protest on the occurrence and intensity of protests. Quantitative analysis of fraudulent elections in about 100 countries from 1990 to 2004 shows that the odds of protest after fraudulent elections are greater when the level of state repression is moderate with a possible backlash effect of high repression, when the opposition is united, and when international monitors denounce election results. The analysis only partially supports the benefit of protest argument. Also, the research uses case studies from Eurasia (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, and Russia) and mini-case studies from Africa and Latin America to study in more detail the effects of the factors identified in the quantitative analysis and to identify overlooked but important explanatory factors using a set of extensive interviews conducted in the United States and during fieldwork in Armenia, Georgia, and Russia with politicians, domestic and international election monitors, and country experts.

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This thesis aims to address how COVID-19 restrictions affected dissent events in autocracies and electoral autocracies. To do so relies on the combination of the grievances and resource mobilization theories. During the COVID-19 pandemic, autocracies and electoral autocracies have implanted restrictive civil liberties policies justified by the necessity to reduce the spread of the virus and the challenging situation. These policies have affected people’s lives and dissent events. The study found a negative relationship between the COVID-19 restrictions and dissent in 2020 compared to 2021. To test this relationship, I used the V-dem v11.1 dataset. Since I wanted to get a bigger picture of the relationship, I used the results of the LNA to select a typical case among countries in Southeast-East Asia. I relied on the Philippines case to test the causal mechanism theorized and tested whether the negative relationship was in place. The results showed that the number of protests in the Philippines decreased in 2020 and 2021 compared to 2019. Using the ACLED dataset, I found that grievances and ICT mobilization were present without leading to an increase in dissent events. Additionally, while ACLED accounted for a digital form of protest, V-dem v11.1 did not. This result leads me to conclude that the results from the LNA might be subjected to a measurement error. Further research is thus required to address the relationship better.

This comparative analysis explores the state repression experienced by The Black Panther Party, which was active mainly during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the currently biggest movement for racial equality in the US, the Movement for Black Lives. Using Conflict Theory and Critical Race Theory the research asks two research questions: How has state repression changed from the Black Panther Party to the Movement for Black Lives? and What are possible explanations for this change? This thesis aims to shed light on state repression in relation to movements focused on black rights and equality. The findings of this research are in line with conflict theory, and supportive of racial threat perspective as a theoretical framework. The thesis concludes that state repression of black dissent has changed in multiple aspects, such as police violence, legislative measure, surveillance, and media framing, yet is still prevalent and harmful to social movements.