Dynamics of Repression and Mobilization:
The German Extreme Right in the 1990's
Author: Ruud Koopmans
Abstract
In spite of the centrality of the relationship between repression and mobilization to our understanding of state-movement interactions, the literature has not even come close to providing conclusive answers. A variety of competing models exist, each of which can claim some theoretical plausibility and empirical support. This inconclusiveness seems to derive from the general level of analysis in many studies and from insufficient empirical acknowledgement of the interative and dynamic nature of the repression-mobilization nexus. This paper aims to avoid these problems by presenting a detailed analysis of the interaction between the mobilization of the German extreme right and the different forms of repression that state authorities have reactively applied. Two types of repression-institutional and situational-and their impacts on two types of mobilization-violent and nonviolent-are distinguished and analyzed both cross-sectionally, by comparing sixteen German federal states, and diachronically, through a time-series analysis for the period 1990-1994. The results consistently show that the two types of repression have very different impacts on mobilization. Whereas situational police repression as a direct reaction to mobilization events had an escalating effect, more indirect, institutional repression such as bans of organizations and demonstrations or trials and court rulings against activists had a clear negative impact on the extreme right's level of mobilization. The article discusses several reasons for this relative effectiveness of institutional repression, including its greater degree of consistency and legitimacy as well as its preventive focus on mobilizing structures.
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