Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LOOPS (The Logistics of Popular Uprisings)
Reporting period: 2023-04-01 to 2025-09-30
LOOPS focuses on analysing the logistics of protest camps in autocratic regimes. At the core of the project are questions concerning the organization of basic infrastructure (such as soup kitchens, toilets, and medical care) as well as additional services (like art projects, recreational or religious activities), and their impact on the legitimacy and success of protests as well as on processes of democratization or autocratic stability. The project follows an innovative mixed-methods approach, combining new data sources with online fieldwork, interviews, and on-site research, as well as surveys in sensitive contexts, and qualitative image analysis. LOOPS engages with an important gap in social movement research by offering the first systematic analysis of the logistics of large-scale protests and long-term protest camps under authoritarian conditions. By knowing more about the backstage of protests against autocratic regimes, we will better understand the effect this has on the legitimacy and the subsequent success of a transition. With its novel methodological approach, the project will be situated at the forefront of currently available research methods.
Dataset:
It is a huge challenge to build and maintain a protest camp, especially in autocratic regimes. This includes a number of tasks as setting up barricades, providing portable toilets, organizing food and other supplies. These are essential activities to keep a protest camp running. Even if the set up and infrastructure of a camp is temporary, it reflects the urgency and determination of those who protest. Our aim is to systematically collect information about the basic and auxiliary logistics we find in protest camp around the world. Thus, the creation of the LOOPS dataset is the first core objective of the research group. Despite technical challenges and a shifting social media landscape, we developed a first dataset of protest camp logistics in autocracies. The foundation of a standardized yet representative dataset, built upon the coding of thousands of social media images by a diverse research team, lies in a thorough coder training, a strong emphasis on inter-coder reliability, continuous supervision of coders, and the use of a comprehensive coding handbook. We will release the dataset in a transdisciplinary workshop and invite practitioners, journalists, and scholars to introduce the dataset. The event will include several interactive sessions and will be led by a moderator and a data visualization journalist.
Custom Coding Platform:
Our coding platform 'LOOPS: Image Coding' was developed in R using R Shiny App. It allows the systematic coding of protest images shared on social media. It guides coders through a structured process and stores the input provided efficiently.
Papers
The first paper based on the dataset examines how protest camp infrastructure influences protest participation of vulnerable groups. We find that a professionalized camp logistic (i.e. toilet, food, medical aid) significantly increases participation – more so than other factors like the time of day do. In addition, we work on papers that examine protest through different dimensions, trying to understand sustained mobilization or link emotional discourse to protest violence and engage with elite conflict as a key determinant of camp infrastructure.
It is a huge challenge to build and maintain a protest camp, especially in autocratic regimes. This includes a number of tasks as setting up barricades, providing portable toilets, organizing food and other supplies. These are essential activities to keep a protest camp running. Even if the set up and infrastructure of a camp is temporary, it reflects the urgency and determination of those who protest. Our aim is to systematically collect information about the basic and auxiliary logistics we find in protest camp around the world. Thus, the creation of the LOOPS dataset is the first core objective of the research group. Despite technical challenges and a shifting social media landscape, we developed a first dataset of protest camp logistics in autocracies. The foundation of a standardized yet representative dataset, built upon the coding of thousands of social media images by a diverse research team, lies in a thorough coder training, a strong emphasis on inter-coder reliability, continuous supervision of coders, and the use of a comprehensive coding handbook. We will release the dataset in a transdisciplinary workshop and invite practitioners, journalists, and scholars to introduce the dataset. The event will include several interactive sessions and will be led by a moderator and a data visualization journalist.
Custom Coding Platform:
Our coding platform 'LOOPS: Image Coding' was developed in R using R Shiny App. It allows the systematic coding of protest images shared on social media. It guides coders through a structured process and stores the input provided efficiently.
Papers
The first paper based on the dataset examines how protest camp infrastructure influences protest participation of vulnerable groups. We find that a professionalized camp logistic (i.e. toilet, food, medical aid) significantly increases participation – more so than other factors like the time of day do. In addition, we work on papers that examine protest through different dimensions, trying to understand sustained mobilization or link emotional discourse to protest violence and engage with elite conflict as a key determinant of camp infrastructure.
Our research offers a new perspective on social movements and contentious politics in autocratic regimes with a focus on the often-overlooked logistics behind protest camps. By exploring the so-called backstage of protest movements, we aim to better understand how protest camps are organized and sustained as well as how such camps influence the legitimacy of protest events, possible democratic transition or autocratic stability. With this, we contribute to both social movement studies as well as research on autocratic stability.
Methodologically, we follow an innovative mixed-methods approach. LOOPS uses image analysis as a new and promising method for collecting data on protest. This places the project at the forefront of methodological innovations in social movement research. We conduct a large-scale analysis of logistics in protest camps under autocracy resulting in a cross-national dataset. This dataset is based on images gathered from social media and systematically analyzed through a qualitative image analysis. We are setting up the dataset to allow for a future seamless application and the development of an automated analysis. We combine this new data source with online fieldwork, qualitative interviews, and surveys in sensitive contexts.
Conceptually, we introduce a new idea of professionalization of protest camp infrastructure. We define it as the development of effective systems to meet the camp's essential need. We also work on a theoretical framework that connects different needs to successful protest camps mobilization and how emotions, protest mobilization, and infrastructure are connected.
With our two main goals of creating a comprehensive empirical database and several innovative conceptual frameworks on protest camp infrastructure and mobilization, we contribute to social movement studies and research on autocratic stability. This will help us to understand how protest camps evolve, respond to threats, manage resources, and impact success and legitimacy of protest.
Methodologically, we follow an innovative mixed-methods approach. LOOPS uses image analysis as a new and promising method for collecting data on protest. This places the project at the forefront of methodological innovations in social movement research. We conduct a large-scale analysis of logistics in protest camps under autocracy resulting in a cross-national dataset. This dataset is based on images gathered from social media and systematically analyzed through a qualitative image analysis. We are setting up the dataset to allow for a future seamless application and the development of an automated analysis. We combine this new data source with online fieldwork, qualitative interviews, and surveys in sensitive contexts.
Conceptually, we introduce a new idea of professionalization of protest camp infrastructure. We define it as the development of effective systems to meet the camp's essential need. We also work on a theoretical framework that connects different needs to successful protest camps mobilization and how emotions, protest mobilization, and infrastructure are connected.
With our two main goals of creating a comprehensive empirical database and several innovative conceptual frameworks on protest camp infrastructure and mobilization, we contribute to social movement studies and research on autocratic stability. This will help us to understand how protest camps evolve, respond to threats, manage resources, and impact success and legitimacy of protest.