Protests in Russia since 2018
Philip Strecker
2021-03-28
1 Introduction
In Light of the current war in Ukraine, Anti-War Protests have broken
out all throughout Russia (“Russia Criminalizes
Independent War Reporting,
Anti-War Protests”
2022; “Protests Across
Russia See Thousands Detained” 2022).
Nevertheless, scale and number of protests in other western countries
have been significantly larger (“Protests Ring Out in
Europe Demanding End to Ukraine
Invasion” 2022; Fidler
2022). While this could be attributed to the different public
information about and opinion of the conflict, media coverage and videos
posted on social media show violent repercussions by the Russian police
force and record breaking numbers of arrests are reported(Reuters
2022). At the same time, the Kremlin has initiated a
nationwide internet crackdown against western media and is tightening
control over russian media, spinning war mongering and human rights
abuses as liberation and “denazification”.
This study will evaluate whether the aggression against protesters seen
recently is the continuation of an ongoing trend of Russian population
control. Therefore, data about protests provided by The Armed Conflict
Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) will be used to contextualize
current events. Specifically, I will answer whether governmental
intervention of protests has risen over the past 4 years. Further, I
will give insight into the freedom to demonstrate and voice opinions in
the past 4 years by differentiating Russia from other European countries
in terms of protest frequency and handling.
2 Background
Russia invaded Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022. While the
conflict inflicts unimaginable human suffering in Ukraine, the actions
of the Russian government against citizens protesting against the war
serves as a reminder of the lack freedom of expression in Russia.
Nevertheless, this has not always been the case. In 2011 during large
scale election protests in Russia, the government did not use excessive
force against protesters and even allowed media coverage across
state-owned news networks (Koesel and Bunce 2012). Since
then, Putins’ authoritarian government has remodeled the state media
system to limit access to regime-critical information to make opposition
less likely (Litvinenko and Toepfl
2019). In early 2021, after Navalny’s revelations about
Putins Palace, the police answered protests with force and detention
(Skiperskikh 2021).
3 Methods
Data used is provided by the The Armed Conflict Location & Event
Data Project (ACLED), an US american non-profit funded by western
governments.
I will analyze trends of protest occurrence and handling in Russia and
differentiate them from other European countries. For this, Germany,
France and Sweden are used as western aligned examples of countries with
very little protest restrictions. Poland, Hungary and Ukraine are used
as Post-Soviet western aligned examples and Belarus is used as a country
closely aligned with the Kremlin. Overall, this should represent a
reasonably differentiated sample of European treatment of protests. Data
for Ukraine, Belarus and Russia is available between 1st of march 2018
and the 19th of March 2022. For all other countries data is only
available starting 1st of January 2020. For the analysis, the total
number if incidents per week are used.
3.1 Hypothesis
Since 2018, the amount of hostility against protesters in Russia has generally increased.
Russian protesters face a higher level of hostility from police than protesters in other regions of Europe.
4 Results
4.1 Data Preperation
Set up data for analysis and plotting.
dat <- mutate(dat, better_event_date = as.Date(dat$event_date, format = "%d %B %Y", tz = "UTC",
optional = FALSE))
dat <- mutate(dat, monthyear_event_date = floor_date(dat$better_event_date, "week"))
# new_dat <- group_by(dat, format(better_event_date,"%m%y"))
#
new <- ddply(dat, .(monthyear_event_date, event_type, sub_event_type, year, iso3), nrow) %>%
dplyr::rename(num_incidents = V1)
# create df with only protests
df_protests <- new %>%
filter(event_type == 'Protests') %>%
mutate(key = paste(iso3, monthyear_event_date, sep=""))# Create temp df with key for later join
output_df <- as.data.frame(df_protests %>%
group_by(iso3, monthyear_event_date) %>%
summarize_if(is.integer, sum))# Join df_protests and output_df as a new df to enable ratio graphing
joined_df <- merge(x = df_protests, y = output_df, by = c("iso3", "monthyear_event_date"), suffix = c("_specific", "_total")) %>%
mutate(ratio = (num_incidents_specific / num_incidents_total)*100)
joined_df_force <- joined_df %>%
filter(sub_event_type == "Excessive force against protesters")
joined_df_inter <- joined_df %>%
filter(sub_event_type == "Protest with intervention")
joined_df_inter_RU <- joined_df_inter%>%
filter(iso3 == "RUS")
joined_df_inter_RU_no_outliers <- joined_df_inter%>%
filter(num_incidents_specific < 25)
joined_df_no_outliers <- joined_df%>%
filter(num_incidents_total < 250)
joined_df_RU <- joined_df%>%
filter(iso3 == "RUS")4.2 Data Analysis: Russia
summary(joined_df_inter_RU$num_incidents_specific) # Summary Statistics for amount of protests with government intervention in Russia## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
## 1.000 2.000 3.000 6.162 5.000 134.000summary(joined_df_inter_RU$num_incidents_total) # Summary Statistics for total amount of protests in Russia## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
## 3.00 17.75 25.50 32.27 39.25 206.00ggplot(data=joined_df_RU, mapping=aes(x=monthyear_event_date, y=num_incidents_specific, color=sub_event_type))+
geom_point() +
theme_minimal(base_size = 15)+
geom_smooth(formula = y ~ x, method=lm) +
labs(y="Total number of Protests",
x="",
caption="Fig 1 Russia: Total number of peaceful and violent protests per country")
ggplot(data=joined_df_inter_RU, mapping=aes(x=monthyear_event_date, y=num_incidents_specific, color=sub_event_type))+
geom_line() +
theme_minimal(base_size = 15)+
geom_smooth(formula = y ~ x, method=lm) +
labs(y="Protests with government intervention",
x="",
caption="Fig 2 Russia: Number of Protests with government intervention")
To answer whether Protests in Russia have faced increasing amounts of
governmental scrutiny, I first plot the three main kinds of protests in
the ACLED data set: peaceful protests, protests with intervention and
protests with excessive use of force by the government (Figure 1). This
gives an understanding of the development of the monthly occurring
incidents since 2018. It shows that the number of Protests with
government intervention has been rising in the past 4 years, while the
number slightly peaceful protests in declining slightly. A the same
time, the use of excessive force is stable.
In Figure 2 showing Protests with governmental intervention in Russia,
large spikes in government intervention can be seen in 2018, during
protests against corruption and pension reform, 2021 during protests
against the imprisonment subsequent health problems of Alexei Nawalny
and in 2022 with during anti-war protests. Outside of these spikes, the
amount of government intervention in protests appears to be marginal.
Therefore, it is clear over the last four years, the increase in
hostility towards protesters in not general, but driven by protests
about specific political problems: against corrupt government reform, in
support of political opposition and the opposition of war.
Looking at the data after removing outliers above 25 incidents per week
in Figure 3, we can see that the trend of total government intervention
of protests appears to be stable outside of the discussed spikes.
Further, looking at the percentage of protests intervened with including
outliers in Figure 4, it is apparent that the trend not clearly
increasing. At the same time the previously discussed spikes appear
again. Therefore, not only the number of total incidents, but also the
probability of government intervention during protests of the specific
political problems listed is increased, while the overall hostility of
the Russian government was stable over the past 4 years.
ggplot(data=joined_df_inter_RU_no_outliers, mapping=aes(x=monthyear_event_date, y=num_incidents_specific, color=sub_event_type))+
geom_line() +
theme_minimal(base_size = 15)+
geom_smooth(formula = y ~ x, method=lm) +
labs(y="Protests with government intervention",
x="",
caption="Fig 3 Russia: Number of Protests with government intervention without outliers above 25 incidents per week")
ggplot(data=joined_df_inter_RU, mapping=aes(x=monthyear_event_date, y=ratio, color=sub_event_type))+
geom_line() +
theme_minimal(base_size = 15)+
geom_smooth(formula = y ~ x, method=lm) +
labs(y="Percentage of Protests intervened",
x="",
caption="Fig 4 Russia: Number of Protests with government intervention")
An additional dimension can be added to this analysis by relating the number of total protests with the percentage of protests being intervened by the government as a linear model (Fig 5). This thereby checks to which degree an increased amount of demonstrations lead to higher levels of government interventions. In particular, this model shows that the number of overall protests does not increase the amount of intervention. Therefore, the amount of repression of protests is not simply a reaction to mounting pressure or increased activity by protesters.
ggplot(data=joined_df_inter_RU, mapping=aes(x=num_incidents_total, y=ratio)) +
geom_point() +
geom_smooth(formula = y ~ x, method=lm) +
theme_minimal()+
labs(x="Number of Protests",
y="Percentage of Protests intervened",
caption="Fig 5 Russia: Relationship between number of protests and number of government interventions")
##
## Call:
## lm(formula = ratio ~ num_incidents_total, data = joined_df_inter_RU)
##
## Residuals:
## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
## -24.150 -11.075 -4.752 4.819 72.152
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 14.63873 1.88993 7.746 4.52e-13 ***
## num_incidents_total 0.08394 0.04566 1.838 0.0675 .
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## Residual standard error: 16.9 on 202 degrees of freedom
## Multiple R-squared: 0.01645, Adjusted R-squared: 0.01158
## F-statistic: 3.379 on 1 and 202 DF, p-value: 0.0675Overall, this shows that the first hypothesis (1) has to be rejected. The amount of hostility against protesters has not generally increased over the past four years. Rather, the Kremlin only reacts with force against protests about specific topics. In the past four years, these topics were corrupt reform of pension system, Alexei Nawalnys political opposition and the opposition of war. Besides these topics, intervention during protests remains stable regardless of scale of protests.
4.3 Data Analysis: Russia in European Context
First, I visualize the total amount of protests within given
countries over the past years (Fig 6). There were a total of 4 weeks
with more than 300 protests. One in Hungary at the end of 2020, one in
France in the beginning of 2021 and two in Germany in early 2022. These
were excluded for plotting to increase the visibility within the plot
and are of little significance for the comparison at hand. Overall, the
plot shows that France and Germany see by far the most protests and
highest increase in such activity. Additionally, the number of protests
in Belarus has been rising since 2018 and in Hungary and Sweden since
2020. The number of protests in Russia remains stable.
ggplot(data=joined_df_no_outliers, mapping=aes(x=monthyear_event_date, color=iso3,y=num_incidents_total))+
geom_point() +
facet_grid(scales = "free") +
theme_minimal(base_size = 15)+
geom_smooth( method="lm") +
labs(y="Total number of Protests",
x="",
caption="Fig 6: Total number of peaceful and violent protests per country")## `geom_smooth()` using formula = 'y ~ x'
Next, in Figure 7 the number of total protests with excessive use of force against protesters and governmental intervention are shown. Excessive violence against protesters is rare, therefore trend lines are very susceptible to single events. This can be seen here with highly violent protests in Belarus in the end of 2020 and ones in Ukraine during the war in 2022. Nevertheless, we can see that Russia uses excessive violence against protesters most frequently in the sample, only rivaled by Belarus.
ggplot(data=joined_df_force,mapping=aes(x=monthyear_event_date, y=iso3,size=num_incidents_specific)) +
geom_count() +
facet_grid(scales = "free") +
theme_minimal(base_size = 15)+
labs(y="Protests with violence",
x="",
caption="Fig 7: Total number protests´with excessive violence against protesters per country")
In Figure 8, the percentage of protests with intervention is shown in relation to the total number of protests. It shows that Russia has the highest stable likelyhood of government intervention. At the same time, protests were more likely to be intervened in Hungary until mid 2021 and Belarus until the end of 2020. Today, Russia has the highest likelyhood of government intervention of Protests in the sample, with record high percentages of intervention during the conflict with ukraine.
ggplot(data=joined_df_inter, mapping=aes(x=monthyear_event_date, color=iso3,y=ratio)) +
geom_point() +
facet_grid(scales = "free") +
theme_minimal(base_size = 15)+
geom_smooth(formula = y ~ x, method=lm, se = FALSE)+
labs(y="Percentage of Protests intervented",
x="",
caption="Fig 8: Percentage of protests with government intervention per country")
Putting the relationship between number of protests and total amount of
protests into international context in Figure 9, it can be seen, that
Russia is the only Nation where the percentage of government
intervention does not fall with the amount of protests seen. The outcome
of this can be seen in Figure 10, which shows the total number of
protest interventions related to number of protests. It shows that
Russia overall has by far the highest number of Protests with government
intervention in the sample.
ggplot(data=joined_df_inter, mapping=aes(x=num_incidents_total, color=iso3, y=ratio)) +
geom_point() +
geom_smooth(formula = y ~ x, method=lm) +
theme_minimal()+
labs(x="Number of Protests",
y="Percentage of Protests with government intervention",
caption="Fig 9: Relationship between number of protests and percentage of protests with government interventions")
ggplot(data=joined_df_inter, mapping=aes(x=num_incidents_total, color=iso3, y=num_incidents_specific)) +
geom_point() +
geom_smooth(formula = y ~ x, method=lm) +
theme_minimal()+
labs(x="Number of Protests",
y="Number of Protests with government intervention",
caption="Fig 10: Relationship between number of protests and number of protests with government interventions")
5 Discussion
The right to freedom of expression is one of the most fundamental
human rights we have. It is the basis of our ability to communicate,
share ideas, and express our opinions. Despite its importance, freedom
of expression is perhaps the most commonly violated right in the world.
In Russia, the government has shut down independent news outlets,
censored social media, and made it a crime to protest against an ongoing
humanitarian crisis caused by the Kremlin. This is a new chapter of
repression by the Russian government against its people. Nevertheless,
the data used here does not support the idea that his is part of a
general trend. As also shown by (Jones 2022), instead of
intervening with protests in general, the Kremlin mostly inhibits
Protests related to specific events. Relating to the current conflict,
his report further states, that intervention of anti-war protests in
Russia rose to 95%, while they remained without intervention in 98% of
cases outside the country.
In comparison to other European countries used in this study, the
Russian government has shown a higher tendency of intervening with
protests and uses excessive force more regularly since 2018.
6 Conclusion
The development of the Russian governments intervention in protests between 2018 and 2022 was analysed and compared to a diverse group of other European countries. This shows that protest intervention levels remained stable outside of three significant movements: against corrupt government reform in 2018, in support of Nawalnys political opposition in 2021 and the opposition of war in 2022. In the European context, the level of intervention against protesters and use of excessive force is the highest, only rivaled by its close political ally Belarus. While these findings are not surprising, it is notable that the Kremlin’s crackdown of protests is not generalized, but only focuses on certain issues. Nevertheless, the situation is changing at a rapid paste during the ongoing war, with reforms taking place in the country to minimize peoples exposure to western media, ability to voice opinions and form independent opinions. The increasing hostility against citizens with opinions diverging from the governments narrative is poised to exacerbate the situation.