9. Regimes, Repression, Repertoires: Student Protest Movements and the Repertoires of Contention in the Philippines and Indonesia

The literature on the repression–dissent nexus shows us that: (a) autocrats are innovative in terms of how their regimes deal specifically with different forms of collective action; (b) one such indicator of this innovation is that repression is no longer a monopoly of the state; and (c) shifts and innovations in protest movement repertoires are a form of democratic innovation in response to state and private agent action. This chapter examines how repression and facilitation by state and private agents shape the choice of repertoire by movements over cycles of contention. It compares the cases of student protest movements in the Philippines and Indonesia, both of which have been politically active since the 1960s. This chapter argues that when democracy is threatened by attempts to undermine it, student protest movements are oftentimes the vanguard of the opposition and are manifestations of a particular form of democratic backlash. Repertoires of student protest and how autocrats attempt to repress them share a dynamic relationship across cycles of contention and democratic backlash.