This research examines the ways in which authoritarian systems negatively characterize protestors in order to protect their own legitimacy and justify the use of harsh repression. While research has examined how social movements articulate their grievances, this study will make a contribution by analyzing how repressive systems frame their messages and the implications those frames have for citizens. This project focuses on the historical case of popular resistance to a 1953 currency reform in Czechoslovakia, one of the first uprisings against Communism in the Eastern Bloc.
This project will draw upon extensive examination of archival legal documents and in-depth interviews with protest participants, to analyze how characterizations of protesters served to legitimate state interests and influence repression. The findings will have relevance for understanding how other authoritarian systems have historically repressed citizens and quashed public protest. The research will result in the creation of large data sets that will be available to educators, scholars, and the public via the Internet. This study has important educational impacts, as its findings will contribute to the development of college level courses in sociology and history, and it will provide hands-on training in research and collaborative opportunities with the principal investigator for students at North Carolina State University.
