Medio socioeconómico

There is a large body of literature arguing that whether causes for political instability are framed as greed, grievances, deprivation or opportunities and costs, these approaches are too simplistic especially when the unemployed and their supposed struggles are considered.

Firstly, instead of driving people to protest or to other activities, it is pointed out that unemployment causes passivity and resignation. Kieselbach et al. describe that among European youth, unemployment has led to stigmatisation, those who try to find a job can be blamed for their inability in succeeding to find one, and those who do not try are blamed for misusing the welfare system. In addition the young unemployed have reported passivity, boredom, depression and feelings of interiority (Kieselbach et al. 2001: 67–68).

Unemployment can also risk young people’s overall integration into society (Kieselbach et al.

2001: 24). If public opinion and elected officials consider unemployment to be a personal fault of an individual, the protests of the unemployed lack legitimacy (Chabanet & Faniel 2011: 392–393). Stigmatisation has been considered one of the most important obstacles for the collective action of the unemployed (Perry & Reiss 2011: 32).

Secondly, to think that the employed are wealthy and happy and the unemployed are deprived and unhappy might be both simplistic and western mindset. Even in Finland the salary of some employed people is so low that they queue to get food aid (Huili 2015: 8). And if we think globally, there are millions of working poor, people who are employed but whose working conditions are so dreadful that it is likely to be no more difficult to recruit rebels and soldiers among them than among the unemployed (Cramer 2010: 17). There are also two aspects worth noting when discussing unemployment in the developing economies. As the definition of unemployment includes that an individual is looking for work, people who are without work and willing to work but are not looking for work are not classified as

unemployed. This might be the case in developing economies where people are largely self-employed. Alternatively people are maybe not looking for work because they consider job opportunities limited or they consider seeking work with conventional means useless, if most of the working opportunities are in the informal economy (World Bank 2015b). In addition, when in the developing countries state welfare benefits are mostly non-existent, people cannot

be unemployed in the sense we understand it, but people have to have some form of work to survive (United Nations 2004: 67; Cramer 2010: 15). These remarks related to the concept of unemployment in the developing economies also apply to some extent for the Arab countries.

Thirdly, collective identity is important in collective action such as protesting. As being unemployed is a transitory state and people often want to get rid of being unemployed we might ask, how the unemployed could identify with a group they do not wish to belong to (Klandermans 2011: 46). In addition, the unemployed are a socially heterogeneous group, they are men and women, young and old, educated and uneducated, rural and urban, and their only common denominator is that at the moment they do not have a job. The subgroup within the unemployed which has shared identity to a greater extent are the long-term unemployed.

But then again they are likely to suffer even more from stigmatisation, limited resources and the desocialising effects of unemployment (Chabanet & Faniel 2011: 394).

Fourthly, following Chabanet & Faniel, social movements are never spontaneous events. It is always required that there are actors who define and rationalise social action and raise awareness (Chabanet & Faniel 2011: 397). Although the Arab Spring protests have been labelled spontaneous time to time, this is not the whole truth. Gelvin reminds how the April 6 Movement among other organisations was coordinating the Egyptian uprisings. The

movement for example organised twenty-one marches to Tahrir Square instead of one, because one march could easily have been broken by the security forces. These tactics

Egyptian activists adopted from the Serbian youth movement Otpor, which had earlier headed the overthrow of the Serbian ruler Slobodan Milosevic (Gelvin 2012: 54–55). Chabanet &

Faniel emphasise that good relations with labour unions are crucial for the mobilisation of the unemployed, but labour unions rarely raise the situation of the unemployed to a priority. There are still notable differences between the labour unions in how they take the jobless into

consideration (Chabanet & Faniel 2011: 401–402). As Chabanet & Faniel, della Porta and Baglioni et al. stress that relations with various kinds of organisations—unions, secular and religious non-governmental organisations and political parties—play significant role in the emergence of the protests of the unemployed, without these relations mobilisation is far less likely (Baglioni et al. 2010: 161–167; della Porta 2010). According to Perry & Reiss,

following from the lack of organisation and employment in the informal sector, the sustained mobilisation of the unemployed rarely happens in the developing world (Perry & Reiss 2011: 35).

Fifth, the unemployed lack resources needed in protesting. Among others Schlozman &

Verba argue that even if certain preconditions for protests are fulfilled, preconditions

including a sense of economic dissatisfaction and the perceived idea of a problem being shared, the political mobilisation might not ensue without resources. By resources they mean money, political skills, but also leadership, organisational resources, communications

networks and at least some degree of solidarity (Schlozman & Verba 1979: 12–19). For a protest to emerge it is important that the organisers of the protest reach potential participants.

This is maybe not easy in the case of the unemployed, as their social networks are limited and the population of the unemployed is as heterogeneous as it is. Klandermans argues that because the unemployed lack resources, often the most deprived do not protest, but instead those somewhat better off do (Chabanet & Faniel 2011: 397; Klandermans 2011: 46). Krueger

& Malečková hypothesise that the same applies to terrorism as “terrorism resembles a violent form of political engagement”; those who have “enough education and income to concern themselves with more than minimum economic subsistence”, are more likely to engage in terrorism (Krueger & Malečková 2003: 142).

Further, protests most often do not provide employment opportunities to the protesters (Klandermans 2011: 55). Schlozman & Verba theorise that the unemployed can be expected to mobilise only if they feel that the government is responsible for their problems. If

individuals do not find that the government can or should help them we should not anticipate protests (Schlozman & Verba 1979: 13–14). In addition, Schlozman & Verba suggest that maybe it is more rational for the unemployed to devote their time and skills to finding work than to engage in political activities (Schlozman & Verba 1979: 351). This is linked with the so called free rider problem. Those who take part in protests against an authoritarian regime can be punished. On the other hand if some collective good is achieved by protesting, people will benefit from it regardless of whether they took part in the protest or not (Moore 1995:

417). As the goods which protests on unemployment aim (e.g. new jobs or better social benefits) are collective goods this will lead us to ask why any rational unemployed person would waste his or her time in protesting when free riding is an option (Lahusen 2013: 2).

This question can be asked even more emphatically in the case of authoritarian Arab states where protesting is risky indeed.

Finally, if a protest of the unemployed has surpassed all the problems mentioned above—a protest has been organised in the first place but also an unemployed person has overcome his or her stigma, believes that government is guilty for the unemployment status, is ready to identify with other unemployed, has heard about the protest through limited social networks, had found time and money to participate and has ignored the free rider problem—

there is still one thing. As Klandermans argues, the significant final step is to actually take

part. A study showed that 60 per cent of those who told that they were prepared to participate in a demonstration the following day still did not do so (Klandermans 2011: 48).

The following notions are more connected to why we might not assume unemployment to be a factor causing organised violence.

The only conceivable motivation for an individual to join groups that use violence is not money. Based on studies involving drug dealing gangs in the United States, Cramer argues that people have joined gangs, not because employment opportunities were not available, but because employment opportunities available were “demeaning, insecure, and exploitative”.

On the other hand people have joined drug gangs because of friends, solidarity, and respect which formal employment markets were not able to provide. All gang members did not even receive an income. Cramer suggests that there are emotional reasons for joining groups or organisations which use violence whether they are drug gangs, insurgent militias, police forces or army units. United States citizens volunteering for military service in Iraq were often from broken homes and had remote relationships with their own parents. Cramer describes that “the violence of war was also often viewed as redemption, a way out of drudgery or a way out of shallow consumerism” (Cramer 2010: 9–11). Based on different data sources Gutierréz-Sanín discusses the motivations people have given for why they joined the Colombian guerrilla movement FARC. Some recruited tell that they were promised good payment, but in FARC a salary is not paid except for some exceptional circumstances and the ornaments of the guerrillas are confiscated, too. Motivations to join are manifold; the allure of military life, getting a gun, which gives a sense of security but is also a symbol and a source of status, personal problems, the boredom and miseries of daily life, sexual harassment at home, belief that life as a guerrilla can provide training and an education, and some mentioned political ideologies as well (Gutierréz-Sanín 2008: 14, 17, 20–25).

Further, Berman et al. present three implicit assumptions under the logic that large numbers of unemployed should ease recruiting insurgents and thus increase the likelihood of organised violence.

"[Firstly,] participation in insurgency is a full-time occupation, in the sense that individuals cannot be legitimately employed and active insurgents at the same time.

[Secondly,] insurgency is a low-skill occupation so that creating jobs for the marginal unemployed reduces the pool of potential recruits. [And thirdly,] the supply of labor is a binding constraint on insurgent organizations.” (Berman et al. 2011: 497).

Berman et al. remind, that all three assumptions are in some contexts debatable.

As shown above, it is not so simple that the unemployed are deprived and frustrated and thus they start protesting. Instead, a bunch of other conditions should be taken into

consideration too. Similarly it seems that it is too simple to assume that the unemployed are deprived, frustrated and in need of money and so they start rebelling.

Berman et al. also present some relationships, in which higher unemployment could be connected to a lower level of political violence. The first they label rent capture or predation:

if violence is used to gain economic assets, the more wealth there is the more there is

something to expropriate by violence, and consequently the more violence there should be. At the same time more wealth is arguably connected to a lower level of unemployment, so we can expect more violence in the times and in the areas of lower unemployment rates.

Secondly, security measures (check points, road blocks and other means to restrict the movement of people and goods) are likely to increase security and reduce violence but they simultaneously disturb the economy and thus lead to an increase in unemployment.

Additionally, when the unemployment rate rises, citizens are more desperately in need of income and more willing to gain money by selling their information about insurgent activities.

Thus counterinsurgents get more information with the same budget and are better prepared to prevent insurgent attacks in times of higher unemployment. Lastly, if insurgence is considered as something people do by choice, possibly people start fighting when their basic needs are filled. This again rather suggests that an improved economic situation would lead to higher levels of violence at the same time when as it leads to lower levels of unemployment (Berman et al. 2011: 497–498, 501–502, 516). I think the same logic about basic needs might be

applied also in connection with protesting.

These four points by Berman et al., suggesting that higher unemployment might be linked to a lower level of political violence also highlight the fact that the relationship between unemployment and political violence is maybe not direct but can be more complex and include additional factors (such as security measures or trade of information about

insurgent activities) which affect both variables. Similarly in relation to protesting, Schlozman

& Verba note that people do not only protest when their own interests are at stake. Political action on unemployment can be taken by citizens who are not unemployed themselves.

Schlozman & Verba argue that unemployment as an issue has more impact on politics than the unemployed as a group do (Schlozman & Verba 1979: 20). These points are interesting and worth noting, but they will be given less attention in this thesis. This is because most of the theory presented is based on the premise that the unemployed themselves are those who

protest and revolt—or then do not. In addition, my research design is primarily intended to test whether the unemployed are more active protesters. Only based on the first research question can these indirect relationships between unemployment, protests and political violence be discussed.