At What Cost? The Strategic and Moral Dilemmas of Anti-Authoritarian Struggle

This research bridges the fields of social movements, cultural sociology, political sociology, and peace studies to contribute two frameworks to the study of social movements: a framework of activism styles and a framework of dilemmas. Drawing on 102 semi-structured interviews, over eight months of participant observation, 131 survey responses, and content analysis of over 9000 documents, I examine the case of the Bogaziçi student movement in Turkey. During a period of democratic backsliding between 2021-2023, the Bogaziçi movement mobilized for a broad range of social justice causes, including racial and ethnic justice, the safety and rights of women and LGBTQ+ people, housing rights, and fair labor compensation. In the face of police brutality and the threat of criminal prosecution under anti-terrorism laws, the Bogaziçi movement split into two factions with similar demographics but different activism styles. One faction adopted confrontational strategies, believing that they had to pay the necessary price for social change if they were going to succeed against an oppressive regime. The other faction adopted playful strategies, prioritizing safety and expression of joy in the face of a regime that restricted most aspects of life. I argue that organizers’ different approaches to (1) political risk, (2) movement audience, and (3) power distribution constituted distinct activism styles under repression. Additionally, I show how political uncertainty driven by democratic backsliding posed four intertwined dilemmas regarding the effectiveness and ethics of (1) recruiting protest participants, (2) the responsibility of protest leaders for participant safety, (3) internal decision-making hierarchies, and (4) cultivating a public image. Students navigated these dilemmas differently, reinforcing the differences between the confrontational and playful activism styles. Simultaneously, I show how parents of young activists grappled with (1) striking a balance between influencing their children versus facilitating their independence, and (2) teaching their children to stand against injustice while ensuring their safety and flourishing. By utilizing family member interviews, a method novel for social movements research, I juxtapose young activists’ accounts of their own political socialization with their parents’, siblings’, and grandparents’ accounts of the family history. This allows me to discern young people’s strategic and moral choices at the intersection of intergenerational transmission and generational shifts. Overall, my dissertation finds that young people’s diverse activism styles were shaped by narrative and experiential influences as well as network effects channeled through (1) families and extended social circles, (2) global popular culture, (3) social and political organizations, and (4) physical proximity to political activity. The case of Bogaziçi offers a rare opportunity to scrutinize variation in meaning-making processes within the same political field. This research develops an interdisciplinary and multi-method approach to the tension between safety and maintaining an uncompromising front in the struggle for democracy and social justice.