Rise Up for Life - Mechanisms leading to the process in which the Christian and leftist social movement campaign Rise Up mobilises in Metro Manila against president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, in an increasingly illiberal democracy.

Abstract

This thesis aims to unravel what mechanisms facilitated or debilitated the mobilisation process of the Christian and leftist social movement campaign Rise Up in Metro Manila between May 2016 and May 2017, which contends President Duterte’s war on drugs in a climate of growing illiberalism in the Philippines. Studies of contentious politics in non-democracies have been neglected and therefore, this thesis aims to add to that growing body of literature. Furthermore, this thesis aims to ‘bring agency back in’, in response to the criticism of Jasper (2004) on the mechanisms-process approach, for leaning too much on the structuralist side. By making use of a protest events catalogue, three episodes of contention have firstly been described, secondly been decomposed by making use of the analytical concepts of political opportunity structures, strategic choice and making claims and thirdly, been reassembled. The mechanisms of repression, certification, boundary activation, attribution of similarity, boundary deactivation and co-optation have been found. Furthermore, I have proposed to identify ‘suppression’ and ‘incentive provision’ as mechanisms leading to the process of mobilisation.