Authors

Ekaterina Pierson¹;  ¹ UNIVERSITÉ LIBRE DE BRUXELLES, Belgium

Discussion

This presentation explores the radicalization processes among the Belarusian opposition using resource mobilization theory. Drawing on the case of the Belarusian post-2020 opposition, exiled in the EU and recognized by the West as a privileged interlocutor and “legitimate representative of the [Belarusian] people,” it identifies the stages of its radicalization in response to repression in Belarus and Russia’s aggression of Ukraine: peaceful approach, emphasis on self-defense, preparation for violent resistance. It explains each stage by the aggregation and maintenance of a “resource threshold.” It counts domestic/exile networks and Western allies as resources crucial for activism among the exiled opposition. It argues that different strategies (peaceful versus violent) were useful for achieving the resource threshold of the Belarusian opposition-in-exile depending on the domestic, host states’ and sponsor states’ political and geopolitical environments.