'Together we are strong' : exploring regional protest during moments of mass mobilisation in Ukraine and Belarus

During nationwide instances of mass mobilisation, what shapes subnational variation in where protest - and the repression of protest - occurs? And what can examining the drivers of this variation teach us about protest more broadly? When they occur, mass protests are usually concentrated in large urban centres. As such, much research on protest focuses on these events, often in capital cities. However, during some mass mobilisations, protests happen on a nationwide scale, in regional towns and cities across a given country. But, even in these cases, not all localities or even regions will mobilise. And, protest can be greeted with different responses at the local level. This article-based thesis examines in particular the role that different kinds of social networks play in shaping this geospatial variation during nationwide mass mobilisations. It explores how activist networks account for changes in the geospatial dispersion of protest over subsequent protest waves; how pre-existing networks facilitate early-rising mobilisation in certain localities; how different employment patterns and the workplace networks they create are associated with regional protest event frequency; and how the embeddedness of ruling-party networks at the local level shapes the repression of regional protest. This project examines two recent cases of nationwide mass mobilisation in eastern Europe: Ukraine's 2013-14 Euromaidan, and the 2020 Belarusian post-election protests. In both cases, the nationwide scale of mobilisation was unprecedented, but even so, not all cities rose. This thesis explores reasons why. It engages with and tests existing literature on the centrality of social networks to mass mobilisation, applying it to new cases, using innovative methods, and complimenting existing works by exploring how social networks influence mobilisation at the locality level. It also uncovers original knowledge about regional mobilisation in Ukraine and Belarus, vital to helping us better understand local resistance to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.