Citizen Action and Elite Responses

• In Event: Poster Session: Democracy & Autocracy

Abstract

Mass protests are often linked to regime change through protests spurring popular revolutions or even coups d'état. We theorize and examine other salient channels through which mass protests bring about regime change. Specifically, we detail how incumbent elites sometimes respond to mass protests by altering the regime in a controlled manner to diffuse threats and pre-empt extra-constitutional takeover by non-incumbents. Moreover, leaders may use mass protests (particularly violent ones) as windows of opportunity to transform the regime into one that they prefer over the status quo, for instance via a self-coup. We test implications from our argument by leveraging recent data on modes of regime breakdown, including incumbent-led transitions of different kinds. When combining these data with existing global data on opposition campaigns, with time series back to 1900, we find that, overall, organized and sustained mass protest is clearly associated with (subsequent) incumbent-led transitions. When disaggregating, non-violent protests are associated with different categories of incumbent-led transitions, including democratizing ones. In contrast, violent protests typically precede only non-democratizing transitions. Our findings thus suggest that non-violent opposition is a crucial component in successful campaigns for democracy, also absent revolution; non-violent protest often influences incumbent elites to liberalize their regimes via a guided transition.

Author

• Vilde Lunnan Djuve, University of Oslo