Understanding Voter Turnout During Authoritarian Transition in Hong Kong

• In Event: Protests and Voting

Abstract

How does voter turnout propensity change in the face of authoritarian transition, regional assimilation, and democratic decay? Recent work suggests that to study contemporary forms of regional assimilation, scholars must account for Chinese “mainlandization.” Yet, while research shows that mainlandization drives activism such as protest, existing work is inconclusive about how constraining autonomy affects conventional electoral activity such as voter turnout. Expanding on theories of social identity and group threat, we argue that recent events surrounding the Extradition and National Security laws have ushered in an unparalleled era of blurring between Hong Kong and Mainland China. This unprecedented transition to authoritarianism has activated the relationship between mainlandization and voter turnout among Hong Kongers, the identity group under threat. We provide support for our theoretical expectations having fielded 3 original experiments, one before the events of the Extradition Law (Wave 1), another during the Extradition movement (Wave 2), and the last a week prior to the passing of the National Security Law (Wave 3). We find that while mainlandization had no effect on turnout propensity in Wave 1, Hong Kongers primed with mainlandization in the treatment relative to the control during Wave 2 were substantively more likely to report a higher likelihood of voting. The mobilizing effects of mainlandization on turnout propensity persisted in Wave 3. We conclude by noting a shift in the value of voting in an era defined by democratic decay.

Authors

• Nathan Kar Ming Chan, University of California, Irvine

• Lev Nachman