The Dynamics of Oil Subsidy Cuts and Protests in Iran, 2019

• In Event: 2019: Year of Revolutionary Potential

Abstract

In November 2019 a short wave of protests swept through Iran, as the government suddenly increased gas prices in the country. The protests were geographically widespread and were faced with violent government repression, resulting in more than 300 deaths in about a week. Such waves of protest in response to subsidy cuts are indeed common in global south countries. More particularly, the eruption of protest is also common in oil-producing countries, when they cut on fuel subsidies. The literature about rentier states maintains two different conclusions about the political effects of oil production. First, oil revenues enhance the resilience of authoritarian regimes. Second, oil-producing countries are more likely to witness the eruption of armed insurgency. The relationship between oil extraction and unarmed forms of protest is less explored in this literature. To address this shortcoming, in this paper we focus on the subnational spread of these oil-related protests in Iran to examine the dynamics shaping these waves of protest related to oil subsidy cuts. We propose different hypotheses about the potential association between oil production, size of the public sector, health expenditure, education, and electoral turnout. Using repeated event history analysis, we test these hypotheses with our unique dataset of 2019 protests in Iran based on protest videos, official, and oppositional news agencies. Our results indicate that districts with longer history of oil extraction, larger proportion of public to private sector, higher level of education were more likely to witness higher levels of protest. These findings have important implications for studies of contentious politics in the global south.

Authors

• Mohammad Ali Kadivar, Boston College

• Vahid Abedini, Florida International University