(iPoster) Economic Shocks and the Spatial Dynamics of Protest

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Protest, Repression, and Democratic Erosion & Peacebuilding, Conflict Resolution, and Post-Conflict Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Protest, Repression, and Democratic Erosion

Abstract

Economic shocks have a wide variety of political consequences. Among the most visible ones are protests, including violent protests, which often are an important antecedent of policy change and institutional reform. Despite strong anecdotal evidence, existing empirical research remains inconclusive or often finds only weak associations between economic indicators and protest incidence as well as escalation.

To explain these inconclusive findings, I argue that many broadly perceived economic shocks, such as trade and inflation shocks, have highly localized consequences for protest mobilization. Specifically, these shocks are more likely to trigger protest onset in regions with pre-existing economic and social vulnerabilities and where local industry composition transmits shocks across different population segments. Furthermore, I contend that an additional mechanism operates after protest activity starts. Ongoing protests are more prone to escalate into violence if regions also contain significant settlements of minorities, reflecting a scapegoating mechanism, whereby economic stress intensifies intergroup tensions and increases the likelihood of violent targeting.

Empirically, the article integrates multiple protest event databases with subnational data on economic conditions, industry linkages, and demographic composition across countries. It is well established that many protests diffuse across space, which makes it crucial to understand the determinants of protest onset, and why some regions within countries are more likely to be starting points for protests than others. Thus, I employ spatial regression models, covering the years between 2000 and 2024, to test the theoretical mechanisms while accounting for diffusion and spatial dependence across regions within countries. The results offer new insights into the complex and conditional relationship between economic shocks and the emergence as well as progression of protests.

Author

• Paul Binder, LMU Munich