NES Center for the Study of Diversity and Social Interactions and HSE International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development are happy to invite you to our joint meeting of the Research Seminar on Diversity and Development and HSE Seminar on Political Economy.
Lauren E. Young (University of California, Davis) will present her paper “Repression and dissent in moments of uncertainty: Panel data evidence from Zimbabwe’s 2018 election”.
Registration: till noon of March 16, link to video-conference will be sent up to 5 p.m.
Abstract:
One in five elections between 1990 and 2015 was preceded by government harassment of the opposition, and one in seven was followed by post-election protests or riots. Are people who are exposed to such repression demobilized, or does repression increase some individuals’ grievances or resolve? When individuals see others expressing dissent, are they more or less likely to also participate? This paper draws on unique panel data from the months spanning Zimbabwe’s 2018 election, during which citizens experienced unexpected acts of state repression and opposition protest. Using a two-way fixed effects model, we assess how citizens’ dissent intentions change after exposure to repression and dissent events both locally and through social media, and measure three types of individual-level mechanisms that are hypothesized to drive decision-making about dissent. We find evidence that exposure to both repression and dissent is mobilizing for opposition and non-partisan citizens. We find evidence for different mechanisms for repression and dissent events: our evidence on dissent is in line with basic information updating, while for repression relational and emotional mechanisms may mobilize citizens despite increased perceived costs of dissent. For ruling party supporters, we find that dissent events lead to counter-mobilization, and that exposure to repression has little effect. Local repression and dissent events are consistently more strongly related to dissent intentions than social media exposure. Our findings contribute to existing debates about the effectiveness of repression, while providing new insights into individuals make decisions during periods of contentious mobilization.