Political protest

2025

1. Political protest

   Yuequan Guo, Lisa Garbe, and Macartan Humphreys

   2025

   A set of projects examine how citizens engage in politics when formal channels fail. Thes include theoretical accounts, studies of strike action in China, and anti-government protests in Uganda.

2025

1. WP

   Political salience and regime resilience

   Sebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch, Steffen Huck, and Macartan Humphreys

   2025

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   We study a version of a canonical model of attacks against political regimes where agents have an expressive utility for taking political stances that is scaled by the salience of political decision-making. Increases in political salience can have divergent effects on regime stability depending on costs of being on the losing side. When regimes have weak sanctioning mechanisms, middling levels of salience can pose the greatest threat, as regime supporters are insufficiently motivated to act on their preferences and regime opponents are sufficiently motivated to stop conforming. Our results speak to the phenomenon of charged debates about democracy by identifying conditions under which heightened interest in political decision-making can pose a threat to democracy in and of itself.

   @unpublished{huck_2025,
     author = {Schweighofer-Kodritsch, Sebastian and Huck, Steffen and Humphreys, Macartan},
     title = {Political salience and regime resilience},
     year = {2025},
     status = {WP},
     proj = {protests},
     keywords = {democracy, theory, vertical contestations},
     proj.1 = {protests}
   }

2024

1. JPR

   Pulling through elections by pulling the plug: Internet disruptions and electoral violence in Uganda

   Lisa Garbe

   Journal of Peace Research, 2024

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   Does increasing Internet access and use challenge authoritarian elections? I argue that Internet access provides both opposition supporters and government authorities with new means to shape electoral conduct. Opposition supporters can use the Internet to report on electoral malpractice and mobilize for support. At the same time government authorities can use the Internet to monitor antiregime sentiment prior to the elections and disrupt Internet access to selectively repress regime opponents during the elections. Studying Uganda’s 2016 presidential elections, evidence from election monitoring and survey data suggests that electoral violence is significantly higher in opposition strongholds with greater Internet access prior to the Internet disruption and is targeted specifically at voters. Insights from qualitative interviews with politicians, journalists and activists underline that the disruption of Internet access indeed hindered opposition supporters to effectively challenge electoral malpractice. Overall, the results stress the important role that Internet access can play for opposition actors in authoritarian elections. At the same time, they highlight their susceptibility to manipulation by government authorities.

   @article{garbe_jpr_2024,
     author = {Garbe, Lisa},
     title = {Pulling through elections by pulling the plug: Internet disruptions and electoral violence in Uganda},
     journal = {Journal of Peace Research},
     year = {2024},
     pages = {842-857},
     publisher = {SAGE Publications Sage UK: London, England},
     status = {peer},
     proj = {protests, internet},
     keywords = {exclusion},
     proj.1 = {protests, internet}
   }

2. M

   Vermeintlich unpolitisch. Streiks in China folgen anderen Regeln als in nördlichen Industrieländern

   Yuequan Guo

   WZB-Mitteilungen, 2024

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   Ein Jahr hat Yuequan Guo in Industriebetrieben zweier Provinzen im Osten Chinas verbracht, um zu verstehen, wie Streiks unter den stren- gen Augen von Geschäftsführung und Regierung funktionieren. Die Formen sind andere als in den gut erforschten Industrieländern des Globalen Nordens, es unterscheiden sich Forderungen und Ergebnisse. Es wäre aber voreilig anzunehmen, Streiks schwacher Organisationen im starken Staat seien unpolitisch.

   @article{guo_m_2024,
     author = {Guo, Yuequan},
     title = {Vermeintlich unpolitisch. Streiks in China folgen anderen Regeln als in nördlichen Industrieländern},
     journal = {WZB-Mitteilungen},
     year = {2024},
     number = {2=Nr. 184},
     pages = {40-43},
     publisher = {WZB},
     status = {discussion},
     proj = {protests},
     keywords = {exclusion},
     proj.1 = {protests}
   }