Perceptions, Contagion, and Civil Unrest
This paper investigates the empirical relationship between citizens' perceptions of economic and political conditions and the incidence of nonviolent uprisings. Perceptions are measured by aggregating individual-level data from regional barome...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/721471601383865869/Perceptions-Contagion-and-Civil-Unrest http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34554 |
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okr-10986-345542022-09-20T00:12:51Z Perceptions, Contagion, and Civil Unrest Abi-Nassif, Christophe Islam, Asif Mohammed Lederman, Daniel CIVIL RESISTANCE CITIZEN PERCEPTIONS NONVIOLENT UPRISING CONFLICT DEMOCRACY PROTEST CONTAGION GOVERNANCE POLITICAL CONFLICT This paper investigates the empirical relationship between citizens' perceptions of economic and political conditions and the incidence of nonviolent uprisings. Perceptions are measured by aggregating individual-level data from regional barometer surveys. The main results show that negative perceptions of political conditions -- proxied by the share of the population that is generally dissatisfied with the way democracy works -- have a significant positive effect on the number of protests and strikes. Negative perceptions of economic conditions do not seem to be significantly related to the latter. This generally holds across a large sample of countries and is particularly the case for Western and Central European countries as well as high-income countries. In developing economies, however, social protests appear to be driven by dissatisfaction with economic and political conditions. The heterogeneous effects of perceptions on uprisings across geography and income groups, however, are not robust and susceptible to changes in estimators and model specification. In particular, the international contagion of protests eliminates this international heterogeneity, implying that the incidence of uprisings in nearby countries tends to generate protests at home through its effect on perceptions related to political conditions in high-income countries. Overall, the effect of perceptions about political conditions, along with protest contagion, is robust to the inclusion of numerous control variables that capture actual economic conditions and the quality of governance across countries. The results are also robust to the use of seemingly valid instrumental variables, alternative count-data estimators, and sample composition. 2020-10-01T17:31:28Z 2020-10-01T17:31:28Z 2020-09 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/721471601383865869/Perceptions-Contagion-and-Civil-Unrest http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34554 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9416 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Europe and Central Asia Europe |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English |
| topic |
CIVIL RESISTANCE CITIZEN PERCEPTIONS NONVIOLENT UPRISING CONFLICT DEMOCRACY PROTEST CONTAGION GOVERNANCE POLITICAL CONFLICT |
| spellingShingle |
CIVIL RESISTANCE CITIZEN PERCEPTIONS NONVIOLENT UPRISING CONFLICT DEMOCRACY PROTEST CONTAGION GOVERNANCE POLITICAL CONFLICT Abi-Nassif, Christophe Islam, Asif Mohammed Lederman, Daniel Perceptions, Contagion, and Civil Unrest |
| geographic_facet |
Europe and Central Asia Europe |
| relation |
Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9416 |
| description |
This paper investigates the empirical
relationship between citizens' perceptions of economic
and political conditions and the incidence of nonviolent
uprisings. Perceptions are measured by aggregating
individual-level data from regional barometer surveys. The
main results show that negative perceptions of political
conditions -- proxied by the share of the population that is
generally dissatisfied with the way democracy works -- have
a significant positive effect on the number of protests and
strikes. Negative perceptions of economic conditions do not
seem to be significantly related to the latter. This
generally holds across a large sample of countries and is
particularly the case for Western and Central European
countries as well as high-income countries. In developing
economies, however, social protests appear to be driven by
dissatisfaction with economic and political conditions. The
heterogeneous effects of perceptions on uprisings across
geography and income groups, however, are not robust and
susceptible to changes in estimators and model
specification. In particular, the international contagion of
protests eliminates this international heterogeneity,
implying that the incidence of uprisings in nearby countries
tends to generate protests at home through its effect on
perceptions related to political conditions in high-income
countries. Overall, the effect of perceptions about
political conditions, along with protest contagion, is
robust to the inclusion of numerous control variables that
capture actual economic conditions and the quality of
governance across countries. The results are also robust to
the use of seemingly valid instrumental variables,
alternative count-data estimators, and sample composition. |
| format |
Working Paper |
| author |
Abi-Nassif, Christophe Islam, Asif Mohammed Lederman, Daniel |
| author_facet |
Abi-Nassif, Christophe Islam, Asif Mohammed Lederman, Daniel |
| author_sort |
Abi-Nassif, Christophe |
| title |
Perceptions, Contagion, and Civil Unrest |
| title_short |
Perceptions, Contagion, and Civil Unrest |
| title_full |
Perceptions, Contagion, and Civil Unrest |
| title_fullStr |
Perceptions, Contagion, and Civil Unrest |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Perceptions, Contagion, and Civil Unrest |
| title_sort |
perceptions, contagion, and civil unrest |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2020 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/721471601383865869/Perceptions-Contagion-and-Civil-Unrest http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34554 |
| _version_ |
1764481150191927296 |