March 10, 2021 | Noon to 1:00 PM EST
Lauren Young (University of California – Davis)
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During periods of potential political opening, citizens experience repression and dissent events. Are people who are exposed to 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 a unique panel dataset 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 that exposure to both repression and dissent is mobilizing for opposition and non-partisan citizens. We find evidence for different types of 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 how individuals make decisions during periods of contentious mobilization.