Protests and the Arab Spring: An Empirical Investigation

Revolutions and Democracy

“…Indeed, democratic process is based on compromise, taking into account the interests of a large number of people and group of interests that can use unpopular methods of their opponent such as repression to win elections and remove an incumbent leader or elite. On the other hand, a higher level of political repression on the part of authorities provokes violence on the part of protestors that entails an increased likelihood of violent/armed insurrection due to the impossibility of using nonviolent/unarmed tactics (Regan & Norton, 2005), while in regimes with the relatively high level of freedoms the likelihood of nonviolent tactics increasing (Korotayev, Sawyer, Gladyshev et al, 2021;Massoud et al, 2019;. Hence, the more authoritarian the regime, the more intensively it uses violence to suppress protest.…”

“…For instance, Inglehart and Welzel (2005) claim that the explosive growth of wealth (using proxy through GDP per capita) is also generating a growing need for self-expression including political participation; and the expansion of markets and trade has always been a crucial factor in reducing violence due to the demand for nonviolent communication (Inglehart, Puranen, & Welzel 2015). So, higher well-being is associated with higher nonviolent protest activity, because economic development and the natural expansion of the middle class have led to a greater public interest in expanding political and civil liberties (Chenoweth & Ulfelder, 2017;Massoud, Doces, & Magee 2019). Researchers find robust evidence that GDP per capita is positively associated with nonviolent protests and negatively with violent destabilization (Dahl et al, 2020a;Gleditsch & Rivera, 2017;Korotayev, Vaskin, et al, 2018;Wimmer et al, 2009) and civil wars (Hegre & Sambanis, 2006).…”

Education and Revolutions: Why do Revolutionary Uprisings Take Violent or Nonviolent Forms?

“…For instance, Inglehart and Welzel (2005) claim that the explosive growth of wealth (using proxy 7 See, e.g., Goldstone 1991Goldstone 2002Goldstone 2017Korotayev et al 2011. through GDP per capita) is also generating a growing need for self-expression including political participation; and the expansion of markets and trade has always been a crucial factor in reducing violence due to the demand for nonviolent communication (Inglehart, Puranen and Welzel 2015). So, higher well-being is associated with higher nonviolent protest activity, because economic development and the natural expansion of the middle class have led to a greater public interest in expanding political and civil liberties (Chenoweth and Ulfelder 2017;Massoud, Doces and Magee 2019). Researchers find robust evidence that GDP per capita is positively associated with nonviolent protests and negatively with violent destabilization (Gleditsch and Rivera 2017;Korotayev, Vaskin and Bilyuga 2017;Korotayev et al 2018;Dahl et al 2020) and civil wars (Hegre and Sambanis 2006).…”

Education And Revolutions. Why Do Revolutionary Uprisings Take Violent Or Nonviolent Forms?

“…For instance, Inglehart and Welzel (2005) claim that the explosive growth of wealth (using proxy 7 See, e.g., Goldstone 1991Goldstone 2002Goldstone 2017Korotayev et al 2011. through GDP per capita) is also generating a growing need for self-expression including political participation; and the expansion of markets and trade has always been a crucial factor in reducing violence due to the demand for nonviolent communication (Inglehart, Puranen and Welzel 2015). So, higher well-being is associated with higher nonviolent protest activity, because economic development and the natural expansion of the middle class have led to a greater public interest in expanding political and civil liberties (Chenoweth and Ulfelder 2017;Massoud, Doces and Magee 2019). Researchers find robust evidence that GDP per capita is positively associated with nonviolent protests and negatively with violent destabilization (Gleditsch and Rivera 2017;Korotayev, Vaskin and Bilyuga 2017;Korotayev et al 2018;Dahl et al 2020) and civil wars (Hegre and Sambanis 2006).…”

“…Modern researchers have similar findings: there is a greater likelihood of peaceful protest mobilization in democracies than in autocratic regimes (Caren, Gaby and Herrold 2017;Chenoweth and Ulfelder 2017;Dahl et al 2017). This is associated with the facts that: (1) it is easier for dissatisfied citizens to present their demands to the government or to mobilize in a democratic country, where the structure of institutions presupposes the inclusion of broad masses in governance (Nam 2007); (2) a relatively high level of freedoms, or rather, their non-suppression through a repressive apparatus that is not developed in democratic countries, also leads to an increase in the likelihood of a nonviolent protest (Massoud, Doces and Magee 2019). In other words, a higher level of political repression entails increasing the likelihood of violent uprising (Regan and Norton 2005).…”