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    Preferences for the Scope of Protests


    Pellicer, Miquel, Wegner, Eva and De Juan, Alexander (2021) Preferences for the Scope of Protests. Political Research Quarterly, 74 (2). pp. 288-301. ISSN 1065-9129

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    Abstract

    This paper studies a dimension of protest largely overlooked in the literature: protest scope, that is, whether protests seek large, structural, changes for a large share of the population or focus on small-scale improvements for small groups. We argue that this protest dimension is relevant for understanding the political consequences of protests. We show empirically that protests vary substantially in scope and that scope is not collinear with other protest dimensions, such as size, motive, or tactics. We explore drivers of individual preferences for protest scope with a survey experiment in two South African townships. We find that respondents made to feel more efficacious tend to support protests of broader scope. This effect operates via a social psychology channel whereby efficacy leads people to assign blame for their problems to more systemic causes.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: protest; efficacy; South Africa;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics, Finance and Accounting
    Item ID: 16302
    Identification Number: 10.1177/1065912920905001
    Depositing User: Miquel Pellicer
    Date Deposited: 13 Jul 2022 08:45
    Journal or Publication Title: Political Research Quarterly
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    URI: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/16302
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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