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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (6 results)

  • Article
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UC Davis Previously Published Works (2023)
Large numbers of people living under authoritarian governments participate in pro-opposition politics despite sometimes significant risks. Increasing amounts of this political participation are taking place and being organized online. Do emotions play a causal role in inducing pro-opposition participation in authoritarian regimes? Can emotions that mobilize participation be spread via social media? Through an experiment carried out by an opposition party in Zimbabwe, I test whether campaign appeals to opposition supporters’ emotions affect their level of political participation in online pro-opposition discussions. I find that across two different issue areas, randomly assigned anger appeals increase participation on average by 0.4 standard deviations more than enthusiasm appeals with the same informational content. In real terms, this represents between 30% and 170% more participation in the groups assigned to the anger appeals across four different measures of participation. There is little evidence that these effects are stronger in areas with less poverty or that have historically been affected by more violence, or when coupled with messages emphasizing personal power. These results suggest that anger appeals that highlight economic grievances can be an important force for mobilizing online political participation in repressive environments.
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC Davis Previously Published Works (2023)
    State repression and protest are common in modern authoritarian and hybrid regimes, yet individual responses to these events are not well understood. This article draws on unique panel data from the months spanning Zimbabwe’s 2018 election, which we view as a moment of uncertainty for most Zimbabwean citizens. Using a difference-in-difference estimator, we estimate change in individual protest intentions following exposure to repression and dissent and we assess three individual-level mechanisms hypothesized to drive responses. We find evidence that exposure to local repression and dissent are mobilizing among opposition supporters and nonpartisans. Analysis of potential mechanisms suggests that the effects of exposure to dissent may be driven by information updating, whereas relational and emotional mechanisms seem to drive backlash against repression, despite increased perceptions of risk. We find no evidence of counter-mobilization by ruling party supporters, and little effect of exposure to contentious events over social media.
      Cover page: Repression and Dissent in Moments of Uncertainty: Panel Data Evidence from ZimbabweCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC Davis Previously Published Works (2021)
      Existing theories of democratic reversals emphasize that elites mount actions like coups when democracy is particularly threatening to their interests. However, existing theory has been largely silent on the role of elite social networks, which interact with economic incentives and may facilitate antidemocratic collective action. We develop a model where coups generate rents for elites and show that the effort an elite puts into a coup is increasing in their network centrality. We empirically explore the model using an original dataset of Haitian elite networks that we linked to firm-level data. We show that central families were more likely to be accused of participating in the 1991 coup against the democratic Aristide government. We then find that the retail prices of staple goods that are imported by such elites differentially increase during subsequent periods of nondemocracy. Our results suggest that elite social structure is an important factor in democratic reversals.
        • Thesis
        • Peer Reviewed
        UC Davis Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2021)

        This dissertation involves three essays on state capacity. The first essay presents a formal model of state building as a domestic bargaining game between local elite and central ruler to explore the relationship between warfare and fiscal centralization. In this study, I show that the central ruler’s future expectations are a key determinant of the chosen method of fiscal expansion under war pressure. Fiscal decentralization, rather than fiscal centralization, is more likely when wars create a high survival threat for the ruler. The Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century is used as a case study to demonstrate the results of the model. The second essay analyzes the historical determinants of state capacity by looking at the interactions between early statehood and the colonial period experiences. Using ordinary least squares and instrumental variables regressions on a cross-country dataset of colonized and non-colonized countries, I find that the impact of early (pre-1500) statehood on current state capacity is conditional on colonization. Early statehood is positively associated with state capacity for non-colonized countries while it is negatively associated with state capacity for colonized countries. The final essay analyzes the relationship between bureaucratic quality, democracy and trade liberalization. In this essay, I argue that bureaucratic quality shapes the effect of democracy on trade liberalization because bureaucrats play an active role in the trade policymaking process when bureaucratic quality is high. Using panel data, I find evidence in line with existing arguments that democracy is positively correlated with trade liberalization. However, this effect only exists in countries with low levels of bureaucratic quality. When bureaucratic quality is high, the relationship between the level of democracy and trade liberalization weakens.

          Cover page: Three Essays on State Capacity
          • Article
          • Peer Reviewed
          UC Davis Previously Published Works (2023)
          How does exposure to criminal violence shape attitudes towards justice and the rule of law? Citizens care about crime prevention and procedural legality, yet they also value punishing perpetrators for the harm they have done. We argue that anger induced by exposure to criminal violence increases the demand for retribution and harsh punishments, even at the expense of the rule of law. We test this theory using one observational and two experimental studies from an original survey of 1,200 individuals in Western Mexico, a region affected by organized criminal violence and vigilantism. First, we first show that exposure to violence is correlated with increased anger and support for punitive justice, including vigilante actions. Second, across our two experiments, we show that citizens are more supportive of harsh punishments and place less value on their legality in response to morally outrageous crimes. Third, we find that the innocence of the victim, rather than the severity of the crime, is what triggers outrage and punitiveness. This suggests that citizens may support extreme levels of violence as long as they perceive that its targets are criminals. Finally, we show that outrageous forms of violence against civilians can lead individuals to prioritize harsh punishment regardless of its legality. When criminal actors target perceived innocents with common crimes like extortion, there is greater support for harsh, vigilante action. These patterns provide a bottom-up explanation for harsh justice.
            Cover page: Anger and support for retribution in Mexico’s drug warCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
            • Article
            • Peer Reviewed
            UC San Diego Previously Published Works (2016)
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