The individual-institutional nexus of protest behaviour

Type Journal Article - British Journal of Political Science
Title The individual-institutional nexus of protest behaviour
Author(s)
Volume 40
Issue 1
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2010
Page numbers 51-73
URL http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~rdalton/archive/BJPS2010.pdf
Abstract
Political protest is seemingly a ubiquitous aspect of politics in advanced industrial societies, and its use may be spreading to less developed nations as well. Our research tests several rival theories of protest activity for citizens across an exceptionally wide range of polities. With data from the 1999–2002 wave of the World Values Survey, we demonstrate that the macro-level context – levels of economic and political development – significantly influences the amount of popular protest. Furthermore, a multi-level model examines how national context interacts with the micro-level predictors of protest activity. The findings indicate that contemporary protest is expanding not because of increasing dissatisfaction with government, but because economic and political development provide the resources for those who have political demands.

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