Abstract
While social movement scholarship has emphasized the role of activists in socially constructing grievances, we contend that material adversity is a reoccurring precondition of anti-state mobilization. We test the effect of economic decline on the count of large-scale, anti-government demonstrations and riots. Using multiple sources of newspaper reports of contentious events across 145 countries during the period 1960-2006, we find a statistically significant negative relationship between economic growth and the number of contentious events, controlling for a variety of state-governance, demographic, and media characteristics. We find that the effect is strongest under conditions of extreme economic decline and in non-democracies. These findings highlight the need for social movement scholars to take seriously the role of economic performance as an important factor that enables mobilization.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 133-155 |
Number of pages | 23 |
Journal | Social Problems |
Volume | 64 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 1 2017 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Collective action
- Economy
- Grievances
- Mobilization
- Social movements
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science