The “Ironic Impact” of Pro-Democracy Activists: How Pro-Democratic Frames Undermine Support for Local Policy-Based Protests in Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

Many protesters under authoritarian rule are “narrow in scope, involving only one or a few neighborhoods, villages, or groups of laid-off workers” and focus on demands that “have to do only with material interests and local grievances” (Lorentzen, 2013, p. 131). These protests typically blame local authorities and express loyalty to the political system. However, in the internet age, pro-democracy advocates often endorse and co-opt these local policy protests for their own ends. Does being endorsed by pro-democracy activists undermine support for these local policy protesters? Building on research suggesting that non-activists often perceive activists as extreme, I theorize that associating with pro-democratic frames can undermine support for local policy protesters by making the protesters seem more extreme and their protests less legal. Using an internet survey experiment in Vietnam, I find support for my argument. These findings highlight a challenge to building pro-democracy coalitions under authoritarian rule.

Keywords

protests prodemocracy movements authoritarian regimes Vietnamese politics rightful resistance

Although a large research agenda on protests under authoritarian rule focuses on how movements evolve into large-scale, democracy movements (e.g., Beissinger, 2002; Brancati, 2016; Kim, 2000; Tufekci, 2017; Zuo & Benford, 1995), many protesters in these contexts do not promote regime change (Lorentzen, 2013). Indeed, while protests have become increasingly common in a wide range of authoritarian regimes since the early 2000s,¹ many of these protests are “narrow in scope, involving only one or a few neighborhoods, villages, or groups of laid-off workers” and focus on demands that “have to do only with material interests and local grievances” (Lorentzen, 2013, p. 131).

Given the limited nature of their demands, these local policy-based protests frequently frame their contention in a rightful manner where protesters denounce local officials while expressing loyalty to the regime (O’Brien & Li, 2006; O’Brien, 2013; Lorentzen, 2013).² For instance, land protesters in Vietnam, China, and Cambodia have attributed their grievances to corrupt local officials or ambitious business tycoons while aiming to receive attention from the central government to address their grievances (O’Brien & Li, 2006; Kerkvliet, 2019; Park, 2019; Harms, 2012; Chau, 2019). Similarly, Russian citizens who were involved in protests against the government’s decision to clear a large swath of Khimki Forest for a highway construction project in 2012 (Evans Jr., 2012) and those in numerous labor strikes in 2015 explicitly expressed loyalty to and sought for intervention from President Vladimir Putin to address their grievances.³

While these local policy-based protests are typically loyal in rhetoric in advancing their claims, they are frequently endorsed by pro-democracy dissidents to advocate for significant regime reforms. This is particularly important in the internet age, where social media outlets allow pro-democracy activists to easily co-opt rightful resistance for their own ends (Morozov, 2011). For example, in 2019, when villagers in Dong Tam commune in rural Hanoi, Vietnam protested against the local government’s decision to claim their land, independent journalists, lawyers, and human rights activists traveled to the protest sites, live-broadcasted the incident, and wrote critical comments on social media (Le, 2017). Across the border, Chinese pro-democracy activists have increasingly seized on protests to criticize the central government’s policies regarding land demolition and eviction on the internet (Human Rights Watch, 2004). When workers in Egypt went on strike against the entrepreneurs and local governments in 2010, pro-democracy activists in Cairo used the issues to mobilize pro-democracy protests through social media (Dobson, 2012, pp. 176–177). In each case, protesters blamed their grievances on local authorities and/or enterprises while appearing loyal to the regime. In contrast, dissidents used the protests to blame the central government and advocate for the expansion of democratic institutions such as a freer press, free and fair elections, and respect for human rights as solutions to the policy issues.

Despite evidence that dissidents have used social media and the internet to endorse local policy protests to advance their agenda, little research has examined how pro-democracy endorsement affects public opinion towards the protests. Extensive evidence shows that violent tactics or a violent frame can undermine public support for protests (e.g., Edwards & Arnon, 2019; Feinberg et al., 2020; Lupu & Wallace, 2019; McLeod & Detenber, 1999; Myers & Caniglia, 2004; Schock, 2005; Tertytchnaya & Lankina, 2019; Wouters, 2013). Nonviolence is certainly an important component of loyal protests. However, when they are endorsed by pro-democracy advocates, the frame of the endorsement and the identity of the endorsers are also crucial pillars. Furthermore, loss of public support may have adverse consequences for these local policy protests and the prospect of democratization (Ketchley & El-Rayyes, 2020).

In this paper, I propose that being endorsed by pro-democracy activists undermines public support for local policy-based protests, especially in contexts where pro-democracy movements are relatively weak, and the authoritarian regime enjoys high trust through two preregistered channels.⁴

The first channel is the frame of protest in the endorsement. Contrary to a rightful frame that blames local authorities and expresses loyalty to the regime, a frame by pro-democracy advocates typically blames the central government and seeks democracy as a solution to resolve the policy issue. I contend that a pro-democratic frame could reduce support for the protests. I propose three mechanisms. First, the pro-democratic frame could make the protests seem less legal, thus undermining support. The pro-democratic frame could also make respondents feel the endorser is too extreme and different from them, thus undermining support for the protest. Finally, a pro-democratic frame asking for installing democratic institutions could make the public think the protest is more likely to be repressed and thus could lead to greater instability and a greater potential for violence.

The second channel is the identity of the endorser. Research shows that public support for protests is conditioned by whether or not that group is perceived as a social “outgroup” (Edwards & Arnon, 2019; Maoz & McCauley, 2008). In authoritarian contexts, where pro-democracy advocates are likely to be urban, intellectual, anti-regime, or perceived to be affiliated with foreign countries (Beinin, 2012; Kerkvliet, 2019), they may constitute an “outgroup” for the average citizens. As such, associating with pro-democracy dissidents could carry connotations that the protesters are aligned with such an outgroup, which, in turn, negatively impacts public attitudes towards the protests.

I test the argument using an internet-based survey experiment in Vietnam. While pro-democracy movements have challenged the power of the Communist Party of Vietnam to a certain extent, they are still fragmented and restricted to urban areas. In addition, because of the Communist Party propaganda, Vietnamese citizens typically consider pro-democracy groups extreme and radical (Kerkvliet, 2019). On the other hand, local policy-based protests, especially land protests, have become a prominent feature of the political landscape in contemporary Vietnam (Kerkvliet, 2014). Given the popularity of social media in Vietnam, pro-democracy activists frequently endorse local protests to advocate for democracy. This makes Vietnam an interesting case for academics seeking to understand public opinion toward democracy in a highly repressive environment and for policymakers wanting to forecast the prospect of democratization through grassroots movements.

Using a hypothetical land protest, I test how being endorsed by pro-democracy advocates affects support for the protest. To manipulate the identity, I vary whether the protest is supported by Vietnamese pro-democracy activists (independent lawyers or independent journalists) or other actors that also frequently advocate for loyal protests, including foreign pro-democracy advocates, retired provincial officials, current provincial officials, and village leaders. To manipulate the frame, I vary whether the land protest uses a rightful or pro-democratic frame. Specifically, a rightful frame blames the land protesters’ grievances on local authorities and expresses protesters’ loyalty to the regime. In contrast, a pro-democratic frame blames central leaders and advocates for expanding democratic institutions such as a freer press as solutions to land issues.

The results show no effect of the identity of the endorser on support for the land protest. That is, respondents generally do not withhold support because of a perception that the protests are supported by an elite outgroup. By contrast, the pro-democratic frame does reduce support. Framing the land protest as caused by the central government that requires the expansion of democratic institutions as a solution does reduce support for protests.⁵ My mediation analysis shows that the reduced support through the pro-democratic frame mechanism is driven by a reduced perception that the protests are legal and, similar to the mechanism underlying the impact of confrontational tactics on reduced support for protests (Feinberg et al., 2020), a reduced perception that the protests are “moral.”

My results have important implications for the broader literature on social movements under authoritarian rule. Recent works stress the importance of opposition coalitions under authoritarian rule in defeating autocrats (Brancati, 2016; Nugent, 2020; Ong, 2022; Schock, 2005; Thurber, 2019). If this is the case, pro-democracy activists may need the participation of other protesters, such as labor activists, land protesters, and environmental groups, to bolster their movements. However, many potential allies of democracy advocates, such as local policy-based protests, sometimes distance themselves from such groups (O’Brien & Li, 2006; O’Brien, 2013, Chau, 2019, Beinin, 2012, p. 6, Robertson, 2010, Chapter 2). This paper highlights an explanation for the unwillingness to link with pro-democracy groups, which is the potential loss of public support for the goals of the local policy-based protesters.

This paper also adds to the growing literature on the dilemma activists face between gaining attention and maintaining public support (Edwards & Arnon, 2019; Feinberg et al., 2020; Jasper, 2004). The dilemma is that while associating with more extreme groups may attract public attention to protests that focus on narrow policy issues, it may reduce support for the protests. I show that the pro-democratic frame can undermine support for those who might otherwise sympathize with them.

Public Support for Protests Under Authoritarian Rule

Existing research on the determinants of public support for protests primarily focuses on the impact of extreme tactics in reducing support for protests. Most find that public support for protests declines and support for repression of those protesters increases if protesters are seen as violent (Chenoweth & Lewis, 2013; Edwards & Arnon, 2019; Feinberg et al., 2020; Lupu & Wallace, 2019; Schock, 2005).

How protests are framed by the media can also impact support. While framing protests as opposing the status quo can undermine support (McLeod & Detenber, 1999), frames that resonate with the established values of the political system and with the public’s interests and beliefs (Zuo & Benford, 1995) positively affect public opinion.

Public support for protests also depends on how the government responds to the protests (Frye & Borisova, 2019; Lichbach, 1987; Pan & Siegel, 2020). A final factor impacting public support for protests is the identity of protesters. The public is less willing to support protests in which participants are perceived to come from an outgroup (Edwards & Arnon, 2019; Maoz & McCauley, 2008).

This literature provides some clues about the impact of pro-democracy groups endorsing the aims of a local policy-based protest. As I will discuss in the theory section, the degree to which a protester is seen as part of an outgroup or “extreme” could reduce support for the groups. However, unlike work on violence and protests, my question centers on how associating with a pro-democratic frame, a critical component when policy protesters are endorsed by pro-democracy groups, impacts support for the former. Additionally, the study seeks to address how the frame could shift support for a group with more limited aims—something not explicitly tested in existing work yet fundamental to the notion of a “strategic dilemma” for a protest group in a nondemocracy. Existing work does not consider the potential impacts of association with those with more maximalist aims on support for protesters with narrower aims.

Theory: Guilt by Association

This paper builds a theory on how being endorsed by pro-democracy advocates affects public support for a local policy-based protest. It is essential to first clarify the distinction between local policy-based protesters and pro-democracy advocates. Local policy protesters are typically narrow in scope, involving one or a few villages, neighborhoods, or groups of citizens with similar interests (Lorentzen, 2013; O’Brien & Li, 2006; Kerkvliet, 2019; Trejo, 2012). Protesters’ demands typically revolve around changes in policy implementation, which are expected to address their economic interests and local grievances. Although not collectively exhaustive, typical examples of outcomes local policy protesters focus on include land compensation (e.g., Chau, 2019; Trejo, 2012), higher wages, and better working conditions (e.g., Beinin, 2012; Fu, 2018; Robertson, 2010), or a halt to an environmentally destructive project (e.g., Dobson, 2012; Steinhardt & Wu, 2016). On the other hand, pro-democracy advocates demand the adoption of free and fair elections and the expansion of liberal freedoms such as the freedom of assembly and the freedom of the press (Brancati, 2016).

This distinction between local policy protesters and pro-democracy protesters is important because differences in these groups impact the repertoires available to the two sets of protesters. Because of the limited nature of their demands, local policy protesters typically employ rightful frames, in which protesters deliberately avoid challenging the center (O’Brien, 2013; O'Brien & Li, 2006). This is not to say local policy protesters may not decide that more maximalist claims are necessary to achieve their goals. However, while maximalist frames are possible, they are not required. In some contexts, such as in China, even when local policy-based protests use confrontational and troublemaking tactics, they attempt to indicate obedience to the regime by explicitly stating that they are “loyal to the Communist Party forever” (Chen, 2012, p. 159). Pro-democracy groups, by contract, cannot avoid challenging the center as their very demands are more maximalist.

In examining how the endorsement by a pro-democracy group impacts public attitudes towards local policy-based protests, I distinguish two channels. These channels correspond to the two features of any endorsement—the frame of the endorsement and the identity of the endorser. In general, the paper argues that an association between pro-democracy groups and local policy-based protests will lead to a negative radical flank effect, in which the former threatens the ability of the latter to “invoke third-party support” (Schock, 2005, p. 157).

Starting with the frame, the critical difference between a pro-democracy group and a local policy-based protest is the extent to which a protest is framed around the established values of the regime. A local policy protest typically employs a rightful frame that attributes the land or labor dispute to local bad actors and simultaneously affirms their loyalty to the regime (O’Brien & Li, 2006; Lorentzen, 2013). On the other hand, a pro-democracy group emphasizes that the dispute results from the shortcomings of the authoritarian political system, which, in turn, requires the expansion of democratic institutions as solutions to policy issues (Brancati, 2016). While the particular solutions pro-democracy propose may range from radical to moderate, they make significant demands on the central government, such as expanding free and fair elections and respecting human rights and the freedom of the press (Brancati, 2016). This suggests that when endorsed by pro-democracy advocates, the frame no longer avoids blaming the regime or the regime’s policies.

The pro-democratic frame could undermine support through three possible mechanisms. First, a pro-democratic frame could make local policy protests appear unlawful. While local policy protesters can sometimes advocate for radical demands, they mainly operate on the boundary of what is legal and illegal in an authoritarian context (O'Brien & Li, 2006). On the one hand, in contexts like Vietnam and China, central leaders are tolerant of protests against law violations by local officials to a certain extent (Kerkvliet, 2019; Lorentzen, 2013). However, attributing blame to and advocating for change to the center and the political system may suggest to citizens that the protests have crossed that hazy line between legal and illegal behavior. Evidence shows that citizens are less likely to support illegal protests (McLeod & Detenber, 1999, p. 6) because they perceive that the protesters would engage in unlawful activities that threaten social and individual security (McLeod & Hertog, 1992). Unlike a rightful frame, a pro-democratic frame advocates for installing democratic institutions to resolve local grievances, which can be highly radical in many authoritarian contexts. This may give the public the impression that such demands would involve illegal activities such as violent protests, destruction of government offices, and even overthrowing the incumbent government, which may disrupt social stability. In addition, in contexts where the public takes legal norms regarding expressing dissatisfaction with the government seriously, perceived illegality would negatively affect their support for protests.

Second, pro-democratic frames may create negative perceptions amongst the public regarding those who engage in local policy-based protests, particularly in contexts where pro-democracy movements are relatively weak vis-à-vis the state. Autocrats often delegitimize opponents who spread pro-democracy frames to dissuade the public from joining them (Scott, 1990). Additionally, research on environmentalism finds evidence that endorsement of environmental policies by activists reduces public support because activists are seen as extreme or unlikeable individuals (Bashir et al., 2013; Stenhouse & Heinrich, 2019). Lohmann (1994) suggests when the public perceives participants in a protest to be “extremists,” they are more likely to abstain from supporting the protest. Authoritarian governments tend to direct blame on local governments and the bureaucracy (Cai, 2008), which may create the impression among the public that challenging local authorities is the norm and acceptable. Therefore, by framing the protests as advocating challenges to the center, the public may view the protesters themselves as more extreme and hence less likely to share their values.

Third, the public may feel that the protests are more likely to be repressed if the protesters are seen as making more provocative demands. Given the established aversion amongst the public to violence (Edwards & Arnon, 2019; Lupu & Wallace, 2019), it is possible that citizens could anticipate that the pro-democratic frame will increase the probability of repression, thus leading to greater instability.

In sum, pro-democratic frames that blame the local policy protest on the authoritarian regime and advocate for democracy to resolve the policy issue could reduce public support for policy protests because they (1) make protests appear less legal; (2) create negative perceptions of those who engage in protests; and (3) increase the perception that the protests will be repressed. This leads to the following hypothesis:

Pro-democratic frames will reduce public support for local policy-based protests in authoritarian regimes relative to rightful frames.

The second component of a pro-democracy group endorsement is an association with the identity of the pro-democracy group. Association with a pro-democracy group could impact support for protests if the public makes assumptions about the movement due to predetermined attitudes towards the types of groups typically associated with pro-democracy advocates. In particular, if the public thinks of pro-democracy groups as urban, elite, anti-regime, affiliated with foreigners, this could lead to the perception of pro-democracy groups as an “outgroup” for average citizens.

Existing work suggests the possibility that pro-democracy groups could have such an association. Scholars note a distinction between the identity of pro-democracy protesters and local policy-based protesters (O'Brien & Li, 2006). The former revolves around post-materialist goals, while the latter emphasizes economic, material, and physical security. Because pro-democracy protests focus on post-materialist goals that “emphasize self-expression and the quality of life” in many contexts, their advocates are typically more economically better off and educated than average citizens (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005). Indeed, case study research suggests that pro-democracy activists in many authoritarian regimes, such as Vietnam, China, Egypt, and Russia, are intellectual, highly educated, and often reside in urban areas (Dobson, 2012; Kerkvliet, 2019; Kolstø, 2014). These urban elite activists typically have well-trained professions such as lawyers and journalists. On the other hand, local policy-based protests, such as land, labor, and environmental protests in many autocracies, are often restricted to specific localities and constituencies of low to moderate educational levels (Fu, 2018; Kerkvliet, 2014; Robertson, 2010).

In contexts where pro-democracy groups are associated with an elite, intellectual, urban identity, association with such groups could reduce support for the protests among average citizens. The literature on intergroup dynamics suggests that people tend to have a more favorable attitude toward their ingroup members, thus, viewing their ingroup members’ actions more favorably (Brewer, 1999). In addition, people are more likely to support government repression of protests in which participants are perceived as coming from an outgroup (Edwards & Arnon, 2019). Therefore, if pro-democracy activists are associated with an outgroup by virtue of their elite intellectual identity, their endorsement may reduce public support for the protests.

Pro-democracy activists’ endorsement of local policy-based protests will reduce public support for local policy-based protests relative to all other actors.

Local Policy-Based Protests in Vietnam

I test these hypotheses using a hypothetical land dispute in Vietnam. Vietnam is relevant because protests that are narrow in scope and only focus on material interests and local grievances have been a prominent feature of the political landscape in contemporary Vietnam (Kerkvliet, 2019). Furthermore, pro-democracy activists have increasingly relied on the internet and social media to endorse these protests with pro-democratic frames (Kerkvliet, 2019). Since the mid-1990s, while Vietnamese citizens have publicly spoken out on many political issues, such as land, labor, environment, and nationalism, land use is likely the most contentious political issue (Kerkvliet, 2019). Additionally, land protests are typically restricted to one or more villages, and villagers rarely engage in radical demands that threaten the legitimacy of the single-party regime. Since collectivization ended in the 1980s, land disputes have become more visible, but they essentially affirm the legitimacy of the center (Chau, 2019; Kerkvliet, 2014).

Villagers in land disputes typically target corrupt local authorities and seek intervention from the center to advance their claims. Although several land controversies have contributed to significant unrest, most have avoided challenging the political system. For example, while protests throughout the northern province of Thai Binh in 1997 resulted in changes to central regulations, villagers attributed their grievances to local officials’ mismanagement of land and power abuse (Nguyen, 2017).

When villagers protest about illegal land eviction, outside groups, especially pro-democracy activists, have increasingly relied on the internet and social media to co-opt land protests (Kerkvliet, 2019). For example, immediately after villagers in Dong Tam, a rural area of Hanoi, protested against the local authorities’ decision to withdraw their land for an industrial project, some pro-democracy activists traveled to the site, live broadcasted the protests, and spread the news about villagers’ grievances on social media (Le, 2017). These outsiders often “posted protesters’ photos, letters, and other materials on the Internet” (Kerkvliet, 2019, p. 53). In these endorsements, the outsiders frequently reframed the stakes of the struggle in a more regime-threatening fashion, implying that the underlying issue was not simple local governance failures but rather a symptom of the entire single-party system.

Research Design

To test my hypotheses, I use an online survey experiment administered on a sample of 1,080 Vietnamese internet users through Qualtrics in April 2020 (see Appendix 1 for details about recruitment).⁶ Of those, 958 completed the entire survey.⁷ Qualtrics recruited the respondents through local Vietnamese market research firms with proprietary survey panels. To mitigate the concern that the sample is skewed towards specific populations, I set quotas for groups typically underrepresented in online survey experiments, such as rural respondents, women, and older residents.

Regarding the survey instrument, before the treatment, all online respondents were first asked several questions on demographic characteristics. After these questions, respondents read the following description of a hypothetical land protest in a fictional locale in a hypothetical Facebook post:

“Imagine that you are living in Nam An village, An Hong commune, An Khang province. Recently, Nam An villagers gathered near the An Hong Commune People’s Committee to protest against the commune’s decision to withdraw 70 hectares of agricultural land for an industrial project. The villagers have used this land for a long time.”

I use a hypothetical protest instead of a real-life situation so that my analysis will not be influenced by respondents’ existing beliefs and perceptions of an event that did happen. Additionally, a hypothetical protest also helps reduce the sensitivity of the study. As part of the ethical review for the IRB approval, in addition to ensuring the anonymity of the respondents, I wanted to ensure that my survey fell well shy of breaching any Vietnamese laws by not mentioning explicitly any actual protests or dissidents that could be deemed “sensitive.”⁸ However, to make it realistic, my example is designed to be as similar to a land protest in Vietnam as possible. My example mirrors what Kerkvliet describes as a “typical” protest in Phu Son village in Dong Nai, where villagers opposed the compensation levels for creating an industrial park (2019, 36).

To identify the impact of pro-democratic frames and the pro-democracy activist identity, after describing the protest, I use a 2 × 5 factorial design where I vary how the protest is framed and who endorses the protest (see Table 1). The first factor varies whether the frame is a rightful frame or a pro-democratic frame. The second factor varies the identity of the endorser.

Table 1.

Experimental Conditions.

	Identity of Endorser
	Village Leader	Current Province Secretary	Retired Province Secretary	Domestic Pro-Democracy Activists	Foreign Activists
Rightful frame	Condition 1 (N = 91)	Condition 2 (N = 101)	Condition 3 (N = 89)	Condition (N = 84)	Condition 5 (N = 88)
Pro-democracy frame	Condition 6 (N = 100)	Condition 7 (N = 102)	Condition 8 (N = 95)	Condition 9 (N = 110)	Condition 10 (N = 98)

Note. Table 1 shows the different treatment groups. The hypotheses predict that pro-democratic frames will decrease support for protests relative to rightful frames. For the identity dimension, domestic pro-democracy advocates should decrease support for protests relative to all other actors.

In each condition, participants read a Facebook post.⁹ I focus on virtual endorsement through Facebook pages because this is the most popular platform through which pro-democracy activists endorse local policy-based protests in Vietnam. Brief and short Facebook posts as treatments also reduce the likelihood that participants become distracted and disengaged in the survey, which would affect the internal validity of the research (McDermott, 2011).

In the post, half of the respondents receive the rightful frame in which the Facebook poster attributes the land protest to corrupt local government authorities while affirming protesters’ loyalty to the political system by stating that the protesters wholeheartedly believe in the central government’s policies and guidelines. (See Image 1 for a screenshot of a sample of a Facebook post). In the analysis, I consider those receiving the rightful frame to be the baseline group, given that this is the most common frame chosen by the local protesters themselves (Chau, 2019; Kerkvliet, 2019).

Image 1.

An example of a Facebook post treatment.

Half of the respondents receive the pro-democratic frame. When pro-democracy advocates endorse a loyal protest, they typically modify two aspects of the protest’s rightful frame. First, in terms of blame attribution, instead of targeting local authorities, pro-democracy advocates emphasize that the entire political system or central leaders should be blamed. Second, to show that they are not loyal to the political system, pro-democracy advocates could, in theory, affirm that they (and protesters) do not believe in the Communist Party’s policies and guidelines. My read of pro-democracy advocates’ Facebook posts in Vietnam and research elsewhere (Brancati, 2016) suggest that regime dissidents typically express their disloyalty more radically by advocating for democratic institutions to resolve local grievances. Thus, the two hypothetical frames are designed as close as possible to realistic phenomena. In the pro-democratic frame, the Facebook post blames the local land protest on the political system and advocates for expanding democratic institutions to resolve the land issue. The paper aims to investigate the effect of a pro-democratic frame as a whole rather than each component that makes up the frame.¹⁰

To ensure that any difference driven by the pro-democratic frame is not a function of any particular wording choice, I include two aspects of democracy that the endorser advocates for to resolve the land issue (see Table 2 for a summary of each of the conditions).¹¹ The first demands greater democracy to address the hypothetical land issue; the second advocates for a freer press as the solution. I choose these two pro-democratic frames for two reasons. First, the need for greater democracy and a free press are issues many pro-democracy activists in Vietnam raise when endorsing land protests.¹² The Communist Party is aware that democracy activists advocate for these issues, arguing that “democracy activists distort the truth because Vietnam is a democratic system, and that free speech and free press are guaranteed by law” (Nguyen, 2015). Second, while pro-democracy activists sometimes call for multiparty elections to resolve land issues, such a demand is considered highly radical, extreme, and sensitive in Vietnam. Therefore, to ensure that my survey did not breach any Vietnamese laws, I focus on the elements of democratic institutions (democracy in general and the freedom of the press), the discussion of which the government is more tolerant.

Table 2.

Description of Conditions.

Condition	Scenario
1	Village leader attributes the land protest to local officials and affirms the protesters’ loyalty to the political system.
2	Current provincial secretary attributes the land protest to local officials and affirms the protesters’ loyalty to the political system.
3	Retired provincial secretary attributes the land protest to local officials and affirms the protesters’ loyalty to the political system.
4	Domestic pro-democracy activist (independent lawyer/independent journalist) attributes the land protest to local officials and affirms the protesters’ loyalty to the political system.
5	Foreign activist (foreign lawyer/foreign journalist) attributes the land protest to local officials and affirms the protesters’ loyalty to the political system.
6	Villager leader attributes the land protest to the central leaders and advocates for freedom of the press/democracy to resolve the land issue.
7	Current provincial secretary attributes the land protest to the central leaders and advocates for freedom of the press/democracy to resolve the land issue.
8	Retired provincial secretary attributes the land protest to the central leaders and advocates for freedom of the press/democracy to resolve the land issue.
9	Domestic pro-democracy activist (independent lawyer/independent journalist) attributes the land protest to the central leaders and advocates for freedom of the press/democracy to resolve the land issue.
10	Foreign activist (independent lawyer/independent journalist) attributes the land protest to the central leaders and advocates for freedom of the press/democracy to resolve the land issue.

For the identity dimension, I divide the endorser into five groups: pro-democracy endorser, village leader, retired provincial secretary, current provincial secretary, and foreign endorser. I include these actors because these are the ones who typically endorse local policy-based protests in Vietnam. While including various endorsers improves the realism of the vignettes, I do not have theoretical expectations that there are differences among non-pro-democracy actors.

Similar to the pro-democratic frame, I include several pro-democracy endorsers to ensure that any effect is not the result of a specific endorser. The pro-democracy endorsers include independent journalists and independent lawyers. Once again, these correspond with typical profiles for urban-based pro-democracy activists in Vietnam (Kerkvliet, 2014). Indeed, state media emphasizes that when protests occur, “many political opportunists disguised as independent ‘lawyers,’ ‘journalists’ use social media to spread false information, intentionally distort the truth, and badmouth the regime.”¹³ Many prominent pro-democracy activists in Vietnam are independent journalists and independent lawyers (Human Rights Watch, 2020). Because sources affiliated with the Communist Party are portrayed as official, I mirror the conventional pro-democracy profile by underlining that the hypothetical “journalists” and “lawyers” are independent. Table 1 displays all ten conditions and the number of observations in each cell.

For the dependent variables, I ask about the degree to which the respondent supports the protests and the degree to which the protest is justified. I include two outcomes because respondents may be more willing to say they support the underlying cause of the protests than to say they support the protests themselves. The responses for each are on a six-point scale from completely unsupportive/unjustified to completely supportive/justified.

1. Support: To what extent do you support or not support the protests by the villagers in Nam An?¹⁴

2. Justification. To what extent do you think the reason why villagers in Nam An, An Hong commune are protesting is justified?¹⁵

Figure 2 shows a variation on both, but as predicted, a higher proportion feel that the protest is justified than express support for the protests.

Figure 2.

Distribution of support for protests, belief that protests justified.

To probe possible mechanisms underlying respondents’ support for the protest, I ask a series of questions following the treatment but before the outcome measures. The first mechanism assessed is the perceived legality of the protests. I also assess whether the respondent feels the protest would be repressed or how moral the respondent feels the endorser to be. These are the specific questions used to test the mechanisms.

1. Legality: To what extent do you think the protest in Nam An village is legal?

2. Fear of repression: To what extent do you think the government will repress the protest in Nam An village?

3. Morality: To what extent does the Facebook poster share your morals?

I also measure several covariates before the treatment to check the extent to which the sample represents the Vietnamese population, confirm the balance in my treatment groups, and estimate potential heterogeneous effects. Specifically, I measure gender, age, party membership, level of interest in politics, education level, risk acceptance, degree of national pride, self-reported income level, and whether or not the respondent is an urban resident.¹⁶ I also ask whether the respondent was born in northern or southern Vietnam. As previous work suggests, northern Vietnam tends to be a party stronghold with far more party members per capita than southern Vietnam (Truong & Schuler, 2021).

Regarding the representativeness, as Table 3 below shows, my sample skews male, with about 59% of the sample comprised men. The sample has a high number of party members at 28.4%, which is far more than the estimated three percent of the adult population in Vietnam who are members of the Communist Party. Part of this difference is because I only survey adults, while the three percent figure is for the whole population. Additionally, party members may be oversampled because online samples tend to be more educated. Empirical analysis shows that current party members in Vietnam are, on average, more educated than the general population (Markussen & Ngo, 2019). To account for possible concerns that party members drive the results, I rerun my analyses with only nonparty members, with no significant differences.

Table 3.

Balance of Potential Covariates Across Message Treatment.

Variables	Pro-Democratic Frame	Rightful Frame	Test
Age	34.354 (10.385)	34.126 (11.528)	F = .104
Gender			$χ^{2}$ = .226
• Female	40%	41.7%
• Male	60%	58.3%
Urban			$χ^{2}$ = .209
• Urban	62.6%	60.9%
• Rural	37.4%	39.1%
Educational level	8.881 (1.759)	8.594 (2.001)	F = 5.597**
Income level	16.02 (5.017)	15.461 (5.516)	F = 2.693
Party membership			$χ^{2}$ = .085
• Yes	29.3%	27.4%
• No	70.7%	72.6%
Interest in politics			F = .671
• High interest	80%	79%
• Low interest	20%	21%
Pride	4.409 (.795)	4.322 (.824)	$χ^{2}$ = 2.739*
Risk acceptance	2.244 (1.392)	2.161 (1.377)	F = .845
Region of birth			$χ^{2}$ = .831
• North	55.2%	52.1%
• South	44.8%	47.9%
Observations	505	453

Note. This table shows the means of the different covariates according to whether respondents are assigned to read the pro-democratic frame or the rightful frame. The difference column shows the F-value of an F-Test of differences in means of continuous variables and the $χ^{2}$ value of a Chi-Square test of differences of categorical variables between treatment groups. Statistical significance markers: *p < .1; **p < .05; ***p < .01.

Regarding covariate balance, as Table 3 below suggests, there is balance across nearly all covariates with regard to the frames, with the exception of the educational level and national pride. Those receiving the pro-democracy treatment are slightly more educated and have higher national pride. Appendix 3 shows the balance across the randomized endorser identities groups. Again, there are no significant balance issues, but to ensure this is not a problem, I run my analyses using these covariates as controls in my robustness checks.

Results

Before looking at the results, I first conduct a manipulation check to ensure that respondents paid attention to the treatment. After receiving the treatment, I ask respondents about the identity of the Facebook poster and the primary stated reason for the protest. As the manipulation check in Appendix 4 shows, the treatment successfully conveys the identity of the protest endorser and the frame. In a post-treatment response, most are able to correctly recollect the identity of the Facebook poster and how they framed the protests.

To test the direct effect of the pro-democratic frame (H1), I use an OLS regression model with support for the protests and the perception that the protests are justified as the outcome and the randomized frames as the only independent variables. To test the direct effect of the endorser’s identity (H2), I run an OLS regression model with support for the protests and the perception that the protests are justified as the outcome and the randomized endorser identities as the only independent variables. I then run an OLS regression model in which both the frame of the endorsement and identity of the endorsers are included as predictors of the two dependent variables to check if the effect of each factor changes when controlling for the other. Regarding the endorsers’ identities, because there are no differences between non-pro-democracy actors (See Appendix 5), I pool them into a single category and compare them to domestic pro-democracy advocates. In the main analysis, I leave all respondents in the sample regardless of whether they pass the manipulation check to avoid biasing the results (Aronow et al., 2019; Montgomery et al., 2018). Therefore, this is an “intention to treat” (ITT) design.

Table 4 shows the effect of the frame of the endorsement and the identity of the endorser on support for the protests. As Model 1 shows, there is a statistically significant effect of the frame on support for the protests. Model 3 shows that when taking into account the endorser’s identity, while the impact of the frame is slightly reduced, it remains statistically significant. Here, although the effect is only a .14 standard deviation shift in the mean value of support for the protest, the pro-democratic frame shifts the distribution from a mean that is supportive of the protests (above 3.5 on the six-point scale for the dependent variable) to a mean that is negative (below 3.5 on the six-point scale dependent variable). Model 2 shows that while the direct effect of the endorser’s identity on support for the protest is in the hypothesized direction, it is not statistically significant. The effect of the endorser’s identity remains insignificant when controlling for the effect of the frame in Model 3.

Table 4.

Main Results of Pro-Democratic Frame on Support for Protests.

Variables	Protest Support
Variables	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Pro-democratic frame	−.204** (.093)		−.199** (.093)
Pro-democracy activists		−.159 (.115)	−.150 (.116)
Constant	3.631*** (.067)	3.556*** (.052)	3.659*** (.071)
Observations	958	958	958
R -squared	.005	.002	.007

Note. Model is OLS with robust standard errors in parentheses. ***p < .01, **p < .05, *p < .1. Protest support is a six-point variable ranging from 1 (completely unsupportive) to 6 (completely supportive). Protest justified is a six-point variable ranging from 1 (completely unjustified) to 6 (completely justified).

Table 5 presents the effect of the frame of the endorsement and the identity of the endorser on whether respondents feel the protests are justified. According to Model 4, the pro-democratic frame significantly reduces the perception that the protests are justified. The effect of the frame remains statistically significant when taking into account the endorser’s identity in Model 6. Here, the effect of the pro-democratic frame is larger, moving the distribution .22 standard deviations downward. Specifically, the pro-democratic frame moves the distribution from a mean that indicates that the protest is highly justified (above 4 on the six-point scale for the dependent variable) to a mean that is negative (below 4 on the six-point scale dependent variable). Model 5 and Model 6 show that the endorser’s identity does not significantly affect whether respondents feel the protests are justified. Respondents exposed to pro-democracy activists are not less likely to perceive that the protests are justified than those exposed to non-pro-democracy actors.

Table 5.

Main Results of Pro-Democracy on Protest Justified.

Variables	Protest Justified
Variables	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6
Pro-democratic frame	−.289*** (.081)		−.285*** (.081)
Pro-democracy activists		−.127 (.102)	−.113 (.101)
Constant	4.285*** (.059)	4.158*** (.046)	4.306*** (.062)
Observations	958	958	958
R -squared	.013	.002	.014

Taken together, the results suggest that associating with pro-democracy advocates reduces public support for the hypothetical land protest and that public opinion is influenced by how the protest is reframed by the pro-democracy advocates rather than their identities.

Although the results suggest that pro-democracy advocates’ elite intellectual identity generally does not affect public opinion, there is a possibility that their endorsement may reduce support for the protests amongst the groups that are most different from democracy activists. Perhaps, in Vietnam, the less educated, rural residents or respondents associated with the regime could be more likely to oppose domestic pro-democracy activists. This predicts a series of heterogeneous effects, whereby rural, lower educated, party members, or party affiliated respondents should respond more negatively to the pro-democracy identity. To explore this possibility, I interact pro-democracy endorsers with each of these demographic variables. As Appendix 6 suggests, I find no heterogeneous effects of the pro-democracy endorsers on support for the protests. This increases the confidence that the impact of a pro-democracy endorsement on reducing support for the protests is primarily through the frame of the endorsement and not the identity of the endorser.

Robustness

The reason for analyzing two dependent variables separately is that respondents may be more willing to say they support the underlying cause of the protests than to say they support the protests themselves. However, this may raise the concern of multiple testing and increase the noise of the models. To account for this, I rerun the analysis with an averaged index of support for protests and perceived protest justification as the outcome and the randomized frames and identities as the independent variables. As Appendix 7 shows, the results remain. While the pro-democratic frame has a statistically significant effect on support for the protests, the effect of the endorser’s identity remains insignificant. I also examine the heterogeneous effects of the endorser’s identity using the averaged index as the outcome. Appendix 8 again shows no heterogeneous effects of the identity on support for the protests.

One potential concern with the findings on the impact could be that the effect of the frame is driven by a specific wording of the frame or a particular pro-democracy activist. To account for this, I include two pro-democratic frames and two types of pro-democracy activists in the experimental design. For the pro-democratic frames, I include both support for freedom of the press and support for greater democracy. For the pro-democracy endorsers, I vary the identity between a domestic lawyer and a domestic journalist. As Appendix 9A shows, there is little difference in the effect size of the two frames. This provides greater confidence that the result is a function of the concept of more radical claims and not a function of the specific claim being made.

None of the pro-democracy activist identities are significant (Appendix 9B and 9C). The one identity that nears significance and could have potentially had an effect with a larger sample size is an independent domestic journalist. Domestic independent journalist endorsers led to an estimated .13 standard deviation decline in support for the protest and a .1 standard deviation decrease in the feeling that the protest was justified. However, this result is insignificant, suggesting that the findings operate primarily through the pro-democratic frame.

Another concern is that the identity of the endorser may have interacted with the frame, such that a particular combination drove the outcome (Muralidharan et al., 2019). While budget constraints precluded securing a sufficient sample size with the power to test each interaction, I interact the message with the identities to assess whether there is suggestive evidence that a specific interaction is driving the results on the protest frame. As Appendix 10 shows, the effect of the pro-democratic frame is consistent across the different endorsers. The pro-democratic frame reduces support for the protests by similar levels whether endorsed by any of the endorsers.

An additional concern is the possibility that through bad luck in the randomization, the lack of balance on some potentially important covariates drives the findings. To account for this, Appendix 11 includes the results from a model including the control variables in Table 3. These include education, age, gender, whether the respondent was born in northern Vietnam (vs. southern Vietnam), party membership, income level, interest in politics, level of national pride, and whether the respondent was an urban or rural resident. As Appendix 11 shows, the effect of the frame remains even when including the covariates.

Another concern with the null finding on the pro-democracy activists could be the inclusion of respondents that did not pass the manipulation check. Perhaps there is a stronger effect for those that did pass the check. Although recent work cautions against testing only on those that pass the manipulation check (Aronow et al., 2019), I drop those that do not correctly identify the name of the endorser or the reason for the protest. As Appendix 12 shows, the results remain even after dropping those that did not respond to the treatment.

Another concern, given my sample, is that the results are driven by the high number of party members, who could react more negatively to a pro-democratic frame than nonparty members. To address this possibility, I rerun the analysis on only nonparty members. As Appendix 13 shows, the results remain essentially unchanged using only nonparty members.

A final concern with the results is the possibility of preference falsification. While the normal distribution of the dependent variable suggests that fear is not a major issue (because respondents seem equally willing to support or oppose the protests), there may still be concerns that the message prime, in particular, could have caused those respondents treated with the pro-democracy prime to be more cautious in expressing support for the protests than those receiving the policy demand prime. In some sense, this would still be a meaningful outcome that should actually determine real-world behavior. If respondents are more careful in their answers when the protests are pitched as anti-state, this should depress willingness to express support for the protests in society. However, if preference falsification drives my results, this could perhaps be a more obvious and less interesting mechanism.

To assess the possibility of preference falsification, I took advantage of the fact that 122 respondents dropped out of the survey after receiving the treatment. If the pro-democratic frame impacted respondents through preference falsification, I would expect that more respondents receiving the pro-democratic frame should drop out of the survey. If the treatment inspired fear, those respondents should drop out at a higher rate. To assess this, I regressed whether the respondent completed the survey on their treatment group. As Appendix 14 shows, the treatments did not affect survey completion. As such, I do not believe the results are primarily a result of preference falsification.

Morality, Legality, or Fear? A Mediation Analysis of Mechanisms

The foregoing analysis shows that the pro-democratic frame decreases support for the protests and the feeling that the protests are justified. Turning to the mechanisms, this section asks why respondents are less likely to support the protests and find them justified.¹⁷ I examine three possibilities in the theory section. First, it is possible that the pro-democratic frame decreases the perception of the legality of the protests. Second, it is possible that respondents thought the pro-democratic frame would lead to greater contention and instability in the form of retribution by the government. Third, it is possible that the pro-democratic frame signals that the pro-democracy endorser does not share their morals. In short, perceived protest legality, perceived protest repression, and perceived endorser’s morality are potential mediating variables for the causal effect of the pro-democratic frame on public opinion towards local policy-based protests.

To assess these possibilities, I conduct a causal mediation analysis outlined by (Imai, et al., 2011). To implement this, I conduct two-staged OLS regressions. In the first stage, I fit three mediator models. In each model, one of the three mediating variables is modeled as a function of the randomized frames and pre-treatment covariates in Table 3. In the second stage, I model two outcome variables, which ask respondents about their support for the protests and their perception that the protests are justified. Because I have multiple potential mediators, the explanatory variables of the outcome models include the randomized frames, pre-treatment covariates, and all three mediating variables. Then, I assess the direct effect and the degree to which the effect is mediated through each candidate mediating variable.

Table 6 shows the results of the models. The results first show that the perception of the protests being legal has the strongest mediating effect on the outcomes. The pro-democratic frame has a strong first-stage effect on the respondent’s perception that the protests are legal and the perception that the Facebook poster is moral. However, the pro-democratic frame has no impact on whether the respondent thought the protest is likely to be repressed. In the second stage, once accounting for the mediating effect of the protests being legal and the morality of the protest, I find no direct effect of the frame, suggesting that the effect runs entirely through changed perceptions of the legality of the protests and perceptions of the morality of the endorser.

Table 6.

Mediation Effect of the Pro-Democratic Frame.

	Stage 1: Endorser Moral	Stage 1: Protest Legal	Stage 1: Protest Repress	Stage 2: Protest Support
Panel 1: protest support
Pro-democratic frame	−.340*** (.094)	−.250*** (.094)	.090 (.095)	.046 (.063)
Protest legal				.612*** (.023)
Endorser moral				.218*** (.024)
Protest repress				.026 (.022)
Pre-treatment covariates	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Constant	4.354*** (.382)	4.439*** (.382)	3.910*** (.389)	.425 (.281)
Observations	958	958	958	958
R-squared	.032	.028	.079	.567

	Stage 1: Poster Moral	Stage 1: Protest Legal	Stage 1: Protest Repress	Stage 2: Protest Justified
Panel 2: protest justified
Pro-democracy frame	−.340*** (.094)	−.250*** (.094)	.090 (.095)	−.092 (.064)
Protest legal				.471*** (.024)
Poster moral				.182*** (.024)
Protest repress				−.011 (.022)
Pre-treatment covariates	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Constant	4.354*** (.382)	4.439*** (.382)	3.910*** (.389)	1.720*** (.286)
Observations	958	958	958	958
R-squared	.032	.028	.079	.423

Note. Models are OLS with robust standard errors in parentheses. Stage 1 regresses the frame and pre-treatment covariates on the mediators. Stage 2 regresses the frame, pre-treatment covariates, and the mediators on the whether the protest is supported; protest support is a six-point variable ranging from 1 (completely unsupportive) to 6 (completely supportive); ***p < .01, **p < .05, *p < .1. Note. Models are OLS with robust standard errors in parentheses. Stage 1 regresses the frame and pre-treatment covariates on the mediators. Stage 2 regresses the frame, pre-treatment covariates, and the mediators on the whether the protest is justified; protest justified is a six-point variable ranging from 1 (completely unjustified) to 6 (completely justified); ***p < .01, **p < .05, *p < .1.

However, these findings are obtained under the sequential ignorability assumption, in which two assumptions are made sequentially (Imai et al., 2011). The first assumption is that there is no omitted variable bias, which means that the framing treatment is assumed to be independent of potential outcomes and mediators. This assumption holds because respondents were randomly assigned to read different frames about the hypothetical land protest. The second assumption states that no unobserved pre- and post-treatment covariates can confound the relationship between respondents’ perception of protest legality and perceived endorser’s morality (the mediators) and support for the protest (the outcome). Because all the potential mediators are not randomized, this is a strong assumption. The assumption is violated if unmeasured covariates affect both perceptions of protest legality or the poster’s morality and protest support. For example, a respondent’s experience in participating in grassroots activism that is not observed may affect both their perception of protest legality and the poster’s morality and support for the protest. For instance, in the group exposed to the pro-democratic frame, those with experiences in grassroots activism may be more likely to find the land protest legal and more likely to support the protest.

Therefore, I conduct a sensitivity analysis to account for possible violations of the sequential ignorability assumption (Imai et al., 2011). The test shows the degree to which a correlation in the errors of the mediation model and the errors of the outcome model would impact the estimated mediated effect. As Appendix 15 shows, the perception that the protest is legal is the most robust against potential violations of this assumption. The perception of the morality of the endorser is more sensitive to a potential correlation of error terms. Based on this analysis, I have a high degree of confidence that the pro-democratic frame signals that the protest is illegal, which decreases support. I find additional evidence that the pro-democratic frame also impacts the perception that the endorser is moral and shares the values of the respondent, thus reducing support for the protests. There is no evidence that my treatment generated concerns that the protests would be repressed. Taken together, this analysis suggests that pro-democracy activists may undermine support for rightful resisters by raising concerns about the morality of the protesters, and especially the legality of the protests.

One reason Vietnamese citizens are reluctant to support illegal protests is that they may perceive that these protests involve illegal activities that disrupt social order and individual security. Vietnamese state media typically portrays illegal protests as those affiliated with anti-government groups seeking to obtain their interests through violent and destructive means (Kerkvliet, 2019). When a local protest is associated with a pro-democracy group which is perceived to be radical and extreme, the public may be worried that the protest would eventually engage in activities that disrupt stability.

In addition, although protests have become more common in Vietnam since the early 2000s (Kerkvliet, 2019), Vietnamese citizens tend to take legal norms regarding expressing dissatisfaction with the government seriously. When dissatisfied with government authorities, citizens first use institutionalized channels, such as sending written petitions, accusations, and other complaints to local government officials. Aggrieved individuals may try institutionalized channels for many years and only organize protests as a last resort (Kerkvliet, 2014). In China, rightful resisters are often engaged in confrontational and troublemaking activities such as “staging large scale, public, and disruptive protests, establishing cross-sector ties, or forming semiautonomous or autonomous organizations” (Chen, 2012, p. 136). In contrast, in Vietnam, once aggrieved individuals protest, they go to great lengths to adhere to legal activities, which some describe as “extremely rightful” (Chau, 2019).¹⁸ First, because mobilization across sectors and classes is not the norm, it is especially rare for protesters in one locality to coordinate their actions with peers elsewhere. Second, because peaceful, nonviolent protests are perceived to be legal, demonstrators are usually “peaceful, silent, and prominently display Vietnamese flags and Ho Chi Minh portraits” (Kerkvliet, 2014, p. 27). Finally, land protesters sometimes do not even accuse local authorities and simply ask for help from a “benign, caring, respected superior” (Chau, 2019, p. 16).

Regarding the morality mechanism, one reason why the Vietnamese public perceives the pro-democratic frame as casting local protestors as less moral may come from the government’s perception of liberal democracy. State propaganda makes it clear that political systems promoted by pro-democracy activities are “bourgeois” or ‘capitalist’ democracies run for and by rich people, giant companies, and other privileged interests” (Kerkvliet, 2019, p. 117). In such systems, the government emphasizes that “workers and peasants are typically suppressed and exploited” (Kerkvliet, 2019, p. 117). By imposing this perception of democracy on society, the government may create the idea that democratic systems are immoral and those who advocate for democracy are less moral than the average citizen.

Another question is whether endorsing local policy-based protests through more persuasive channels such as propaganda leaflets, campaigns, and written works would affect public opinion differently. While pro-democracy movements have grown in Vietnam over the last three decades, they are still in a weak position vis-à-vis the state. While pro-democracy advocates have attempted to endorse and discuss local issues through essays, blog posts, books, and other propaganda activities, these works are still rare, only reach a small segment of educated urban residents in big cities, and are subject to harsh state repression (Kerkvliet, 2019).¹⁹ The government publicly accuses these activists and their works of going against the national interests. Thus, these endorsement channels may appear even more negative for average citizens than Facebook posts. Given Vietnam’s repressive nature, pro-democracy advocates have limited options for endorsing and advocating for democratic institutions and values. However, future research could explore whether different pro-democracy endorsement channels affect public opinion towards protests differently.

Conclusion

Is there a risk for policy protesters linking with pro-democracy activists? My theory and results suggest there is. Associating policy protests with a pro-democratic frame reduces support by making the protests seem less legal and the protesters less moral. This indicates that local policy-based protests may indeed face a strategic dilemma (Jasper, 2004), where attempts to garner attention by enlisting pro-democracy activists can undermine support. While I conducted my study on land protests in Vietnam, I believe these results should travel to cases where local protesters use rightful resistance strategies against an autocratic regime and where pro-democracy movements are relatively weak vis-à-vis the state.

It is worth noting that other types of protests also challenge autocrats. For example, protests can become nationalized and demand changes to the policy making process. In some contexts, protests about non-economic issues related to culture and identity may be common. These protests may differ from local policy-based protests in terms of constituencies, blame attribution, and the extent to which they adhere to the established values. One important avenue for future research is to explore which types of protests are more likely to build a coalition with pro-democracy advocates.

An important limitation of the study is that I was forced to use hypothetical pro-democracy activists to endorse the protest. It is possible that endorsement from a particularly well-known activist could have different effects if citizens associate those activists with specific views or personal traits. However, I believe that at least part of the reason that a particular pro-democracy activist might acquire an association with being extreme would be due to the messages they have advocated for in the past. Therefore, if there was an effect of a particular activist, I think that the underlying mechanism of the extreme message leading to a perception of illegality could still operate, at least indirectly, through the message associated with the activist. It helps explain why policy-based protesters may be unwilling to enlist the aid of democracy activists and journalists unless they continually fail to win concessions.

As a final point, my findings do seem to lead to the pessimistic conclusion that pro-democracy advocates are toxic to other protesters. How do pro-democracy groups ever build a wide coalition if this is the case? Some important considerations regarding the scope conditions of my study have implications for this concern. Vietnam is a stable autocracy where citizens strongly trust the center, and the pro-democracy movement is relatively restricted. It is possible that if land protesters, nationalist groups, or an exogenous shock such as an economic collapse undermine trust in the center, the public could be more receptive to linking a pro-democratic frame to local grievances. While these remain important questions for future work, it is nonetheless important to be clear-eyed about the challenges facing pro-democracy groups and other protest movements in a context where the regime enjoys a high degree of trust and hegemony.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - The “Ironic Impact” of Pro-Democracy Activists: How Pro-Democratic Frames Undermine Support for Local Policy-Based Protests in Authoritarian Regimes

Supplemental Material for The “Ironic Impact” of Pro-Democracy Activists: How Pro-Democratic Frames Undermine Support for Local Policy-Based Protests in Authoritarian Regimes by Mai Truong in Comparative Political Studies.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Paul Schuler for his invaluable support for this research. The author would also like to thank the Editors and three anonymous Reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript. Any errors are responsibility of the author.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Mai Truong

Data Availability Statement

The data given this article and code are available at .

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author Biography

Mai Truong is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Marquette University. Her research focuses on protests, social movements, and autocratic politics. Her regional focus is Southeast Asia.

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