Cognition and protest in democratic and authoritarian regimes,1981

Abstract

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French

Whereas most theories of why the masses protest in democratic and authoritarian regimes involve some psychological or ‘cognitive’ element, major theories that include them (a) de-emphasize the structural conditions and (b) posit an explicit structure and cognition model but lack data to test its propositions across nations and time. This article synthesizes cognition-themed theories of democratic culture, political process theory’s cognitive liberation, and the structural cognitive model’s incentives. I test this synthetic theory in a specific way: that democratization and social spending interact with cognition in terms of external political efficacy and support for equitable economic redistribution to increase protest potential. I employ a three-level cross-national time-series model on the World Values Survey/European Values Study integrated dataset (1981–2020), consisting of democratic and authoritarian-leaning countries. I find that the three cognitive theories are complementary and that the interaction of structural changes with micro-level cognition has nuanced associations with protest potential.

Keywords

Cognition democracy efficacy protest social spending

Many theories of why the masses protest in democratic and authoritarian regimes involve some psychological or ‘cognitive’ element. One major theory is about democratic culture, in which cognition refers to the masses’ desire for freedom, for example, ‘emancipative values’ (Kirsch and Welzel, 2019; Welzel, 2013). In democracies, the desire for freedom leads people to support and agitate for democracy via protest. In authoritarian regimes, this desire creates a conflict between what the masses want (freedom) and what the authoritarian regime provides (control); as a result, the masses support and agitate for democracy via protest (Welzel and Inglehart, 2008).

Other major theories also explicitly emphasize cognition; I examine two of them. In political process theory (PPT) (McAdam et al., 2001, 2013; Meyer, 2012; Meyer and Minkoff, 2004; Schussman and Soule, 2005; Zaidise et al., 2018), the psychological part is ‘cognitive liberation’, defined as ‘the collective assessment of the prospects for successful insurgency’ (McAdam, 1982: 40). In cognitive liberation, perceived injustice and efficacy are critical components of protest emergence (McAdam, 1982: 51, 2013). Another is Opp’s (2009) structural cognitive model (SCM) that defines cognition as a situation in which people recognize macro-level changes and thus are more likely to protest (Opp, 2009: 330).

These three cognitive theories differ in how they view the role of macro-level structures. Democratic culture theory argues that the role and impact of cognition on protest behavior vary somewhat by structure, but, over time, cognition – the growing desire for freedom – will lead to a change in the type of political regime, for example, democratization (Kirsch and Welzel, 2019; Welzel, 2013; Welzel and Inglehart, 2008). PPT theory, and the adjacent concept of political opportunity structures (POS), tends to treat macro structures as important but static. SCM emphasizes the interaction between cognition and structural changes (Corcoran et al., 2015; Opp, 2009), but there are few tests with major cross-national datasets, and thus empirical support tends to be limited to studies of one or a handful of countries (for a cross-national test of SCM with the European Values Survey (EVS), see Lavrinenko, 2021). It seems obvious that these cognitive theories are complementary, yet protest scholars often treat them as separate. Each theory – democratic culture, PPT, and SCM – seems to live in walled gardens that bloom well, but the scholar-gardeners do not promote migration of the seed ideas between them.

In this article, I make two arguments. First, whereas these cognitive theories are often discussed as separate, they are in fact compatible, and often they make the same basic theoretical assertions. Second, based on the propositions of PPT and SCM, cognition is directly connected to dynamic structures. In sum, these theories are in need of a theoretical synthesis to build a parsimonious empirical model of cognition and structural changes to explain dynamics of protest potential in democratic and authoritarian regimes.

This article synthesizes these cognitive theories to create a multi-level, cross-national, overtime exploration of the relationship between structure, cognition, and protest. I concentrate on the integration of two frameworks: PPT and SCM. In this article, ‘democracy culture’ suggests a larger theoretical framework for cognition, while SCM-PPT suggests interactions between specific macro- and micro-level factors.

I synthesize PPT and SCM’s concepts of cognition to test a well-known theory: at the macro-level, both changes to political regime type and an increase in social spending promote micro-level cognition in terms of political efficacy and support for equitable economic redistribution that, in turn, increases protest potential (Castillo et al., 2015; Evans, 2018; Jo and Choi, 2019; Justino and Martorano, 2016). I test this theory with a three-level cross-national time-series model on the World Values Survey (WVS)/EVS integrated dataset (1981–2020), consisting of democratic and authoritarian-leaning countries.

Theoretical background

PPT and SCM

In PPT, individuals’ subjective perception of the macro-level context mediates structure and action (McAdam, 1982, 2013). It asserts that protest, as a multi-stage process that goes from cognition to action, is a result of the additive effect of macro and micro factors, for example, expanding political opportunities, socio-economic processes, organizational strength at the macro-level, and ‘cognitive liberation’ at the micro-level (McAdam et al., 2001). SCM’s concept of cognition is about ‘incentives’. Incentives represent the effects of macro changes on micro-level inclinations to protest (Opp, 2009: 330–332). In SCM, the term ‘cognitive’ concerns an individual’s awareness of the macro-level changes. The macro changes incentivize the individual, who, according to theory, is aware of the dynamic macro-level structures and thus turns to protest. As such, the outcome is the same: cognitive liberation increases protest potential and incentives increase protest potential.

Both PPT and SCM suggest two cognitive factors that could impact protest potential: external political efficacy and attitudes toward equitable economic redistribution. External political efficacy is a belief that the government will hear and act on citizen voice (Cole, 2018; Finkel, 1985; Goodin and Dryzek, 1980; Midtbø, 2018). The other is desire for equitable economic redistribution which can be a belief that taxing the rich is an essential characteristic of democracy or it can be a belief that incomes should be equal (Jo and Choi, 2019; Klandermans et al., 2008: 994). These cognitive factors are liberating and incentivizing for individuals. Either one can led to protest. However, the changes in macro-level factors interact with these cognitive factors to perhaps change their relationship with protest potential. One such major factor is the type of political regime.

Regime, spending, cognition, and protest

Democracy and authoritarianism are major structural characteristics of political regimes that can change over time and can influence the relationships between cognition and protest. Contemporary political theory distinguishes three main models of democracy: liberal, social, and direct (Ferrín and Kriesi, 2016). Liberal democracy provides a procedural definition of democracy that concentrates on the electoral process, government’s responsiveness, inclusive citizenship, and the freedom of expression and associations. If a regime does not meet at least one of these criteria, the regime has become, or is on the road to becoming, authoritarian. Social democracy complements this definition, but states that an increase in social protection measures and a reduction in income inequalities are the government’s responsibility. Direct democracy insists on greater inclusion of citizens in the legislative process through referenda and participatory budgeting (Ferrín and Kriesi, 2016). In comparison with liberal definition of democracy, social and direct democracies explicitly contain output characteristics of the regime, for example, social protection, among other matters. Authoritarian regimes also can incorporate these characteristics as ‘social protection’ via well-funded welfare states. Social spending could be employed by both democratic and authoritarian governments (Hernández, 2016; Norris, 2011).

Theoretically, social spending is an investment in (a) the infrastructure that opens up the possibilities for people to meet and organize and (b) the development and enhancement of mass education. Thus, an increase in social spending should provide the structural resources essential for protest to occur (Jo and Choi, 2019). Government expenditure on education is an investment in ‘civic skills’ (Persson, 2015; Verba et al., 1995). Education expenditure is often measured in the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) allocated to public education. Low educational investment leads to the reproduction of educational and, thus, political inequalities. Social spending empowers everyone, increasing their civic skills, political efficacy, and, thus, their participation (Grasso and Giugni, 2016; Verba et al., 1995).

An open POS leads to cognitive liberation and incentivizes the population through the promotion of external political efficacy (Andrain and Smith, 2006; Diamond, 1994; Heiss and Matthes, 2016). External political efficacy is an essential feature of ‘democratic culture’, as protest and social change are possible when people desire freedom and believe that they can bring about that freedom through public and government-targeted redress of grievances. Thus, in all three protest theories I examine in this article, political regime matters: when the system is more tolerant and responsive to dissent, people are more likely to mobilize (Evans, 2018; Fox, 2015; Joshi and Moore, 2000). An increase in the POS openness strengthens the association between external efficacy and protest behavior.

Attitude toward equitable economic redistribution is another major factor in the relationship between spending and cognition (e.g. Drury and Reicher, 2000, 2005; Kelly and Breinlinger, 1995; see also Opp, 2009: 190). Equitable redistribution is a positive assessment of government intervention into the economy. We can observe micro-level perceptions of the role of government in equitable redistribution in the WVS, for example, ‘governments tax the rich and subsidize the poor’, as well as fairness in outcome distribution and generally a desire for income equality also in WVS, for example, ‘incomes should be more equal’. In liberal democracies, the population can freely express their concerns about equitable economic distribution (Midtbø, 2018; Ross, 2006). Authoritarian regimes are intolerant to dissent about their role in economic redistribution.

In the cross-national empirical literature, support for equitable economic redistribution positively associates with protest behavior, for example, in Latin America (Castillo et al., 2015; Justino and Martorano, 2016). In some countries of Europe, austerity-driven policies increased support for equitable economic redistribution and contributed to protest mobilization (Meneses et al., 2018; but see Kriesi et al., 2020). Authoritarian governments can also employ economic redistribution to mobilize regime support (Arikan and Sekercioglu, 2019; Federico et al., 2017). Redistribution of resources to regime supporters goes hand-in-hand with repression against the opposition (Teo, 2019). Thus, when people in economically unequal democracies carry the idea that income equality is an essential characteristic of democracy, they are more likely to protest. To understand protest potential at the micro-level, whether or not economic redistribution is, objectively speaking, an essential characteristic of democracy is less important than whether people think it is.

Hypotheses

In this article, I test two major hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1. In democratic regimes, an increase in social spending will make protest more likely for those with greater external political efficacy and for supporters of equitable economic redistribution.

Hypothesis 2. An increase in the openness of the POS, that is, a change in political regime, will increase protest potential, especially for those with greater external political efficacy and for supporters of equitable economic redistribution.

Data and methods

There are few datasets that have the appropriate items to test cognitive propositions across nations and time. Indeed, many previous cross-national empirical tests of SCM and PPT used cross-sectional data (e.g. Corcoran et al., 2011; Lavrinenko, 2021; Schussman and Soule, 2005). Expanding on Lavrinenko’s (2021) exploration of how the EVS can be used to test cognitive theories, this study draws on the WVS/EVS dataset (1981–2020) (Inglehart et al., 2020).

The overall sample is 120,150 respondents from 51 countries and 102 country-waves. The number of waves observed per country varies from 2 to 7. I included countries where the core items of my models were present in every wave.¹ The sample is representative of the adult population aged 18 years and older. It is regionally diversified and represents Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America.

Micro-level variables

Protest potential

The dependent variable is non-violent protest. I follow Jenkins et al. (2008) to construct a scale of protest that includes both protest potential and reports on past participation in signing a petition, attending lawful demonstrations, and joining in boycotts. To create this scale, I reversed the coding of the protest items as 1 = ‘would never do’, 2 = ‘might do’, and 3 = ‘have done’; converted them into z-scores; and divided by 3 (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.76). Considering that this scale includes both potential (would or might do) and behavior (have done), and that ‘have done’ is vague, it may refer to any of these activities done at any time that the respondent was alive (see Tomescu-Dubrow et al., 2018), and following the term used in Jenkins et al. (2008), my measure is about protest potential. In this scale, the greater the score, the greater the protest potential.

Attitudes toward equitable economic redistribution

I operationalize attitudes toward equitable economic redistribution in two ways. One way is belief about taxing the rich and subsidizing the poor as an essential characteristic of democracy (what some refer to as ‘state paternalism’; Aronsson and Johansson-Stenman, 2018). The measure on taxing the rich comes from the WVS/EVS-based 10-point scale:

Many things are desirable, but not all of them are essential characteristics of democracy. Please tell me for each of the following things how essential you think it is as a characteristic of democracy. Use this scale where 1 means ‘not at all an essential characteristic of democracy’ and 10 means it definitely is ‘an essential characteristic of democracy’, ‘governments tax the rich and subsidize the poor’.

The methodological literature suggests that tests of theories are more robust when there are more than one indicator of the theory’s concepts. To this end, to ‘tax the rich’ I added support for income equality. The item from WVS/EVS is as follows:

Now I’d like you to tell me your views on various issues. How would you place your views on this scale? 1 means you agree completely with the statement on the left; 10 means you agree completely with the statement on the right; and if your views fall somewhere in between, you can choose any number in between, ‘incomes should be more equal’– ‘we need larger differences in income’.

In this measure, the greater the score, the lower the support for income equality. I reversed this scale to make the greater score associated with higher support for income equality.

External political efficacy

I measure external political efficacy with the following item: ‘If you had to choose, which one of the things on this card would you say is most important? Giving people more say in important government decisions’. The respondent was presented with an array of possibilities. I coded this as a dichotomy because the wording of the item forces the selection of only one of the possibilities. This item was the only choice that directly concerns the issue of ‘people’s voice’. Other items included materialist attitudes, such as ‘maintaining order in the nation’ and ‘fighting rising prices’.²

Control variables

Education

A well-known finding is that education significantly influences protest potential (Jo and Choi, 2019; Kern et al., 2015; Persson, 2015; Verba et al., 1995). I coded education based on the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) classification presented in the WVS, but as a dichotomy: ‘upper secondary and below’ (no formal education or less than primary education; primary education; lower secondary; upper secondary) and ‘post-secondary and above’ (post-secondary; upper secondary without access to higher; upper secondary with access to higher; post-secondary/advanced vocational; bachelor’s level; master’s level and higher).

Interest in politics

The literature also finds that interest in politics increases protest potential (Hooghe and Quintelier, 2014; Kern et al., 2015; Verba et al., 1995). I use the WVS/EVS measure of interest in politics as a 4-point scale that ranges from 1 (‘not at all interested’) to 4 (‘very interested’).

Union membership

Labor union organizations play a pivotal role in protest mobilization because they articulate redistribution demands, organize, and disseminate information about protest activities (Evans, 2018; Hooghe and Quintelier, 2014; Jo and Choi, 2019; Schussman and Soule, 2005). The WVS/EVS measure of union membership is a 3-point variable that differentiates between members and non-members and, within members, between active and non-active. I dichotomized this variable where 1 is a union member that is either active or inactive, and 0 means ‘not a member’.

Demographics

The main demographics I control for are gender and age. Since this study spans the 1980s to the 2010s, I note that the role of gender in protest potential changed in Europe. Earlier empirical studies found that women had lower protest potential than men (Dalton, 1996; Jenkins et al., 2008; Schlozman et al., 1994). More recently, in European societies, the gender gap closed and scholars observe a higher level of women’s protest engagement than men (Kern et al., 2015; Lavrinenko, 2021). I coded gender as a binary variable, where 1 = woman and 0 = man.

The young tend to have higher protest potential with regard to non-electoral participation than the old (i.e. Cole, 2018; Kern et al., 2015). I standardized the age range from 18 to 90 years. For ease of interpretation of models, it is presented in six intervals: 18–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55–64, and 65–90. The relationship between age and protest may be curvilinear (Hooghe and Quintelier, 2014; Kern et al., 2015). Thus, I squared age and added it to the model.

Macro-level variables

Social spending: Expenditure on education

To measure social spending, I use a well-known and often used measure widely available in cross-national datasets: Government expenditure on education (% of GDP) comes from Quality of Governance indicators (Teorell et al., 2020).

Political opportunity structure

To measure POS openness, I apply the Electoral Democracy Index (EDI) from the Varieties of Democracy project (V-Dem; Coppedge et al., 2020: 42). EDI is a measure of the POS and political regime type with an index that ranges from 0 to 1: 0.0 – ‘Closed Autocratic’ regime; 0.25 – ‘Autocratic’; 0.5 – ‘Ambivalent’ (or ‘hybrid’ in more conventional terminology); 0.75 – ‘Minimally Democratic’; 1.0 – ‘Democratic’.

Economic inequality: Gini

Economic inequality has a mixed relationship with protest potential. According to relative power theory, higher income inequality significantly decreases protest potential among everyone except those at the top of the income ladder (Solt, 2008, 2011). I measure economic inequality with the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID) (Solt, 2019). SWIID are Gini data on market and disposable income. Countries differ in taxation and welfare systems, and these differences can impact the relationship between spending, Gini, and protest. I chose standardized market income – pre-tax pre-welfare transfers – so that these tax and welfare policies do not impact the main relationships of interest. I note that, in the analyses, disposable income inequality behaves in a similar manner as market income inequality.

Analytical strategy

These are cross-sectional, time-series data ordered into three levels: individuals (first level), countries (second level), and waves (third level). In these three-level models, individuals are nested within country-waves which are nested within countries. I differentiate between (a) changes that occurred within particular countries over the observation period from (b) cross-national differences. To account for this differentiation, I present the macro-level variables as country-specific means calculated across all time points within the country. I also present variables of change. These change variables (marked with a delta, Δ) represent deviations from the countries’ means between country-waves.

To test whether social spending, that is, government expenditure on education, moderates the relationship between cognition and protest, I introduce a cross-level interaction term between (a) the within-country change of expenditure on education and (b) the two cognitive factors (i.e. external political efficacy and support for equitable economic redistribution). In the same way, I estimate moderating effects of within-country change in the POS on the relationships between external political efficacy and protest potential, and equitable economic redistribution and protest potential.

With rare exception (e.g. Mikucka et al., 2017), the empirical literature does not distinguish between country averages and within-country changes across time. However, in the case of time-series data, this distinction is essential, as the country averages could be correlated with unobserved predictors. Introduction of the variables of change to the models partially excludes the influence of unobserved time-invariant factors that are correlated with expenditure on education and the POS.

Furthermore, cross-sectional effects (mean, µ) and changes over time (Δ) account for different issues (Mikucka et al., 2017). Cross-sectional effects reveal differences between countries, for example, countries have different expenditures on education and different political regimes. Cross-time effects reveal trends, for example, how democratization or increases in social spending influence protest potential.

Table 1 provides summary statistics for the micro-level and macro-level variables.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics.

Variable	Mean	SD	Min.	Max.	Obs.
Dependent variable
Protest potential (z-scores)	–0.01	0.82	–0.87	1.92	356,455
Individual-level variables
Support for income equality	5.17	3.03	1	10	391,864
Support for ‘Tax the Rich’	6.46	2.98	1	10	227,294
External efficacy	0.61	0.49	0	1	404,959
Education	0.60	0.49	0	1	300,306
Interest in politics	2.34	0.97	1	4	409,743
Union membership	0.17	0.37	0	1	322,471
Gender (female = 1)	0.52	0.50	0	1	421,200
Age (18–90)	41.28	16.11	18	90	418,244
Age²	1963.67	1493.42	324	8100	418,244
Country-level variables
µ Expenditure on education	4.29	1.34	1.23	11.82	51
µ Political regime	0.58	0.24	0.02	0.91	51
µ Gini	38.46	8.65	22.32	65.79	51
Country-wave-level variables
Δ Expenditure on education	0.02	0.56	–6.63	38.22	102
Δ Political regime	0.04	0.09	–0.79	0.44	102
Δ Gini	0.01	1.56	–11.40	10.52	102

Sources: Micro-level (World Values Survey-European Values Study integrated dataset), political regime (Varieties of democracy), Gini: SWIID, expenditure on education (Quality of Government indicators).

WVS/EVS: World Values Survey/European Values Study; SWIID: Standardized World Income Inequality Database.

In the analysis, all country-level variables are centered at the grand mean (Hox et al., 2017).

Analysis

Figures 1 and 2 depict aggregated data from all countries and all waves and suggest changes in education expenditure and political regime across nations and time. Expenditure on education and political regime is estimated as averages pooled across countries. There are slight fluctuations within these ranges with the trend line in a positive direction. I note that even slight fluctuations in government expenditure correspond to perhaps millions of US dollars that either go to (upward trend) or are not spent on (downward trend) education. A trend upward in political regime within the 0.3–0.6 range means movement from autocratic to hybrid regimes, which is toward, but not quite reaching, democracy. In subsequent analyses of the effects of change, we assume that these changes in expenditure and political regime are positive over time.

Figure 1.

Trends in education expenditure, 1980–2020.

Figure 2.

Trends in political regime, 1980–2020.

In Table 2, Model 1 is a baseline model that contains, at the macro-level, expenditure on education and income inequality and, at the micro-level, external political efficacy, support for equitable economic redistribution, and individual-level controls. In this model, external political efficacy and both indicators of equitable economic redistribution increase protest potential. Country-averages of expenditure on education are statistically insignificant, which suggests that expenditure on education does not have a relationship with variance in protest potential across nations. Within-country changes of education expenditure are statistically significant and have a negative sign, which suggests that within-country increases in expenditure on education decrease protest potential.

Table 2.

Three-level cross-time models of protest potential.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4
Fixed effects
Support for income equality	0.01*** (0.00)	0.01*** (0.00)	0.01*** (0.00)	0.01*** (0.00)
Support for ‘Tax the Rich’	0.01*** (0.00)	0.01*** (0.00)	0.01*** (0.00)	0.01*** (0.00)
External political efficacy	0.09*** (0.00)	0.09*** (0.00)	0.09*** (0.00)	0.10*** (0.00)
Post-secondary education	0.18*** (0.00)	0.18*** (0.00)	0.18*** (0.00)	0.18*** (0.00)
Interest in politics	0.2*** (0.00)	0.2*** (0.00)	0.2*** (0.00)	0.2*** (0.00)
Union membership	0.21*** (0.00)	0.21*** (0.00)	0.21*** (0.00)	0.22*** (0.00)
Gender (female)	–0.06*** (0.00)	–0.06*** (0.00)	–0.06*** (0.00)	–0.06*** (0.00)
Age	0.02*** (0.00)	0.02*** (0.00)	0.02*** (0.00)	0.02*** (0.00)
Age²	–0.11*** (0.00)	–0.11*** (0.00)	–0.11*** (0.00)	–0.11*** (0.00)
µ Expenditure on education	0.011 (0.05)	0.025 (0.04)	0.025 (0.04)	0.025 (0.04)
µ Political regime		1.26*** (0.22)	1.26*** (0.22)	1.26*** (0.22)
µ Gini	–0.00(0.1)	0.00(0.1)	0.00(0.1)	0.00(0.1)
Δ Expenditure on education	–0.10** (0.03)	–0.10*** (0.02)	–0.10*** (0.02)	–0.10*** (0.02)
Δ Political regime		1.06*** (0.27)	1.10*** (0.27)	1.20*** (0.27)
Δ Gini	–0.01(0.01)	–0.02(0.01)	–0.01(0.01)	–0.01(0.01)
Δ Expenditure on education × Support for income equality			0.005** (0.00)	0.01** (0.00)
Δ Expenditure on education × ‘Tax the rich’			0.001(0.00)	0.002(0.00)
Δ Expenditure on education × External political efficacy			0.005(0.15)	0.014(0.015)
Δ Political regime × Support for income equality				–0.24(0.013)
Δ Political regime× ‘Tax the rich’				–0.10*** (0.013)
Δ Political regime × External political efficacy				0.35*** (0.10)
Intercept
Constant	–0.28(0.37)	–1.67*** (0.37)	–1.69*** (0.37)	–1.69*** (0.37)
Random effects
Country var(_cons)	0.13	0.10	0.13	0.10
Country-year var(_cons)	0.06	0.03	0.06	0.03
Var(residual)	0.48	0.48	0.48	0.48
Fit statistics
Akaike’s Information Criteria	159,352.6	157,303.69	157,303.2	157,272.8
Bayesian Information Criteria	159,509.6	157,478.88	157,506.1	157,503.3
N (individuals)	112,046	112,046	112,046	112,046
N (countries)	51	51	51	51
N (country-waves)	102	102	102	102

Standard errors in parentheses.

***

p < 0.001; **p < 0.005; *p < 0.05.

In all models, the micro-level relationships between control variables and protest potential do not change. All are statistically significant at p < 0.001. The model suggests that education (post-secondary education), interest in politics, and union membership increase protest potential. Women have lower protest potential than men. Age² has a negative relationship with protest potential, which suggests an inversed U-shape effect of age, such that the middle-aged has higher protest potential than either the young or old age groups.

Model 2 adds political contextual indicators: country averages and within-country changes to the political regime. Both indicators are statistically significant and positive. The results suggest that democratization is positively associated with protest potential. Political context thus explains the within-country and between-country variance of protest potential.

Model 3 is a test of the hypothesis about relations between change in education expenditure and the two cognitive factors (external political efficacy and support for equitable economic redistribution). This model introduces interaction terms between within-country change in education expenditure and (a) the two indicators of the equitable economic redistribution attitudes (‘tax the rich’ and ‘support for income equality’) and (b) external political efficacy. Interaction terms with ‘tax the rich’ are statistically insignificant, but the interaction term with support for income equality is positive and significant. The interaction between change in education expenditure and external political efficacy is not significant.

Model 4 introduces interaction terms between (a) within-country changes to the political regime and (b) the two variables of the equitable economic redistribution and external political efficacy. The interaction terms with support for income equality are statistically insignificant. The interaction term with support for taxing the rich is negative and statistically significant. This suggests that democratization decreases protest potential of ‘tax the rich’ supporters. The interaction term with external political efficacy is positive and statistically significant. In Model 4, changes to the political regime, that is, democratization, increase protest potential, while increases in social spending decrease this potential. As for Gini, there were no significant effects, neither within nor between countries.

Conclusion

Whereas cognition plays an important role in protest across nations, extant theories of democratic culture, PPT, and SCM are useful but have various shortcomings. Specifically, they (a) emphasize cognition but de-emphasize changes to structural conditions or (b) posit an explicit structure and cognition model, but its literature features few cross-national, overtime tests of the propositions.

This article thus had two aims. First, it synthesizes cognition-themed theories of democratic culture, PPT’s ‘cognitive mobilization’, and SCM’s ‘incentives’. Second, I use this synthesis to test a theory that explains how changes at the macro-level – political regimes and social spending – are associated with cognitive factors of external political efficacy and support for equitable economic redistribution that associate with protest potential.

I drew on the WVS/EVS integrated dataset (1981–2020) from 51 countries and nearly 40 years to test two hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 posited that, in democracies, an increase in social spending will make protest more likely for those with greater external political efficacy and for supporters of equitable economic redistribution. Hypothesis 2 posited that a change in political regime toward democracy increases protest potential, especially for those with greater external political efficacy and for supporters of equitable economic redistribution.

The models yielded mixed results. Being in a democracy and being in a country that is becoming more democratic over time are conditions that are positively associated with protest potential. At the micro-level, cognitive factors of high external political efficacy and support for equitable economic redistribution are also positively associated with protest potential. Thus, in general, the cognitive theories have empirical support in that democracy and cognition promote protest. Whether it is a desire for freedom (democratic culture), or cognitive liberation (PPT), or incentives (SCM), political efficacy and support for economic equality increase protest potential.

However, there are nuances to this picture. Social spending, at any given time, is not associated with protest, but changes to spending are. An increase in social spending increases, slightly, the protest potential of those who support income equality. It has no significant effect for those who believe that taxing the rich is an essential feature of democracy or for those with high external political efficacy. Whereas democratization raises the protest potential of highly politically efficacious individuals, it slightly decreases the protest potential of those who support the idea to ‘tax the rich’. Income inequality has no significant relationships with the variables in these models.

Thus, elements of the three cognitive theories have empirical support: democratization motivates protest and cognitive factors matter. However, social spending on education is not, in and of itself, a motivator. Despite that support for income equality increases protest potential, changes to economic inequality at the macro-level do not. Whether people are inspired by dreams of freedom, or are cognitively liberated, or incentivized, it is not the slow and steady uptick in economic inequality that specifically motivates them.

The results suggest that scholars should take into consideration the changes to macro-level structures and that a synthesis of the democratic culture, PPT, and SCM approaches is fruitful. Scholars should also consider differences in cognitive measures. For example, external political efficacy possesses more substantial explanatory power than equitable economic redistribution support, especially when considering changes to macro-level structures. Therefore, this distinction of ‘cognitive’ dimensions is crucial to explain variance in protest potential across nations and time.

Footnotes

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 disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This paper was funded in part by the National Science Centre, Poland, in the framework of the grant ‘Political Voice and Economic Inequality across Nations and Time’. Contract number: UMO- 2016/23/B/HS6/03916. and by the National Science Centre, Poland, in the framework of the grant ‘Fragmentation of Women’s Organizations and the Expression of Women’s Political Power Worldwide, 1999-2020.’ Contract number: UMO-2021/40/C/HS6/00150.

ORCID iD

Olga Lavrinenko

Notes

Author biography

Olga Lavrinenko is a postdoctoral scholar at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, the University of Warsaw (Poland). Her research focuses on inequalities, political power, protest participation, politics, and gender. Presently, she leads the project ‘Fragmentation of Women’s Organizations and the Expression of Women’s Political Power Worldwide, 1999-2020.’

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Cognition and protest in democratic and authoritarian regimes,1981–2020

Abstract

Keywords

Theoretical background

PPT and SCM

Regime, spending, cognition, and protest

Hypotheses

Data and methods

Micro-level variables

Protest potential

Attitudes toward equitable economic redistribution

External political efficacy

Control variables

Education

Interest in politics

Union membership

Demographics

Macro-level variables

Social spending: Expenditure on education

Political opportunity structure

Economic inequality: Gini

Analytical strategy

Analysis

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

Author biography

References