Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: A Field Experiment on the Externalities of Protest

抗议活动如何动员公民社会？活动人士和学者都认为，抗议活动可以激励和动员非参与者，但心理学研究认为，抗议活动对政治参与起反作用。该项目认为，抗议活动的后果随着感知冲突的连续性而变化；个人在抗议中感受到的冲突越多，他们就越有可能对政治不那么感兴趣，更不愿意参与。这一理论通过一项新颖的实地实验得到了验证，实验以墨西哥城的真实抗议活动为实验对象。在实验中，随机抽取当地受访者样本，评估他们在接触抗议活动前后的政治参与水平和政治态度。该研究将评估暴露于抗议活动最终如何实现两极分化效应，使个人动员或遣散显著取决于他们对政治冲突的看法。知识价值：该项目对该领域对抗议和动员的理解做出了重要的理论和方法贡献。从理论上讲，这个项目探索了抗议活动的一个新的、可能富有成效的后果范围。在立法斗争中失败的抗议者有可能在街头赢得自己的斗争，也有可能在与立法者的斗争中获胜的抗议者同时在选民中失败。事实上，如果抗议活动以更有意义的方式改变政治，而不仅仅是赢得或失去立法，那么这些可能的结果值得考虑。此外，为了验证这一理论，该项目采用了一种全新的、创新的方法，从基层捕捉个人对抗议活动的反应，实时测量变化。抗议活动，尤其是其后果，是出了名的难以实证研究的。本实验中记录的数据，以及实验本身的设计，对于任何研究抗议或动员的学生都是有用的，这些学生以前被迫依赖纯粹的定量方法，如抗议事件分析，或纯粹的定性案例研究。更广泛的影响：该项目有三个主要影响，其中第一个直接关系到美国的国家安全。长期以来，政策制定者一直想知道抗议活动的社会和政治后果，但阿拉伯之春的各种结果使这一话题变得更加紧迫。事实上，民间社会对这些运动的反应一直是笨拙的，有时甚至是不可预测的分裂和暴力。例如，突尼斯和埃及的第一次阿拉伯之春受到热烈欢迎，好像动员将不可避免地导致全面的民主实践。后来很明显，公民社会并不总是以这种方式回应，许多抗议活动在没有吸引力的情况下失败了，而其他抗议活动则助长了暴力两极分化的温床。本项目将提供一个框架，据此预测和解释哪些抗议背景最有可能导致民主化、复员或极端两极分化，这样就没有必要针对随后的抗议浪潮制定特别的外交政策。第二，这个项目对草根组织者和社会运动组织在公民社会中寻求提高购买能力有明显的好处。此外，该项目还就可能产生正面或负面外部性的抗议技术和策略提供了具体建议。最后，这个项目将有助于在匹兹堡大学和“被抓”项目之间建立伙伴关系，“被抓”项目是一个由欧洲和拉丁美洲学者组成的网络，致力于将抗议研究系统化。这一伙伴关系将把来自不同国家的学者联系起来，并允许对本科生进行调查工作和实验方法方面的培训。

How can protests mobilize civil society? Activists and scholars alike assume that protests can inspire and mobilize non-participants, but psychological research would argue that protests are counterproductive to political participation. This project argues that the consequences of protest activity vary along a continuum of perceived conflict; the more conflict individuals perceive in the protest, the more likely they are to become less interested in politics and less willing to participate. The theory is tested through a novel field experiment, in which real protests in Mexico City serve as the treatment. For the experiment, levels of political participation and political attitudes among a random sample of local respondents are evaluated before and after exposure to protest activity. The research will evaluate how exposure to protest activity ultimately achieves a polarizing effect, such that individuals either mobilize or demobilize significantly depending on their perception of political conflict. Intellectual Merit: This project makes important theoretical and methodological contributions to the field's understanding of protests and mobilization. Theoretically, this project explores a new and potentially fruitful range of consequences for protest activity. It is possible that protesters who lose legislative battles win their own battles in the streets, and it is also possible that protesters who win their battles with legislators simultaneously lose among the electorate. Indeed, if protests change politics in more meaningful ways than simply winning and losing legislation, then those possible outcomes are worth considering. Moreover, to test this theory, the project uses a fundamentally new and innovative methodological approach that captures individual responses to protest activity at the ground level, measuring change as it occurs in real time. Protests, particularly their consequences, are notoriously difficult to study empirically. The data recorded in this experiment, and the design of the experiment itself, will be useful for any student of protests or mobilization who has been previously forced to rely on purely quantitative approaches, such as protest event analysis, or purely qualitative case studies. Broader Impacts: There are three major impacts of this project, the first of which relates directly to U.S. national security. Policymakers have long wondered about the social and political consequences of protest activity, but the diverse outcomes of the Arab Spring have pressed this topic with more urgency. Indeed, civil society's response to these movements has been unwieldy and, at times, unpredictably divisive and violent. For example, the first cases of the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt were greeted with open arms as if mobilization would inevitably result in sweeping democratic practices. It later became clear civil society would not always respond this way, and many protests fizzled away without traction while others fostered hotbeds of violent polarization. This project will provide a framework from which to predict and explain which protest contexts are most likely to result in democratization, demobilization, or extreme polarization so that it will not be necessary to construct ad hoc foreign policy responses to subsequent waves of protest. Second, this project is notably beneficial to grassroots organizers and social movement organizations seeking to improve their purchase among civil society. Moreover, the project provides specific suggestions in terms of protest techniques and strategies that may yield positive and or negative externalities. Finally, this project will serve to build partnerships between the University of Pittsburgh and the "Caught in the Act" project, a network of European and Latin American scholars working to systematize protest research. The partnership will connect scholars from a variety of countries, and it will allow for the training of undergraduate students in survey work and experimental methods.