15:40 - 17:10
Location: 224 - Floor 1
Chair/s:
Dina Tasneem
Dina Tasneem - The Asymmetric Effect of Ramadan Fasting on Trust and Trustworthiness
Julia Ellingwood - Political (in)Stability and Wellbeing in the UK Civil Service
Abdelkarim Amengay - When Do Citizens Protest? Political and Economic Conditions and Mobilization in Non-Democratic Contexts: Evidence from the Arab World
Tim Wienand - Determinants of Compensating Parental Time Investment
Submission 6
When Do Citizens Protest? Political and Economic Conditions and Mobilization in Non-Democratic Contexts: Evidence from the Arab World
panel.6-224 - Floor 1-03
Presented by: Abdelkarim Amengay
Ibrahim Khatib 1Abdelkarim Amengay 2, Mazen Hassan 3, Mark Tessler 4
1 Doha Institute for Graduate Studies
2 Doha Institute for Graduate Studies
3 Cairo University
4 University of Michigan
Global protest waves continue to challenge authoritarian and hybrid regimes, yet the conditions driving mobilization under repression remain unclear. Existing research often isolates political repression or economic hardship but rarely compares their relative and combined effects. This study develops a cross-national model of protest behavior that examines how regime type, and economic conditions jointly shape willingness to protest. Drawing on a large-scale survey experiment (target N = 18,000) currently being fielded in Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan, we systematically vary regime type (hybrid vs. authoritarian) and economic context (prosperity, mild hardship, crisis) to identify causal effects on protest potential. We argue that it is the interaction of political and economic contexts—not either alone—that explains mobilization: economic crises heighten readiness to protest even under hard authoritarianism, whereas hybrid regimes facing mild hardship may dampen incentives. By comparing political and economic conditions across diverse authoritarian contexts, the study advances debates on authoritarian resilience, contentious politics, and the structural drivers of citizen protest.