Social Networks, Peer Effects, and Protest Participation

Abstract: We investigate the effect of social incentives on participation in political protest with a particular focus on the effect of social media. We provide a simple model that illustrates how social media can protest participation and provide empirical evidence on the effect of online social networks on protest participation. First, we show that the structure of online social networks affects political protests. In particular, the protests where less likely to occur in cities with higher fractionalization of users across different social network services. Second, using a list experiment in a survey of Russian protest participants, we show that social motivation operating through both offline and online networks affect protest participation. Finally, we show that participation in protests across Russia in 2011-2012 was associated with higher stocks of social capital and civic culture.