Cognition and protest in democratic and authoritarian regimes, 1981–2020. (May 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lavrinenko, Olga
• Is Part Of: International sociology. Volume 37:Number 3(2022)
• Page Start: 355
• Page End: 372
• Publication Date: 2022-05
• Subjects: Cognition -- democracy -- efficacy -- protest -- social spending; Cognition -- démocratie -- efficacité -- protestation -- dépenses sociales; Cognición -- democracia -- eficacia -- protesta -- gasto social; Sociology -- Periodicals; Social history -- Periodicals; Social change -- Periodicals; Globalization -- Periodicals; 303.482
• DOI: 10.1177/02685809211068664
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0268-5809

Abstract

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.