Researchers
Beatriz Magaloni - Stanford University
Ruth Kricheli - Stanford University

In recent decades, citizens all over the world took to the streets to oppose predatory
autocracies. In this work, we examine both theoretically and empirically the conditions
that facilitate civil uprisings against autocratic regimes and the determinants of their
success. We ask why citizens opt to risk their lives and protest; what the resulting
dynamics of civil protest is; and what are the conditions under which protest successfully
leads to regime breakdown. To answer these questions, we first develop a game
theoretic signaling model identifying when protests are likely to escalate into mass civil
disobedience. We then generate two testable hypotheses from our theory: more repressive
autocratic regimes are in principle more stable, in part because they are better able to
deter civil opposition. However, protest that takes place in a more repressive autocratic
regime reaches its maximum information revealing potential and hence is more likely
to cascade into a successful uprising. We provide evidence in support of these two
conclusions using data from contemporary regimes from 1950-2000.