Measuring and Analyzing Protest Potential From a Survey Data Recycling Framework

Abstract

As active involvement in protest has been legitimized as an acceptable form of political activity, citizens’ protest potential has become an important measure to understand contemporary democratic politics. However, the arbitrary use of a forced-choice question, which prevents those who have previously participated in protests from expressing willingness to engage in future protest, and the limited coverage of international surveys across countries and years have impeded comparative research on protest potential. This research develops a new systematic weighting method for the measurement of protest potential for comparative research. Using the 1996 International Social Survey Program survey, which asks two separate questions about “have done” and “would do” demonstrations, I create a weighting scale for the forced-choice question by estimating the predicted probabilities of protest potential for those who have already participated in demonstrations. Capitalizing on the survey data recycling framework, this study also controls for harmonization procedures and the quality of surveys, thereby expanding the cross-national and temporal coverage beyond the affluent Western democracies. The results show that this weighting scale provides a valid measure of protest potential, and the survey data recycling framework improves comparability between surveys.