Finding Patterns in the Dynamics of Protest Campaigns: Computational Modeling and Empirical Analysis

Abstract

In most of current papers devoted to the analysis of protest-repression nexus,the research design misses the dynamic nature of this nexus, which seems methodologically incorrect. The analysis of the dynamics allows us to identify the role of various factors influencing the course of this conflict. The variety of different dynamics of the number of protesters and the dynamics of the use of repression gives rise to a variety of scenarios for the development of a protest campaign. In this regard, this paper raises the question of identifying dynamic patterns. At the same time, we consider both empirical scenarios that have already taken place in real protests, as well as “ideal”, i.e. arising in theory and capable of serving as guidelines in the analysis of real ones. To obtain “ideal” scenarios, a theoretical and mathematical model was developed with various strategies for the reactions of the authorities to the protesters, which we implemented into the existing computational model of protest mobilization. Based on the data obtained in the course of computer simulations, firstly, by linear and logistic regressions, the effects of various decision-making mechanisms on the survival of protests were evaluated, and, secondly, using various methods of time series cluster analysis, we discovered a number of patterns. For verification, the same methods of cluster analysis were applied repeatedly on empirical data.