Abstract
ABSTRACT Why do people attend protests despite infection risk during health crises? This paper studies motivations to participate in protests during public health crises under authoritarianism, despite the risks of infection and repression by regime forces, with a focus on economic grievances and moral indignation. It examines motivations for protest participation in the case of workers’ protests in Turkey during 2020 and 2021, using an online survey and interviews with supermarket, delivery, and municipality workers, and waiters in Istanbul. The paper argues that, although the pandemic amplified the cost of participating in protests due to infection risk and government restrictions such as lockdown measures and heavy fines for violating them, it escalated economic grievances and moral indignation even more. By implication, small groups of workers persisted in their protests for months. Unjustified terminations of employment, mistreatment, and poor working conditions resulted in income loss and moral indignation, which increased the perceived costs of not protesting more than the costs of protesting. This paper challenges the expectation that infection risk, lockdowns, and repression by regime forces would discourage protest participation during the pandemic. Theories developed for normal times must consider how pandemic-induced grievances and moral outrage interact with the perceived risks of repression and infection. Furthermore, while studies on protest participation under authoritarianism focus on how moral indignation and anger trigger large-scale protests, this analysis reveals that small groups can also protest for an extended period despite significant risks under authoritarianism.
Published Version
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