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ABSTRACT
Despite a rich body of scholarship in social movements and electoral studies, the interaction between electoral turnout and protest participation has been generally overlooked. This article aims to bridge this gap by examining the impact of electoral participation on the likelihood of protest activities in developing countries. Drawing from a statistical analysis of a unique set of data from Iran’s 2017 election and the following uprising, the article argues that a higher electoral turnout reduces the likelihood of protest incidence at the district level. The analysis further indicates that such turnout mediates between economic grievances and protest participation.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Peter Rogers and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Meydari, “Interview with Andishe Pooya”.
2 Bayat, “The Fire that Fueled the Iran Protests”.
3 Peyman, “New Data Shed Light”.
4 Vali, “What the Iran Protest Were Not”.
5 Maljoo, “The Current Administration Collected”.
6 Tabibian, Iran Daily News Paper.
7 According to a survey, about 70% of respondents think that protestors demand improved economic conditions, Iranian Students’ News Agency, (2018, February 7). Retrieved from https://www.isna.ir/news/96111810368.
8 One official report indicates that most of detainees are under 25 years old, Hossein Zolfaghari, Iranian Labor News Agency, 10 January 2018.
9 Aghil and Zakia, “A Blue Generation and Protest in Iran”.
10 Kevan, “How Years of Increasing Labor Unrest Signaled Iran’s Latest Protest Wave”.
11 Sattar Mahmoudi Deputy of Ministry of Energy, 9/11/95, The Islamic Republic News Agency, Retrieved from http://www.irna.ir/fa/News/82404307.
12 Kadivar, Why Haven’t Reformists Joined the Portests Sweeping Iran?
13 Montazeri, The Islamic Republic News Agency; Jafari, “Iran’s Revolutionary Guard General Commander.”
14 These credit institutions that mushroomed under Ahmadinejad administration – and later called illegal by Iran’s Central Bank in February 2011 – absorbed a substantial sum of Iran’s total liquidity. One estimate shows that these institutions owned about 20% of Iran’s liquidity in 2014 (Hosseini, Seyyed Sadegh (2018, 18 January) Khabaronline News Agency, 27216). There are some reports about tensions between the boards of these institutions (allegedly close to the regime’s security apparatus) and the head of Iran’s Central Bank (Hamdely Daily Newspaper, May 14, 2018). The Rouhani administration planned to overcome the bankruptcy of these institutions by compensating the loss of savings and organizing these institutions through dissolving and merging them in a gradual process. Yet, following the wave of the uprising, Iran’s Central Bank was forced to pay about 14 trillion Rials to compensate the loss of savings in January 2018, which triggered an unprecedented inflation in Iran. Twelve out of forty-eight illegal credit institutions were based in the city of Mashhad.
15 Ettehad Party’s statement about 2018 Uprising in Iran (January 7, 2018) Retrieved from http://etehademellat.com/1396/10/17/.
16 Foweraker and Landman, “Citizenship Rights and Social Movements”.
17 Kitschelt, “Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest”.
18 Dalton, “The Individual-Institutional Nexus of Protest Behaviour”.
19 McAdam and Tarrow, “Ballots and Barricades”.
20 Fiorina, “Retrospective Voting in American National Elections”.
21 Beinin and Vairel, “Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation.”
22 Rivetti, “Political Activism in Iran”.
23 Almeida, “Opportunity Organizations and Threat-Induced Contention.”
24 Lust, “Democratization by Elections?”.
25 Although they hold that they build on Fiorina’s vote calculus, their finding mostly aligns with the classic reward and punishment theory in economic voting. In fact, Fiorina’s vote calculus includes three elements of long-term political experience (partisanship), short-term judgement, and future expectations. But, their assessment of turnout in Arab countries primarily relies on performance judgement which can be viewed as another version of reward and punishment theory.
26 Brynen et al., “Beyond the Arab Spring”.
27 Boix, “Democracy and Redistribution”. Acemoglu and Robinson, “Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy”.
28 Abrahamian, “Why the Islamic Republic has Survived”.
29 Raghfar, Iranian Students’ News Agency.
30 Salehi-Isfahani, “Food Consumption of the Poor in Iran”. Salehi-Isfahani, “Poverty and Living Standard in Iran After the Nuclear Deal”.
31 Nili, Lecture Delivered at Iran’s Demography Association.
32 Salehi-Isfahani, Rouhani’s Achilles’ Heel.
33 Secor, “The Patient Resilience of Iran’s Reformers”.
34 Cho and Gaines, “The Limits of Ecological Inference”.
35 Honari, “From Virtual to Tangible Social Movements in Iran”.
36 Raisi, “Electoral Participation in Iran’s Parliamentary Politics”.
37 Raisi, “The Puzzle of Populism in Iran’s Electoral Politics”.
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Alireza Raisi
Alireza Raisi is a lecturer at Northeastern University. His research focuses on comparative political economy, public policy, religion and politics, and foreign policy analysis.