Abstract
This study addresses the question: who is likely to participate in a public revolt against autocratic governments? In doing so, it asserts that a greater emancipative value, primarily, as well as a greater importance placed on politics and living of democracy will drive an individual to participate in a revolution. To evaluate this assertion, we explore the connection between an individual’s income level and his or her desire for political freedom in the context of the Arab Spring in Egypt that ousted an autocratic regime. Based on cross-sectional data taken from the fifth wave of the world values survey in 2008, one that employs a nationally representative sample of 3051 respondents from Egypt, we find that high-income individuals are more likely than are middle- and low-income individuals to report higher emancipative values and empowerment to participate in a revolution. This result supports the public choice view that revolutions are motivated by private expected utility and benefits-costs calculus.
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Notes
A similar process occurred in the West Indies in the post-World War II period (Huber et al. 1993).
Recent research by Asongu and Nwachukwu (2016) suggests that the empirical evidence around populations’ core demands for better governance, more jobs, and stable consumer prices meant that the timing of the Arab Spring (ca. 2011) was foreseeable as far back as 2007.
According to its website (http://www.arabbarometer.org), The Arab Barometer “… is a nonpartisan research network that provides insight into the social, political, and economic attitudes and values of ordinary citizens across the Arab world.”
In the context of revolutions, Olson (1965) emphasizes the public goods nature of democracy, and the free-rider problem inherent in revolutionary attempts to transition from autocracy to democracy. Goldstone (1994) notes that in the context of revolutionary action, the free rider problem has been mitigated by drawing on norms of solidarity developed within preexisting groups, which, through the provision of public goods, leads to commitment by individuals. Relatedly, Yin (1998) explains how threshold models of revolt illustrate conditions under which political protests tip over into revolution. An important feature of “collective rebellion” in these models is the current decision of individuals to participate which is made on the basis of the prior decision by others to participate. Lastly, a new study by Aldama et al. (2019) shows that fear influences participation in risky forms of collective action, such as revolts against autocratic governments, either through increasing pessimism about the regime’s strength or the participation of others in the revolt, or through increasing risk aversion. Although the first two avenues of fear reduce the probability that an individual will join a revolt, the latter channel may lead to an increase in the probability of citizen mobilization, results that are consistent with observed inconsistencies in citizens’ reactions to threats of repression by autocratic governments (Aldama et al. 2019).
Relatedly, recent work by Apolte (2016) provides an analytical framework indicating that in low-cost environments revolutions can arise as an unintended result of individual action. Otherwise, Apolte (2016) concedes Tullock’s (1971) contention that there is no relationship between the degree of deprivation of a population and the probability of an enforced regime change from a public uprising.
This contention is consistent with the public choice approach to revolutions (e.g., Apolte 2012).
The Emancipative Values Index (EVI) includes 12 items that scale protective-vs-emancipative values by measuring a national culture’s emphasis on universal freedoms in the domains of (1) reproductive choice (i.e., acceptance of divorce, abortion, homosexuality), (2) gender equality (i.e., support of women’s equal access to education, jobs and power), (3) people’s voice (i.e., priorities for freedom of speech and people’s say in national, local and job affairs), and (4) personal autonomy (i.e., independence, imagination and non-obedience as desired child qualities).
A somewhat larger percentage of females than males reported having this level of happiness, while a notably larger percentage of females than males categorized themselves as being in this category of health.
It is worth noting, however, that the three models presented in Appendix 1 produce a pseudo R2 range of 0.27–0.69, which is quite respectable given the use of large survey data like that examined in this study.
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Appendix: ordered logit regression results
Appendix: ordered logit regression results
Emancipative values | Importance of politics | Importance of democracy | |
|---|---|---|---|
Lowest income steps | − 0.037 (0.089) | − 0.189** (0.079) | − 0.063 (0.103) |
Highest income steps | 0.293** (0.140) | 0.191 (0.123) | 0.078 (0.174) |
Female | 0.911*** (0.149) | − 0.021 (0.132) | − 0.345** (0.175) |
Religiosity | 0.021 (0.020) | 0.067*** (0.018) | − 0.001 (0.002) |
Age | 0.021 (0.018) | 0.029* (0.015) | 0.001 (0.020) |
Happiness | 0.040 (0.076) | 0.083 (0.069) | − 0.021 (0.087) |
Health | 0.132** (0.054) | 0.188*** (0.048) | − 0.047 (0.062) |
Children | 0.017 (0.029) | − 0.052** (0.026) | 0.065** (0.032) |
Household | − 0.045* (0.025) | − 0.015 (0.022) | − 0.008 (0.028) |
Town size | 0.045*** (0.014) | 0.032*** (0.012) | − 0.043*** (0.016) |
Pseudo R2 | 0.69 | 0.54 | 0.27 |
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Mansour, F., Leonce, T. & Mixon, F.G. Who revolts? Income, political freedom and the Egyptian revolution. Empir Econ 61, 1135–1150 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-020-01914-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-020-01914-3