Huff, Connor and Kruszewska, Dominika: Whose Side Are You On? Government Repression, Political Protest, and Public Opinion

(PDF) In this paper we use a survey experiment to analyze how government responses to protest---ranging from arrests to repression---affect public support for a protesting organization. 

We explore this dynamic further by varying protest organizations along partisan lines to investigate whether affinity and ideological proximity influences the effects of repression. The use of an experimental design in combination with novel tools in text analysis makes an empirical contribution to a literature that has so far relied predominantly on observational and qualitative data. This paper provides both a theoretical and empirical framework that will allow for further exploration of the links between social movements, government action, and political mobilization.