Persistent Political Engagement

In the paper presented in this Mannheim Applied Seminar, it is tested, whether participation in one protest within a political movement increases subsequent protest attendance, and why. To identify an effect of protest participation, Hong Kong university students were randomly, indirectly incentivized into participation in an antiauthoritarian protest. To identify the effects of social interactions, the intensity of this treatment across major-cohort cells was randomized. The authors of the paper find that experimentally-induced protest participation issignificantly associated with protest attendance one year later, though political beliefs andpreferences are unaffected. Persistent political engagement is greatest among individuals inthe cells with highest treatment intensity, suggesting that social interactions sustained persistent political engagement.