Coding Protest Events in Autocracies

Abstract

This chapter addresses the need for fine-grained data on protest in autocracies. It discusses in detail the challenges arising when coding events from media reports: (i) the selection of news agencies and outlets, (ii) the selection of relevant news reports, (iii) the problem of information extraction, and (iv) the problem of aggregation, where multiple reports about a single event need to be aggregated into individual events. The chapter then introduces the Mass Mobilization in Autocracies Database (MMAD), which constitutes the core for the empirical analysis in this book. Based on media reports from global news sources, the authors created an event database of protest, where each event is coded with its precise day and location (city), as well as a number of event characteristics (number of protesters, level of violence, etc.). The main innovation of the MMAD is that it provides users with a final list of event reports, which can later be aggregated to individual events.