Legislative responsiveness, urban growth, and popular mobilization: Evidence from Algeria

Abstract

Under what conditions do autocratic legislatures affect the rates of protest mobilization? How do demographic factors, namely urban growth, intersect with legislative responsiveness to explain variations in protest activity? This study aims to explain patterns of protest activity in an autocratic country, Algeria. Drawing on an original dataset of parliamentary questions and protest event data from 2015 to 2021, we analyze the impact of governorate-level responsiveness on variations in protest activity. Our findings show that increased legislative responsiveness to constituents’ demands is associated with fewer protests at the governorate-level. We also uncover a nonlinear relationship between urban growth and protest activity. Our study contributes to scholarship on legislative responsiveness in authoritarian contexts, particularly concerning how political and demographic factors may exacerbate or attenuate street-level threats to regimes.