From Event Reports to Protest Analysis

This chapter introduces the main elements of the research design for the empirical chapters in the book. Starting with the event reports provided by the Mass Mobilization in Autocracies Database, the chapter develops a research design that studies variation in local Internet penetration and anti-regime protest. The chapter motivates the choice of the sub-national unit of observation (cities), and temporal units of analysis (years, weeks). It introduces a new measure of Internet penetration derived from network measurements, developed in collaboration with computer scientists. The high level of spatial and temporal resolution allows for one of the most detailed analyses so far in the study of mass protest. The chapter also introduces the statistical models used for the analysis. The book relies on Bayesian multilevel models, a framework that takes into account the hierarchical structure of the data and has advantages in the analysis of data with skewed dependent variables.