Capable but Not Empowered? How Emancipative Values Affect Protest Participation Across Different Contexts

Political protest and citizen participation are important drivers of democratic change. While previous research has identified both micro-level attitudes such as emancipative values and macro-level factors as drivers of protest behavior, we know little about how citizens’ value-driven motivations interact with the political context. We argue that the effect of emancipative values on protest participation depends on both democratic institutions and the capacity of civil society mobilizations. Specifically, we expect the positive effect of emancipative values to be stronger in countries with higher democratic quality and more pro-democratic mass mobilizations, and weaker in countries with more pro-autocratic mass mobilizations. By combining survey and macro data for 88 democratic and autocratic regimes, we find that citizens’ value orientations interact with democratic quality and the prevalence of pro-autocratic mass mobilizations in shaping protest participation. These results contribute to a better understanding of the structural and societal preconditions for democratic change.