Protesting Dictatorship: The Mass Mobilization in Autocracies Database∗

The recent wave of popular uprisings that deposed entrenched Arab autocrats revealed that despite a vast theoretical literature, knowledge about collective action in oppressive settings is limited. One of the main reasons is that large-N empiri-cal analyses are impeded by the lack of fine-grained data. We set out to create a database—the Mass Mobilization in Autocracies Database—that allows for system-atic investigation of the determinants, dynamics and outcomes of collective action at the macro- and micro-level in authoritarian regimes. Specifically, we provide event reports of mass mobilization in autocracies, both on behalf of the government and the opposition, with precise spatial and temporal coordinates for the years 2003-2012. In this paper, we describe the motivation behind MMAD and the coding approach used to generate the database. By separating “event reports ” and the hard facts contained in them from “events”, our approach preserves uncertainty arising from multiple reports and gives the user control over how missing and conflicting infor-mation should be dealt with. We also illustrate how MMAD can be used to study both protest in autocracies and media reporting patterns. 2