Three Essays on Repression, Concessions and Collective Political Action

This dissertation analyzes when repression effectively deters dissent, and under what mechanisms do acts of repression and other regime responses vary by individuals in risky environments. Drawing insights from the literature on social movements and social psycho- logical research on collective action, I argue that repression’s effect is conditioned by the differing dissent strategy (nonviolent versus violent). I also examine how repression, in con- junction with concessions, impacts the mobilization of dissent. The findings are robust to potential endogeneity between government responses and mobilization. To probe the causal mechanism at the micro-level, I fielded an online survey experiment in Thailand during the 2019-20 pro-democracy demonstrations. The findings suggest that group efficacy may be an important mechanism linking exposure to repression and subsequent mobilization