From the streets to the ballots: protests, polls and polarization in Hong Kong

Social movement research indicates that protests can influence voting behaviour through several informational and psychological mechanisms. Yet, we know little about the individual variation in how different citizens respond to the same protest events. Drawing on insights from social psychology, I assume that protests have a different impact on citizens' voting behaviour depending on their predispositions towards the protesters’ cause. Using Hong Kong as the case, I find that the 2019 protests mobilized voter turnout and opposition support among citizens who identified themselves as “Hongkongers,” but they had the reverse effect among citizens who identified themselves as “Chinese.” This indicates that protests can deepen existing cleavages in a society, which could trigger further conflicts and undermine a movement’s chances of success. Studying the heterogenous effects of protests on individual voting behaviour contributes to our broader understanding of the protest-election nexus, which could have further implications for the democratic (or autocratic) development of the regime.