Articles in Peer-Reviewed Publications

1. Deren Onursal. "The Forgotten Protest Dynamics: The Politics of Non-Repressive State Responses to Mobilization." Forthcoming at International Political Science Review.
2. Deren Onursal. "Emotional Protester Perspective: Protest Out of Anger or Stay at Home in Fear?" British Journal of Politics and International Relations. 2025.
3. Deren Onursal and Adam Hobbs. "The Dynamics of Protest Radicalization." Terrorism and Political Violence. 2025.
4. Deren Onursal, Adam Hobbs, and Catherine Wright. "Violence, What is It Good for? Waves of Riotous-Violent Protest and Democracy." Democratization. 2024. 
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revıse & Resubmıt

1. ​​Deren Onursal and Adam Hobbs. "Handcuffs and Backlash: Arrest, Radical Protesters, and Democracy." R&R at Conflict Management and Peace Science. 
   Abstract: How does arresting protesters at demonstrations shape the occurrence of subsequent protest events? While arrests are among the most common forms of coercion used by governments, their effects on future mobilization remain unclear. We argue that arrests generally increase the costs of participation and therefore lengthen the time until the next protest event. However, this repressive effect, we contend, vary by protest modality and regime type. Because violent protests tend to attract more committed activists willing to bear high costs, we expect arrests to have greater deterrent effects when protesters act peacefully. Likewise, we expect arrests to be more strongly repressive in less democratic settings, where the risks of detention, such as prolonged imprisonment or torture, are higher. Finally, we anticipate the greatest demobilizing effect when nonviolent protests occur in authoritarian regimes. Based on an observational data analysis on 148 countries between 1992 and 2020, we find that arrests delay the timing of subsequent protests. This repressive effect is strongest at peaceful protests in closed autocracies. These results underscore the importance of distinguishing protest modalities and regime context when evaluating the consequences of arrest-based repression. ​​​​

UNDER REVIEW​

1. ​Shaun Bowler, Adam Hobbs, and Deren Onursal. "When Social Contract Breaks: Experimental Evidence on Tax Morale." Under Review at Research & Politics.
   Abstract: Governments typically rely on voluntary compliance with tax demands, a phenomenon referred to as “tax morale.” Commonly viewed as a key indicator of government legitimacy, prior research has highlighted both sociodemographic and contextual drivers of tax morale. A smaller literature, often using an experimental approach, instead employs a framework grounded in social contract theory (Castañeda et al. 2020; Bodea and LeBas 2016). Within this perspective, government corruption and noncompliance by others represent violations of the social contract, and studies find that these can reduce tax morale (e.g., Jahnke and Weisser 2019; Boly et al. 2019). However, this work has focused almost exclusively on developing countries, despite growing interest in how corruption shapes political behavior in established democracies such as the United States. In this study, we present results from a pre-registered experiment that tests the impact of different frames on tax morale. We show that, in the U.S. context, individuals’ willingness to evade taxes can be shaped by information about the behavior of others.​​
2. Deren Onursal and Adam Hobbs. "Unemployed and Provoked: Protest Activity Among Unemployed Individuals." Under Review at Political Research Quarterly.
   ​Under what conditions do the unemployed protest? Traditionally, scholars have found that joblessness creates feelings of depression and self-blame, reducing mobilization among the unemployed. Experiences of the past thirty years, including the Great Recession, have led scholars to reconsider the influence of material deprivation on mobilization. Specifically, a growing body of literature has highlighted numerous historical instances of mobilization among the unemployed. However, much of this literature has focused on particular cases, with little attention given to cross-national comparison. This study contributes a cross-national comparative analysis of when and where the unemployed mobilize using eleven rounds of data provided by the European Social Survey (ESS). We identify a convex, curvilinear relationship in which the unemployed are most likely to mobilize under conditions of high unemployment, particularly in countries with more generous welfare provision.
3. ​Deren Onursal. "All Talk No Action? Repression by Law-and-Order Governments in Democracies." Under Review at Social Movement Studies.
   How do law-and-order governments respond to protests? More specifically, how do governments consisting of political parties that emphasize law-and-order and tough-on-crime policies respond to protest activity? The common and reasonable intuition is that such governments would repress more, but no empirical evidence supports this assumption. Analyzing 32 democracies from 1990 to 2020, I find that law-and-order cabinets exercise greater restraint. This relationship is conditioned by institutional constraints and protest threat levels. Minority governments show stronger restraint than majority governments. At low threat levels, law-and-order cabinets deploy repression to signal strength, but as threats intensify, they become more cautious, with minority governments particularly restrained. These findings can be explained by the permissiveness of democratic regimes. That is, weak law-and-order emphasis creates tolerant environments that encourage protest, ultimately triggering reactive repression. These findings demonstrate that electoral rhetoric does not straightforwardly translate into street-level coercion in democracies.

Working Papers

1. Deren Onursal and Indridi H. Indridason. "When Institutions Matter: Repression, Regime Type, and Mobilized Dissent." Working Paper​​.
   Abstract: How do repression and political institutions influence the frequency of mass protests? While repression often aims to deter dissent, its effects vary significantly depending on the political context. We argue that the effects of repression on protest frequency are affected by how different political institutions shape political accountability. Using data from 157 countries between 1975 and 2019, we explore the conditional effects of regime type, majoritarianism, legislature type, and local government autonomy on the relationship between repression and protest. Our findings demonstrate that repression increases protest frequency in democratic settings, where citizens are less likely to tolerate coercion. Moreover, institutional features further shape this relationship by moderating repression’s effect. Non-majoritarian systems, unitarian governments, and unicameral legislatures amplify repression’s positive impact as these institutions tend to reduce electoral accountability in democratic states. The findings highlight the nuanced ways institutions condition citizens’ responses to repression and their propensity to mobilize. This study bridges gaps in the literature by integrating institutional dimensions into the repression-protest nexus. It provides new insights into how state strategies and political structures interact to influence collective action, offering implications for understanding protest dynamics and political stability in diverse institutional contexts.​​
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2. Deren Onursal and Adam Hobbs. "Too Damn High! Housing Affordability and Protest Participation." Working Paper.
   Abstract: Housing affordability has become an increasingly salient challenge across Europe, as rising rents and home prices place households under mounting financial and psychological strain. Yet the political consequences of this crisis remain underexplored. Drawing on political psychology and relative deprivation theory, we argue that widespread housing unaffordability generates anger and resentment, which in turn increase citizens’ willingness to engage in collective action. We further contend that these effects are strongest among nonhomeowners and among individuals who attribute responsibility for housing affordability to the government. To test our argument, we field nationally representative online survey experiments in Spain and the Netherlands (N = 3,600), two cases that differ in housing regimes, protest traditions, and levels of affordability pressure. The results largely support our expectations, demonstrating that affordability-based frames increase protest willingness primarily through emotional responses, particularly anger. These findings contribute to research on the political economy of housing and the emotional foundations of grievance-based protest.
   
   
3. ​Deren Onursal. "Emotionally Rational Protesters: A Formal Analysis of Protest Participation." Working Paper.​
   Abstract: This study investigates how state tactics, particularly repression, shape individual decisions to protest, with a focus on the role of emotions. Traditionally, state responses are assumed to be binary (repression vs. no repression), and psychological factors are neglected. This work challenges such assumptions by proposing two formal models to examine the strategic interactions between protesters and the government. The first model identifies five state tactics: hard repression, soft repression, ignoring, partial accommodation, and full accommodation. And it incorporates emotions – anger, fear, and enthusiasm – into protesters' cost-benefit calculations, demonstrating their critical influence on decision-making. The analysis suggests that hard repression effectively deters protests, while partial accommodation and ignoring can provoke continued dissent due to emotional responses like enthusiasm and anger. The second model addresses uncertainty by analyzing how perceptions of state strength influence protest dynamics. It reveals that even weak governments may employ hard repression to bluff strength, deterring protesters through fear. Conversely, soft repression by weak states can signal vulnerability, encouraging dissent. This research contributes to the literature by broadening theoretical frameworks to include nuanced state behaviors and psychological elements, offering a deeper understanding of the repression-protest puzzle. 
   
   
4. Deren Onursal. "Democratic Regimes and Protest: Direct and Indirect Effects Through Repression." Working Paper.​
   Abstract: In this paper, I revisit the classical puzzle of regime type and protest and ask whether regime type affects the frequency of protests we observe in a country. I explore how democracy influences protest and, in particular, ask, what is the mechanism that connects democracy to collective dissent activity? I argue that democratic regimes have a direct positive effect on protest. Protesting is a legitimate form of political action in democratic nations. Hence, protests can persuade the government to backtrack from an untoward policy by putting pressure on politicians without waiting until the next election. However, this is not the entire story. I introduce a different perspective on the regime type-protest nexus and contribute to the literature by also arguing that the effect of regime type on mobilization is largely indirect. Democracies are less inclined to repress people due to its high costs. When repression is absent or minimal, protests occur more frequently. That is, the link between democracy and protest is mediated by repression. Based on two different datasets on mass mobilization covering 170 nations between 1960 and 2021, I find that democracies have a greater respect for physical integrity of individuals, which in turn increases protests activity. 
   
   

Work in Progress

1. ​​Deren Onursal, Alex Ross, and Adam Hobbs. "When there's blood in the streets, buy property? Real Estate Values and Civic Unrest." Work in Progress. 
2. Theresa Kuhn, Armin Seimel, and Deren Onursal. "Forged in Crisis: The Causal Impact of Crisis on European Identity Formation​." Work in Progress.
   
3. Deren Onursal and Adam Hobbs. "Emotional Framing of Tax Regimes and (Absence of) Protest." Work in Progress.
4. Deren Onursal and Indridi Indridason. "Far-Right and the Fight: Protest Dynamics in Radical Right Cabinets." Work in Progress.