Articles in Peer-Reviewed Publications

1. Deren Onursal and Adam Hobbs. "Protest and Handcuffs: The Repressive Effect of Arrests." Forthcoming at Conflict Management and Peace Science. 
2. Deren Onursal and Adam Hobbs. "The Unemployed and the Restless: Protest Participation Among the Unemployed." Political Research Quarterly. 2026
3. Deren Onursal. "The Forgotten Protest Dynamics: The Politics of Non-Repressive State Responses to Mobilization." International Political Science Review. 2026.
4. Deren Onursal. "Emotional Protester Perspective: Protest Out of Anger or Stay at Home in Fear?" British Journal of Politics and International Relations. 2026.
5. Deren Onursal and Adam Hobbs. "The Dynamics of Protest Radicalization." Terrorism and Political Violence. 2025.
6. 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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UNDER REVIEW​

1. ​Shaun Bowler, Adam Hobbs, and Deren Onursal. "When Social Contract Breaks: Experimental Evidence on Tax Morale." Under Review at Political Studies.
   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.​​​​​

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Working Papers

1. ​Theresa Kuhn, Armin Siemel, and Deren Onursal. "Forged in Crisis: Crisis Salience, External Threat, and European Identity." Working Paper.
   Abstract: What is the impact of crisis on political community?  Existing research offers mixed results, partly because it focussed on individual crises in isolation. This article develops a comparative theory of crisis-induced identity formation. Focusing on European identity amid the polycrisis, we argue that crises strengthen European identity when they sharpen the boundary between a European in-group and an external out-group. By contrast, crises that expose internal divisions, institutional failures, or distributional conflict within the EU should have limited or no identity-strengthening effect. We test this argument using EUID, a Bayesian latent measure of European identity based on harmonised survey data from 2004 to 2024, combined with Google Trends measures of crisis salience across EU member states and the United Kingdom. The results show that Brexit, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the migration crisis are associated with significant increases in European identity, whereas the Euro crisis and COVID-19 are not.
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2. ​Deren Onursal. "All Talk No Action? Repression by Law-and-Order Governments in Democracies." Workin Paper​​.
   Abstract: 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.
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3. 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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4. 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. We argue that widespread housing unaffordability generates anger, which in turn increases citizens' willingness to engage in collective action. To test this argument, we field an online survey experiment in Spain, where affordability pressures have been particularly acute. The results partially support our expectations, demonstrating that affordability-based frames increase protest willingness primarily through the activation of anger as a politically mobilizing emotion. Contrary to our expectations, we find no difference in effect by housing tenure. We present suggestive evidence that this null result is explained by lateral insecurity, generating similar political responses across tenure groups. These findings contribute to research on the political economy of housing and the emotional foundations of grievance-based protest.
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5. ​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. 
   
   
6. 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. ​Deren Onursal and Adam Hobbs. "Emotional Framing of Tax Regimes and (Absence of) Protest." Work in Progress.
3. Deren Onursal and Indridi Indridason. "Far-Right and the Fight: Protest Dynamics in Radical Right Cabinets." Work in Progress.