Lockdown and Unrest: Inequality, Restrictions and Protests During COVID-19

Francesco Iacoella, Patricia Justino and Bruno Martorano ()

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2025, vol. 69, issue 7-8, 1309-1339

Abstract: This paper analyses how pre-pandemic levels of inequality across US counties have shaped the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of protests. The results from difference-in-differences and instrumental variable models using high-frequency weekly data show that more stringent measures to contain the pandemic increased the incidence of protests, but only in US counties with high levels of inequality before the start of the pandemic where grievances may have been initially stronger. The impact of government responses to COVID-19 on protests is largely explained by adverse changes in economic conditions in counties with the highest levels of pre-pandemic inequality. Policy stringency measures were also associated with more protests in the most unequal counties which voted for the Republican party in the 2016 elections and exhibited, at the start of the pandemic, lower levels of trust in the president and lower satisfaction with democracy.

Keywords: COVID-19; lockdown; stringency policies; protests; inequality; D30; D63; D70; H12; I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00220027241296045 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:69:y:2025:i:7-8:p:1309-1339

DOI: 10.1177/00220027241296045

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().