It’s the weather, stupid! Individual participation in collective May Day demonstrations

Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard

Public Choice, 2013, vol. 155, issue 3, 271 pages

Abstract: We investigate the possible explanations for variations in aggregate levels of participation in large-scale political demonstrations. A simple public choice inspired model is applied to data derived from the annual May Day demonstrations of the Danish labor movement and socialist parties taking place in Copenhagen in the period 1980–2011. The most important explanatory variables are variations in the weather conditions and consumer confidence, while political and socio-economic conditions exhibit no robust effects. As such accidental or non-political factors may be much more important for collective political action than usually acknowledged and possibly make changes in aggregate levels of political support seem erratic and unpredictable. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2013

Keywords: Collective action; Demonstrations; Free-riding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Working Paper: It’s the weather, stupid! Individual participation in collective May Day demonstrations (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:155:y:2013:i:3:p:251-271

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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-012-9914-3

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