Police Repression and Protest Behavior: Evidence from Student Protests in Chile

Felipe González and Mounu Prem

No 343, HiCN Working Papers from Households in Conflict Network

Abstract: Police repression is a common feature of street protests around the world but evidence about its impact on dissident behavior is limited. We provide an empirical analysis of people linked to a student killed by a stray bullet coming from a policeman during a large protest. Using administrative data on daily school attendance, we follow his schoolmates and those living nearby the shooting in hundreds of protest and non-protest days to estimate whether police repression affected their protest behavior. We find that repression causes a temporary deterrence effect but only on students with social (rather than geographic) links to the victim. Moreover, we show that police violence increased adherence to a student-led boycott two years after the shooting and had negative educational consequences for students. These findings cast doubt on the effectiveness of police repression in quieting dissent and ensuring public safety.

Keywords: police repression; state repression; protest; students (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2021-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
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https://hicn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/HiCN-WP-343.pdf First version, 2021 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Police Repression And Protest Behavior: Evidence From Student Protests In Chile (2021)
Working Paper: Police Repression and Protest Behavior: Evidence from Student Protests in Chile (2020)
Working Paper: Police Repression and Protest Behavior: Evidence from Student Protests in Chile (2020)
Working Paper: Police Repression and Protest Behavior: Evidence from Student Protests in Chile (2020)
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