Exposure to Violence and Protest Participation

The aftermath of civil wars can be a period of heightened contention with increased protest mobilization. However, we still know little about the mechanism through which individuals are motivated to join protests in such settings. I argue that exposure to war violence constitutes an important determinant. Especially when violence is perceived as a collectively shared experience among members of the same ethnic group, it is likely to increase group-based grievances and the propensity to participate in protests. I test this argument with geo-located data on wartime violence in Uganda, and survey data from the Afrobarometer, which was collected shortly after the end of the civil war in 2008. The results point to an association between exposure to wartime violence and post-conflict protest participation. Utilizing fine-grained data on local ethnic demographics, I additionally find support for my argument that this effect is particularly strong when an individual’s own ethnic group is majorly affected by local violence

Poison control · Political violence · Politics · Terrorism · Cambodian History and Society · Political Conflict and Governance · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare

• Public health, public protest

  Open Access•Ryan Essex, Trevor Thompson et al.•Global Public Health•2026

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