New Article by Marie-Therese Meye in the Journal of Peace Research Special Issue

Marie-Therese Meye has published a new article in the special issue Political Violence in Democracies in the Journal of Peace Research, titled “Why some districts march more: Protest mobilization in the wake of US representatives’ election denial.”

The article investigates how local political elites influence patterns of protest in the aftermath of election denial. It argues that when local elites endorse claims of election fraud, they amplify and localize national narratives of stolen elections, making them more salient within their own communities. This argument is tested in the context of the 2020 US presidential election, where President Trump’s widespread election denial narrative produced highly uneven patterns of pro-Trump protests across the country. Drawing on novel data from anonymized cellphone records and the timing of public endorsements of fraud claims by members of Congress, the article shows that local elite support for election denial significantly increased protest mobilization in their districts, especially in areas already primed for dissent.

Read the article here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00223433251353650