Do They Support Our Cooperation? Public Support for Cross-Movement Coalitions under Authoritarian Rule

Abstract

This dissertation examines the factors that affect public support for coalitions between prodemocracy advocates and policy-based movements, such as land, labor, and environmental movements under authoritarian rule. First, I argue that when the two types of movements actively team up in a coalition to seek significant regime reforms to resolve the policy issues, (1) the policy-based movement’s assignment of causal responsibility for its grievances and (2) the public perception of which component of the coalition-based collective action frame is more dominant may influence public opinion towards the coalition. Using two online survey experiments administered on a sample of 1300 Vietnamese respondents, I find that (1) blame attribution does not influence public attitudes and that (2) the policy frame is perceived to dominate a policy-prodemocracy coalition, which moves support for the coalition to the baseline support for the policy movement. My mediation analysis suggests that this is because policy protesters are perceived to dominate the coalition. Second, I argue that when prodemocracy advocates endorse a policy movement without apparently building a coalition with policy protesters, the public reduces their support for the policy movement. Drawing on an online survey experiment administered to 1080 Vietnamese respondents, I demonstrate that being endorsed by prodemocracy advocates reduces support for protests because prodemocracy endorsements lead to a reduced perception that the protests are legal and a reduced perception that the protests are “moral.” Taken together, the results of the dissertation suggest that public support for a policy-prodemocracy coalition may depend on the visibility of prodemocracy advocates in the coalition. In an active coalition in which policy issues are more dominant and prodemocracy activists are less visible, the public does not oppose the alliance. On the other hand, in a passive coalition where the public perceives that prodemocracy advocates endorse policy protesters without actually cooperating with them, prodemocracy activists may be more visible. This may lead to reduced public support for the coalition and the policy protest.