Mobilizing civilians into high-risk forms of violent collective action

We consider whether prior political activism increases the likelihood of engaging in higher-risk forms of violent collective action. We test our hypothesis in the context of the 2014 Euromaidan and subsequent separatist violence in Eastern Ukraine. In the aftermath of the Euromaidan protests, the Ukrainian government began a widespread campaign to mobilize young men for military service against separatist movements in the Donbas region amid escalating tensions with Russia. In July 2014, we survey young men who were volunteering to join the Ukrainian military’s counterinsurgency efforts and compare them to other young men who live in the same community but had not volunteered. Using a case control study design, we interviewed 100 young men who reported to a local Ukrainian army recruitment station in Kharkiv, a city in Eastern Ukraine which was an important center for military recruitment efforts. We compared them to 100 other young men who lived in the same communities, received recruitment notices, but had chosen not to report. Military recruits were sampled by cluster-sampling at the recruitment station, with random selection of recruits by cluster. Civilian males were sampled by random route in the vicinity of the recruitment station. When comparing survey responses between recruits and civilians, we find strong linkages between prior Euromaidan participation and military mobilization. Our results are robust to controls for parochial ethnocentrism and mere support for Euromaidan goals. Maidan participation and military mobilization are also correlated with a strong sense of self-efficacy, optimism, risk tolerance, patriotic nationalism, and feelings of in-group solidarity with protesters and the military. These correlates illustrate plausible mechanisms for how individuals could transition to increasingly higher-cost, higher-risk forms of collective action.