IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/310950.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Location matters! Geospatial dynamics of MP responses to Covid‐19 protests in multilevel systems

Author

Listed:
  • Schürmann, Lennart
  • Schwalbach, Jan
  • Himmelrath, Noam

Abstract

In liberal democracies, protest can serve as a trigger for necessary policy reforms, but it can also be used by a loud minority to advance political goals against the will of the majority. Focusing on such vocal protests in the context of the Covid‐19 pandemic, we investigate the following question: How does the location of protest events affect the likelihood of political engagement with the protests in a multilevel system? Combining social movement literature with studies of issue attention and rhetorical responsiveness, we analyze how German members of parliaments’ (MPs) responses vary using their tweets from the onset of the pandemic to the German federal election in September 2021. Using quantitative text analysis, we measure rhetorical responsiveness to Covid‐19 protests and apply multilevel regression analyses and difference‐in‐differences. We find that more protests lead to more attention; however, MPs respond most strongly to protests within the state they represent. Furthermore, politicians’ level within the German multilevel system affects their attention to these protests, with MPs elected at lower levels of an electoral system responding more to local protest events than MPs elected at higher levels. The results highlight the importance of the location of protests in attracting political attention.

Suggested Citation

  • Schürmann, Lennart & Schwalbach, Jan & Himmelrath, Noam, 2025. "Location matters! Geospatial dynamics of MP responses to Covid‐19 protests in multilevel systems," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 64, pages 513-524.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:310950
    DOI: 10.1111/1475-6765.12704
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/310950.2/3/Full-text-article-Schuermann-et-al-Location-matters.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1475-6765.12704?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barberá, Pablo & Casas, Andreu & Nagler, Jonathan & Egan, Patrick J. & Bonneau, Richard & Jost, John T. & Tucker, Joshua A., 2019. "Who Leads? Who Follows? Measuring Issue Attention and Agenda Setting by Legislators and the Mass Public Using Social Media Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(4), pages 883-901, November.
    2. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    3. Hunger, Sophia & Hutter, Swen & Kanol, Eylem, 2023. "The mobilisation potential of anti-containment protests in Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 46(4), pages 812-840.
    4. Barrie, Christopher & Fleming, Thomas G. & Rowan, Sam S., 2024. "Does Protest Influence Political Speech? Evidence from UK Climate Protest, 2017–2019," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(2), pages 456-473, April.
    5. Thomas Plümper & Eric Neumayer & Katharina Gabriela Pfaff, 2021. "The strategy of protest against Covid‐19 containment policies in Germany," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2236-2250, September.
    6. Hopkins, Daniel J., 2010. "Politicized Places: Explaining Where and When Immigrants Provoke Local Opposition," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(1), pages 40-60, February.
    7. Eady, Gregory & Hjorth, Frederik & Dinesen, Peter Thisted, 2023. "Do Violent Protests Affect Expressions of Party Identity? Evidence from the Capitol Insurrection," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 117(3), pages 1151-1157, August.
    8. Grande, Edgar & Hutter, Swen & Hunger, Sophia & Kanol, Eylem, 2021. "Alles Covidioten? Politische Potenziale des Corona-Protests in Deutschland," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Center for Civil Society Research ZZ 2021-601, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    9. Enos, Ryan D. & Kaufman, Aaron R. & Sands, Melissa L., 2019. "Can Violent Protest Change Local Policy Support? Evidence from the Aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Riot," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(4), pages 1012-1028, November.
    10. Wasow, Omar, 2020. "Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 114(3), pages 638-659, August.
    11. repec:cup:apsrev:v:113:y:2019:i:04:p:1012-1028_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Castanho Silva, Bruno & Schürmann, Lennart & Proksch, Sven-Oliver, 2024. "Modulation of Democracy: Partisan Communication During and After Election Campaigns," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(2), pages 339-354, April.
    13. repec:cup:apsrev:v:113:y:2019:i:04:p:883-901_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Sophia J. Wallace & Chris Zepeda‐Millán & Michael Jones‐Correa, 2014. "Spatial and Temporal Proximity: Examining the Effects of Protests on Political Attitudes," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(2), pages 433-448, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stephan, Meret & Schürmann, Lennart, 2025. "How anti-racist protests influence pro- and anti-migration voting behavior: Evidence from national and European elections," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Center for Civil Society Research ZZ 2025-601, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Oscar Nupia Mart√≠nez & Carlos Andr√©s √Ålvarez Gallo, 2024. "The Impact of Massive Protests on Individual Attitudes," Documentos CEDE 21190, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    2. Freitas Monteiro, Teresa & Prömel, Christopher, 2024. "Local far-right demonstrations and nationwide public attitudes toward migration," Discussion Papers 2024/3, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    3. Freitas-Monteiro, Teresa & Prömel, Christopher, 2024. "Local far-right demonstrations and nationwide public attitudes towards migration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    4. Dimitar Gueorguiev & Dongshu Liu, 2024. "Double standard: Chinese public opinion on the Hong Kong protests," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 41(4), pages 343-364, July.
    5. Koopmans, Ruud & Schaeffer, Merlin, 2016. "Statistical and Perceived Diversity and Their Impacts on Neighborhood Social Cohesion in Germany, France and the Netherlands," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 125(3), pages 853-883.
    6. Ruud Koopmans & Merlin Schaeffer, 2016. "Statistical and Perceived Diversity and Their Impacts on Neighborhood Social Cohesion in Germany, France and the Netherlands," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 125(3), pages 853-883, February.
    7. Justin Curtis, 2022. "The effect of the 2020 racial justice protests on attitudes and preferences in rural and urban America," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 103(1), pages 90-107, January.
    8. Mazumder, Soumyajit, 2019. "Becoming White: How Military Service Turned Immigrants into Americans," SocArXiv agjsm, Center for Open Science.
    9. Stephen B. Billings & Eric Chyn & Kareem Haggag, 2021. "The Long-Run Effects of School Racial Diversity on Political Identity," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 267-284, September.
    10. Erica Chenoweth & Andrew Hocking & Zoe Marks, 2022. "A dynamic model of nonviolent resistance strategy," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(7), pages 1-19, July.
    11. Bouke Klein Teeselink & Georgios Melios, 2022. "Weather to Protest: The Effect of Black Lives Matter Protests on the 2020 Presidential Election," Working Papers CEB 22-007, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    12. repec:osf:socarx:agjsm_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Gabriel Heller‐Sahlgren, 2023. "Group threat and voter turnout: Evidence from a refugee placement program," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 470-504, July.
    14. Gabriele Ruiu & Giovanna Gonano, 2020. "Religious Barriers to the Diffusion of Same-sex Civil Unions in Italy," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 39(6), pages 1185-1203, December.
    15. Wright, Austin L. & Sonin, Konstantin & Driscoll, Jesse & Wilson, Jarnickae, 2020. "Poverty and economic dislocation reduce compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place protocols," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 544-554.
    16. Guido de Blasio & Daniela Vuri, 2019. "Effects of the Joint Custody Law in Italy," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(3), pages 479-514, September.
    17. Graves Jennifer & McMullen Steven & Rouse Kathryn, 2018. "Teacher Turnover, Composition and Qualifications in the Year-Round School Setting," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 18(3), pages 1-27, July.
    18. Alston Lee J. & Mueller Bernardo, 2018. "Priests, Conflicts and Property Rights: the Impacts on Tenancy and Land Use in Brazil," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-26, June.
    19. S Anukriti & Catalina Herrera‐Almanza & Praveen K. Pathak & Mahesh Karra, 2020. "Curse of the Mummy‐ji: The Influence of Mothers‐in‐Law on Women in India†," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(5), pages 1328-1351, October.
    20. Ellison, Richard B. & Ellison, Adrian B. & Greaves, Stephen P. & Sampaio, Breno, 2017. "Electronic ticketing systems as a mechanism for travel behaviour change? Evidence from Sydney’s Opal card," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 80-93.
    21. Cruzatti C., John & Bjørnskov, Christian & Sáenz de Viteri, Andrea & Cruzatti, Christian, 2024. "Geography, development, and power: Parliament leaders and local clientelism," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:310950. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.