The Logic of Government’s Response to Protests in China New Evidence from Protests Recorded in Social Media

Scholarship on protests in China, though prolific in recent years, faces serious data issues. Since there is no comprehensive dataset for a systematic analysis of protests in China, previous scholars can only quantitatively study the pattern of repression of protests. Most studies related to the protest outcomes or government responses in China can only use qualitative methods. Drawing on an original dataset of 508 protests I collected from the Wickdonna website, this article first offers a systematic analysis of the response pattern to protests in China. My paper shows that domestic media coverage and the government's perception of political threats and economic costs are the most significant determinants of the government's response to a protest. While the size of the protest, the disruptiveness of the protest, and the geographical location of the protest have no direct impact on the government's results, they significantly increase the odds of media coverage of a protest. Overall, my paper contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of daily contentions in authoritarian China.