Citation

Yin W, Huo W, Lin D. Polit. Sci. Res. Method. 2021; 1-9.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1017/psrm.2021.70

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In this research note, we examine how Hong Kong voters respond to police violence in the recent social movement. We use causal forests, a machine learning algorithm, to estimate the impact of tear gas usage specific to each constituency. Based on the 2019 District Council Election outcome, we find that there is heterogeneity in the effect of state coercion on the vote share of pro-democracy candidates, depending on many socioeconomic characteristics of the constituency. The results imply that economic concerns still matter in the struggle to obtain democracy: citizens who sense economic insecurity in social unrest show less disapproval of state violence.

Language: en

Keywords

Asian politics; computational models; elections and campaigns; voting behavior