Justifying Dissent

Leonardo Bursztyn; Georgy Egorov; Ingar Haaland; Aakaash Rao; Christopher Roth

doi:10.1093/qje/qjad007

Justifying Dissent

Leonardo Bursztyn, Georgy Egorov, Ingar Haaland, Aakaash Rao, Christopher Roth

Managerial Economics, Decision Sciences and Operations

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

Dissent plays an important role in any society, but dissenters are often silenced through social sanctions. Beyond their persuasive effects, rationales providing arguments supporting dissenters' causes can increase the public expression of dissent by providing a "social cover"for voicing otherwise stigmatized positions. Motivated by a simple theoretical framework, we experimentally show that liberals are more willing to post a tweet opposing the movement to defund the police, are seen as less prejudiced, and face lower social sanctions when their tweet implies they had first read credible scientific evidence supporting their position. Analogous experiments with conservatives demonstrate that the same mechanisms facilitate anti-immigrant expression. Our findings highlight both the power of rationales and their limitations in enabling dissent and shed light on phenomena such as social movements, political correctness, propaganda, and antiminority behavior.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	1403-1451
Number of pages	49
Journal	Quarterly Journal of Economics
Volume	138
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad007
State	Published - Aug 1 2023

Funding

We thank the editors, Andrei Shleifer and Lawrence Katz, and five anonymous referees for very insightful comments. We also thank Davide Cantoni, Daniel Gottlieb, Ro’ee Levy, Pietro Ortoleva, Marco Tabellini, David Yang, Noam Yuchtman, and numerous seminar participants for helpful suggestions and Stelios Michalopoulos for a highly constructive discussion. Danil Fedchenko, Maximilian Fell, Takuma Habu, Hrishikesh Iyengar, Melisa Kurtis, and Stan Xie provided outstanding research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts and the University of Chicago Social Sciences Research Center. Roth acknowledges funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy EXC 2126/1-390838866. The research described in this article was approved by the University of Chicago Social and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Economics and Econometrics

Access to Document

10.1093/qje/qjad007

Cite this

@article{cf296231e40840ae9ff50483d035130d,

title = "Justifying Dissent",

abstract = "Dissent plays an important role in any society, but dissenters are often silenced through social sanctions. Beyond their persuasive effects, rationales providing arguments supporting dissenters' causes can increase the public expression of dissent by providing a {"}social cover{"}for voicing otherwise stigmatized positions. Motivated by a simple theoretical framework, we experimentally show that liberals are more willing to post a tweet opposing the movement to defund the police, are seen as less prejudiced, and face lower social sanctions when their tweet implies they had first read credible scientific evidence supporting their position. Analogous experiments with conservatives demonstrate that the same mechanisms facilitate anti-immigrant expression. Our findings highlight both the power of rationales and their limitations in enabling dissent and shed light on phenomena such as social movements, political correctness, propaganda, and antiminority behavior.",

author = "Leonardo Bursztyn and Georgy Egorov and Ingar Haaland and Aakaash Rao and Christopher Roth",

note = "Funding Information: We thank the editors, Andrei Shleifer and Lawrence Katz, and five anonymous referees for very insightful comments. We also thank Davide Cantoni, Daniel Gottlieb, Ro{\textquoteright}ee Levy, Pietro Ortoleva, Marco Tabellini, David Yang, Noam Yuchtman, and numerous seminar participants for helpful suggestions and Stelios Michalopoulos for a highly constructive discussion. Danil Fedchenko, Maximilian Fell, Takuma Habu, Hrishikesh Iyengar, Melisa Kurtis, and Stan Xie provided outstanding research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts and the University of Chicago Social Sciences Research Center. Roth acknowledges funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany{\textquoteright}s Excellence Strategy EXC 2126/1-390838866. The research described in this article was approved by the University of Chicago Social and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.",

year = "2023",

month = aug,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1093/qje/qjad007",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "138",

pages = "1403--1451",

journal = "Quarterly Journal of Economics",

issn = "0033-5533",

publisher = "Oxford University Press",

number = "3",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Justifying Dissent

AU - Bursztyn, Leonardo

AU - Egorov, Georgy

AU - Haaland, Ingar

AU - Rao, Aakaash

AU - Roth, Christopher

N1 - Funding Information: We thank the editors, Andrei Shleifer and Lawrence Katz, and five anonymous referees for very insightful comments. We also thank Davide Cantoni, Daniel Gottlieb, Ro’ee Levy, Pietro Ortoleva, Marco Tabellini, David Yang, Noam Yuchtman, and numerous seminar participants for helpful suggestions and Stelios Michalopoulos for a highly constructive discussion. Danil Fedchenko, Maximilian Fell, Takuma Habu, Hrishikesh Iyengar, Melisa Kurtis, and Stan Xie provided outstanding research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts and the University of Chicago Social Sciences Research Center. Roth acknowledges funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy EXC 2126/1-390838866. The research described in this article was approved by the University of Chicago Social and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

PY - 2023/8/1

Y1 - 2023/8/1

N2 - Dissent plays an important role in any society, but dissenters are often silenced through social sanctions. Beyond their persuasive effects, rationales providing arguments supporting dissenters' causes can increase the public expression of dissent by providing a "social cover"for voicing otherwise stigmatized positions. Motivated by a simple theoretical framework, we experimentally show that liberals are more willing to post a tweet opposing the movement to defund the police, are seen as less prejudiced, and face lower social sanctions when their tweet implies they had first read credible scientific evidence supporting their position. Analogous experiments with conservatives demonstrate that the same mechanisms facilitate anti-immigrant expression. Our findings highlight both the power of rationales and their limitations in enabling dissent and shed light on phenomena such as social movements, political correctness, propaganda, and antiminority behavior.

AB - Dissent plays an important role in any society, but dissenters are often silenced through social sanctions. Beyond their persuasive effects, rationales providing arguments supporting dissenters' causes can increase the public expression of dissent by providing a "social cover"for voicing otherwise stigmatized positions. Motivated by a simple theoretical framework, we experimentally show that liberals are more willing to post a tweet opposing the movement to defund the police, are seen as less prejudiced, and face lower social sanctions when their tweet implies they had first read credible scientific evidence supporting their position. Analogous experiments with conservatives demonstrate that the same mechanisms facilitate anti-immigrant expression. Our findings highlight both the power of rationales and their limitations in enabling dissent and shed light on phenomena such as social movements, political correctness, propaganda, and antiminority behavior.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85160392813&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85160392813&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1093/qje/qjad007

DO - 10.1093/qje/qjad007

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85160392813

SN - 0033-5533

VL - 138

SP - 1403

EP - 1451

JO - Quarterly Journal of Economics

JF - Quarterly Journal of Economics

IS - 3

ER -

Justifying Dissent

Abstract

Funding

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this