Only a Moment in Time? The Changing Effectiveness of Mass Mobilization on Transitions to Democracy

Mass mobilization is widely regarded as a key driver of democratic change, yet concerns about its declining impact are growing. We examine how the effectiveness of mobilization in prompting democratic transitions has varied over the period 1900–2019 using formal statistical models. The results reveal pronounced temporal heterogeneity: mobilization has a positive and significant effect on democratic transitions from the early 1980s to the mid-2010s, but no detectable impact before or after. Leader turnover and coup attempts have been more likely to follow mobilization up to the Arab Spring, yet the increasing impact of mobilization after the 1980s is unique to democratization. Trends in commonly cited structural conditions for democracy do not align with the observed variation in mobilization’s effectiveness. These findings challenge assumptions of time-invariant effects and highlight the importance of accounting for temporal variation in processes of democratization and political change.