Cooperation During the Gezi Park Protests

In this paper, we compare behavior in the dictator, ultimatum, and public goods games before and during the Gezi Park protests in laboratory experiments conducted in Türkiye. In May 2013, protests began against the proposed destruction of Gezi Park—one of the few remaining green spaces in Istanbul’s city center—for the construction of a shopping mall. Quickly spreading across Türkiye, many ordinary citizens participated in the protests in the following weeks. The collective action demonstrated in these protests is similar to the types of behavior economists study in games where individuals accept personal costs for the benefit of others. We find that participants in the protests were just as likely to choose the equal payoff option as it increased in value in the modified dictator game, punish uncooperative behavior in the ultimatum game, and reward cooperative behavior in the public goods game as those who participated in the experiments before the protests. This was true of the behavior of the nonparticipants in the protests in the ultimatum and public goods games. In contrast, nonparticipants in the protests were less willing to forgo the selfish payoff option for their coplayer’s benefit in the modified dictator game.