Title: Can democratic reforms promote political activism? Evidence from the Great Reform Act of 1832 (with Gabriel Leon-Ablan)

Abstract: Activists play a key role in the process of democratic transition and consolidation.

How is their activism affected by democratic reforms? We study how local activism responded to

the changes in representation introduced by Britain’s Great Reform Act. This reform

removed all parliamentary representation from some areas; other areas gained

representation for the first time. We exploit exogenous variation in which areas lost

and gained representation and measure activism using the number of petitions each area

sent to parliament. We find that petitioning increased in areas that gained representation,

partly because of greater civil society mobilization. We also find that petitioning fell in

areas that lost representation. This shows that pro-democratic reforms can promote political

activism, while anti-democratic reforms can decrease it. In the case of Britain, there

could have been positive feedback between activism and reform, making democratization a

path-dependent process and the Great Reform Act its critical juncture.