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Does propaganda reduce the rate of popular protest in autocracies? To answer this question, we draw on an original dataset of state-run newspapers from thirty countries, encompassing six languages and over four million articles. We find that propaganda diminishes the rate of protest, and that its effects persist over time. By increasing the level of pro-regime propaganda by one standard deviation, autocrats have reduced the odds of protest the following day by 15%. The half-life of this effect is between five and ten days, and very little of the initial effect persists after one month. This temporal persistence is remarkably consistent with campaign advertisements in democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists have long observed that focal points enable citizens to coordinate collective action. For antiregime protests in autocracies, however, focal points also enable repressive governments to prepare in advance. We propose a theory to explain when citizens are likely to employ focal points to organize antiregime protests. Our key insight is that tacit coordination is most critical when explicit coordination is costly. Empirically, we use our theory to identify a setting where focal points are likely to be salient and then argue that the anniversaries of failed pro-democracy movements satisfy conditions for focality. In China, we find that the anniversaries of failed pro-democracy movements occasion nearly 30 percent more protests than any other day. Protests during pro-democracy anniversaries are more likely to employ "rights-conscious" discourse, which scholars have argued is code for democratic resistance, and to be repressed by the government. We find no similar trends for other holidays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]