This project examines whether changes in official clock time, introduced by daylight saving time (DST), affect protest activity. The objective is to assess whether administrative interventions that alter the temporal structure of daily life influence collective action. Building on existing work that focuses on political and economic determinants of protests, this study introduces time policy as an additional mechanism affecting coordination and participation.

During the funding period, the following research activities were conducted.

Data construction
I compiled and processed event- and county-level protest data for Russia, a setting well suited for this analysis due to its multiple time zones and repeated DST reforms. The dataset links protest outcomes to the timing of DST transitions across regions and allows for the analysis of short-term behavioral responses to time shifts.

Empirical design
I implemented a Regression Discontinuity in Time design, using the number of days before and after DST transitions as the running variable. This approach exploits the abrupt and predetermined timing of clock changes. To address potential endogeneity in administrative time zone assignment, I developed an instrumental variable strategy based on idealized time zones defined by longitudinal position.

Preliminary results
The analysis shows that protest activity declines immediately after transitions to winter time. Both the probability of protest occurrence and the number of participants decrease following the time shift. This effect is observed for nationwide DST changes, while no comparable effect is found for region-specific shifts. Instrumental variable estimates are consistent with these findings.

These results provide initial evidence that time policy can affect patterns of collective action. Further work focuses on robustness checks and heterogeneity analysis.