Political repression in autocratic regimes

Vincenzo Bove, Jean-Philippe Platteau and Petros Sekeris

Journal of Comparative Economics, 2017, vol. 45, issue 2, 410-428

Abstract: Theoretical models on autocracies have long grappled with how to characterize and analyze state sponsorship of repression. Moreover, much of the existing formal literature sees dictators’ behavior as determined by one type of opposition actor alone and disregards the potential role played by other types of actors. We develop a contest model of political survival with a ruler, the elite and the opposition, and show how the ruler needs to respond to revolutionary pressures while securing the allegiance of his own supportive coalition. We find that the ruler’s reliance on vertical and horizontal repression is antithetically affected by the country’s wealth and the optimal bundle of vertical and horizontal repression has important consequences for the regime’s political vulnerability. Our hypothesis about the impact of wealth on repression is strongly borne out by the empirical results, which are robust to endogeneity concerns.

Keywords: Authoritarian regimes; Repression; Natural resources (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 P48 Q34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:45:y:2017:i:2:p:410-428

DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2016.11.004

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