The Impact of Domestic Surveillance on Political Imprisonment: Evidence from the German Democratic Republic

Christoph Valentin Steinert

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2023, vol. 67, issue 1, 38-65

Abstract: How does domestic surveillance affect the frequency of political imprisonments in autocratic states? In contrast to conventional wisdom, I argue that surveillance reduces the frequency of political imprisonments in power-maximizing autocracies. Surveillance decreases uncertainty about the correct targets of repression, allowing for more selective detentions and shifts to silent instruments of repression. To investigate these claims, I draw on a unique county-level dataset of political imprisonment in the German Democratic Republic between 1984 and 1988. I proxy the number of monitored individuals with newly collected county-level data on surveillance operations. I use ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, random effects, and instrumental variable models to investigate the impact of surveillance on political imprisonment. I find that higher shares of spies per monitored individual were associated with a reduction of political imprisonment. Further, increasing levels of spy infiltration were linked to a systematic shift to silent instruments of repression.

Keywords: domestic surveillance; intelligence; political imprisonment; silent repression; spying; covert repression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:67:y:2023:i:1:p:38-65

DOI: 10.1177/00220027221109797

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