2014/03/20 by Erica Frantz, Andrea Kendall-Taylor · 1 voice · 260 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography #Bangladesh Politics, Society, and Development #Dictator #Economics #Human rights #Incentive #Law #Law and economics #Legislature #Microeconomics #Opposition (politics) #Political Conflict and Governance #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Population #Psychology #Social psychology #Sociology #Torture
paper · doi:10.1177/0022343313519808
published in Journal of Peace Research 51(3), 332-346 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2014/03/20 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Abstract A dictator’s motivation for using repression is fairly clear, but why some repress more than others or favor particular types of repressive strategies is less obvious. Using statistical analysis, this article demonstrates that a dictator’s reliance on co-optation fundamentally alters how repression is used. Specifically, it finds that co-optation through the use of political parties and a legislature creates incentives that lead dictators to decrease empowerment rights restrictions, like censorship, while increasing physical integrity rights violations, like torture and political imprisonment. This occurs because, by creating parties and a legislature, a dictator draws his potential opposition out of the general public and into state institutions, making it easier to identify who these opponents are, to monitor their activities, and to gauge the extent of their popular support. This reduces the need to impose broad types of repressive measures, like empowerment rights restrictions, that breed discontent within the overall population. At the same time, co-optation creates the risk that rivals, once co-opted, will use their positions within the system to build their own bases of support from which to seek the dictator’s overthrow, generating incentives for dictators to increase physical integrity violations to limit the threat posed by these individuals.