Repression, Group Threat, and the Threat Environment

[Unfortunately, due to some technical issues, this presentation is unavailable. Please email Peter Carey at pcarey (at) ucmerced.edu if you are interested in his paper or have any comments/questions!]

"Repression, Group Threat, and the Threat Environment"

by Peter Carey (University of California, Merced)

Abstract:

"How do governments contend with multiple sources of dissent? The Law of Coercive Responsiveness tells us that governments respond to threats to the status quo with repression, but this does not explain how governments choose to spend their limited repressive budget when there are multiple targets. In order to answer this question, I extend our understanding of “dissident threat.” In addition to the two latent dimensions of Group Demand and Group Capacity that the literature has identified, I also contend that we need to consider the larger universe of threats, the threat environment, when assessing the government’s repressive responses. Using a formal model, I demonstrate how the government’s repressive decisions are a function of the threat posed by the targeted group and the threat posed by the other groups around it. I then use the NAVCO 2.0 dataset to demonstrate this relationship empirically, showing that the threat posed by other groups has a significant impact on the repression a group faces."

Discussants:

Rebecca Cordell (University of Texas at Dallas)

Charles Crabtree (Dartmouth College)

Kristine Eck (Uppsala University)

OSPC Coordinator:

Brad Smith (Vanderbilt University)