Information Manipulation, Coordination, and Regime Change*

“1 Recent theoretical work argues that social media may indeed increase the probability of political protests taking place (Edmond, 2013; Little, 2016; Barberà and Jackson, 2016).”

“…protests (Kricheli, Livne, and Magaloni 2011), censor calls for antiregime collective action (King, Pan, and Roberts 2013), publish misleading propaganda about their repressive capacity (Edmond 2013; Huang 2015), or use both propaganda and censorship to divide opponents (Chen and Xu 2017).”

“Edmond (2013) provides a theoretical analysis of how social media impacts collective action and ruler responses.”

“Finally, using Saudi Arabia as a case example, we illustrate how the Internet can be controlled and shaped in favor of power holders.”

“At the beginning of the game, each member of the population, i , learns his or her type (cid:1) i = (cid:1) + (cid:2) i , which I interpret as his or her level of antigovern-ment sentiment.”

“…have shown that by reducing connectivity to information sources, censorship and repression can successfully restrict information and demobilize individuals from engaging in the behavior the government deems objectionable (Enikolopov, Petrova, and Zhuravskaya 2011; Pier-skalla 2013; Edmond 2013).”

“Edmond (2013) develops a model of information manipulation and political regime change.”

“The question of how such manipulation could be effective is addressed by Edmond (2013).”

“The Internet, social media, and mobile platforms allow individuals to act as broadcasters and disseminate information on a much larger scale (Diamond 2010; Earl and Kimport 2011; Edmond 2013; Ferdinand 2000).”

“2006), nancial crises (Goldstein 2005), political action (Edmond 2008), monetary policy (Morris and Shin 2002b), and asset price volatility (Ozdenoren and Yuan 2008).”

“Edmond (2013, 1425) writes simply that “the more citizens participate in [a protest], the more likely it is that the regime is overthrown and so the more likely it is that any individual also participates.””

“Edmond (2013), Hollyer, Rosendorff, and Vreeland (2015b), Lorentzen (2014), and Shadmehr and Bernhardt (2015) all consider environments in which elites manipulate or censor information in the shadow of the threat of unrest.”

“…censor public communication and ban demonstrations (Kricheli et al. 2011); block private messages that encourage anti-regime action (King, Pan, and Roberts 2013); exaggerate their strength (Edmond 2013, Huang 2014); or use both censorship and propaganda to hinder coordination (Chen and Xu 2015).”

“has the potential to increase coordination among opponents to autocratic regimes (Aday et al., 2012; Bellin, 2012; Edmond, 2012; Lorentzen, 2013).”

“The notion that incumbent leaders, particularly dictators, attempt to manipulate the information available to citizens is also modeled with a global games framework in Edmond (2008) and Egorov and Sonin (2011).”

“Edmond (2013) studies a different kind of policy interventions: interventions that can manipulate the information that is available to the agents, without however directly signaling information to them.”

“While some theoretical work suggests that the internet may impede non-democratic rule (Edmond, 2013), empirical research provides tentative support for cyber-pessimists who claim that the internet plays into the hands of autocrats (Rød & Weidmann, 2015).”

“The aggregate amount of fraud will 9 See Boix and Svolik (2013), Bueno de Mesquita (2010), Edmond (2013), Little (2012), and Shadmehr and Bernhardt (2011) for applications of global games and related techniques to the analysis of collective action problems in protests, repression, regime change,…”

“The following corollary of the belief constraint states the approximate relation (4) formally.”

“Geography has been used to identify the effects of dams (Duflo and Pande, 2007); electrification (Dinkelman, 2012; Barham, Lipscomb, and Mobarak, 2011); social capital (Olken, 2009; Paluck, 2009); ethnic violence (Yanagizawa-Drott, 2010); and the long-term effects of slavery Nunn (2008); Nunn and Puga (2009).”

“The other first-order condition (16) becomes”

“First, we draw on the idea that laws—whether related to elections or not—can be interpreted as an equilibrium selection device in a coordination game (Basu 2000; Hardin 2003; Myerson 2013; Weingast 1997).”

“The government ’ s equilibrium strategies consist of manipulating released information ε * 2 ½ 0 ; 1 (cid:4) , and choosing a probability of reform σ * ( θ , s )”

“Edmond (2008) considers a global game where citizens can overthrow a dictator by coordinating on a revolution, but the dictator increases his chances of survival by jamming the citizens’ signals about how likely it is that a revolution will succeed.”

“similar to System 1 in that they also permit multiple equilibria (but they lack dynamics). Global gameshavebeenappliedtocurrencycrises[62],debt crises[63,18],bankruns[31,72],andriotsandpoliticalchange[5,23];moreover,contagionhasbeenstudied in generalizations of these models, such as currencycrisestriggeringcurrencycri…”

“Autocrats can coopt some potential opponents (Bueno de Mesquita and Smith 2009; Gandhi and Przeworski 2006), engage in propaganda (Chen andXu 2017; Edmond 2013; Little 2017), engineer elections to legitimize their power (Cox 2009; Gandhi and LustOkar 2009), or manufacture the semblance of a civil…”

“1See Olson (1965), Tullock (1971), Granovetter (1978), Ti Lohmann (1993), Marwell and Oliver (1993), Chwe (200 Edmond (2013), Little (2016), and Barbera and Jackson (2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104220 0047-2727/© 2020 Elsevier B.V.”

“…model the signaling effects of the government’s preemptive defensive policies, which pools very strong governments and very weak governments together, and Edmond (2013) considers a dictator’s costly private information manipulation, where all revolutionaries’ interim beliefs have full support.”

“The literature on social movements has extensively analysed the informational role of groups which are organised, and therefore internalise the impact of information they provide to the broader public (Bueno De Mesquita, 2010; Edmond, 2013).”

“…"Occupy Wall Street" en 2011, "La Manif pour tous" en 2012, "Nuit Debout" en 2016, etc. 1 De récents travaux théoriques ont souligné l'importance potentielle des réseaux sociaux dans l'émergence de mouvements de protestation de grande ampleur (Edmond, 2013, Little, 2016, Barbera & Jackson, 2018).”

“7In different contexts, media control by a government has also been studied by Egorov, Guriev, and Sonin (2009), Edmond (2013), and Lorentzen (2014). See also the overview of the literature on media capture, slant, and transparency in Prat and Strömberg (2013). 8This assumption is made for clarity of exposition.”

“In Edmond (2013), the dictator has a costly technology to jam the signal available to citizens who might want to protest.”

“Coordination matters because, given the risk of punishment, citizens will only revolt if they believe many others will join them (see, e.g., Kuran 1991, Edmond 2013).”

“…of equilibria.2 In our setting, the noisy information structure is more than a device used 1Beyond crisis modeling, regime-change games have been extensively used in other contexts, for example, to understand issues in investment (Dasgupta, 2007) and political change (Edmond, 2013), among others.”

“Global games have been extensively applied to model economic phenomena featuring coordination problems, such as currency crises (Morris and Shin, 1998), bank runs (Goldstein and Pauzner, 2005), FDI decisions (Dasgupta, 2007), and political revolts (Edmond, 2013).”

“For applications and extensions of global games models see, among others, Morris and Shin (1998, 2004), Angeletos, Hellwig, and Pavan (2006, 2007), Angeletos and Werning (2006), Hellwig, Mukherji, and Tsyvinski (2006), or Edmond (2013).”

“The framework has been adapted to model political regime changes (Edmond 2013; Chen, Lu, and Suen 2014) and bank runs (Goldstein and Pauzner 2005).”

“(2)While we present our results in terms of abstract BAS games, such games have been used in applied settings, such as currency attacks (Morris and Shin (1998)), bank runs (Goldstein and Pauzner (2005)), political revolutions (Edmond (2013)), and contracting with externalities (Winter (2004)), among many others.”

“whether or not to attempt a revolution themselves (see Edmond [15]).”

“In Morris and Shin (1998) and later studies, such as Chen, Lu, and Suen (2014) and Edmond (2013), agents are uncertain about the fundamen-”

“2016; Bueno De Mesquita 2010; Edmond 2013).”

“The pooling equilibrium in Edmond (2013) results from the noise in creditors’ signals.”

“More recently, Edmond (2008) studied information manipulation in games of regime change, whereas Angeletos, Hellwig, and Pavan (2007) focus on a learning process by which individuals playing such games form beliefs.”

“Szkup and Trevino 4See Glick and Rose (1999) for the role of trade links, Van Rijckeghem and Weder (2001, 2003) for financial links, and Dasgupta et al.”

“…2010, 2013; Morris and Shadmehr 2017; Shadmehr and Bernhardt 2019; Wantchékon and García-Ponce 2014), the role of media (Barbera and Jackson 2020; Edmond 2013; Egorov, Guriev, and Sonin 2009; Guriev and Treisman 2020; Huang, Boranbay, and Huang 2019; Shadmehr and Bernhardt 2015), the effect of…”

“Our paper builds on the literature on global games in general, and applications in political economy in particular (Bueno de Mesquita 2010; Edmond 2013; Chen and Suen 2016; Egorov and Sonin 2017; Shadmehr 2017; Tyson and Smith 2018).”

“Revolutionaries’ skills: See Casper and Tyson (2014) for elite coordination and popular protest in a coup d’ etat, and Edmond (2013) for information manipulation, coordination, and regime change.”