State Repression and Political Order

“More generally, the diverging roles of fear and risks could potentially account for the mixed evidence found on the macro level, whereby repression has been shown to have deterrent (e.g., Earl & Soule, 2010) and backlash (Davenport, 2007) effects.”

“…found that groups who engage in rebellion or protest can more easily be perceived as threats to stability (as stated by the ‘‘law of coercive responsiveness’’ (Davenport, 2007) and work by Carey (2006), Moore (1998), and others) and thus make more attractive diversionary targets for governments.”

“Scholarly consensus suggests authorities repress their citizens to control dissent (e.g. Davenport, 2007).”

“The use of force is the product of a cost–benefit calculation, similar to the decision to repress (Davenport, 2007a).”

“For example, the “law of coercive responsiveness” (Davenport, 2007a) states that autocratic leaders will respond with repression when facing threats to their rule.”

“…in democracies is puzzling, not only because of the integral role the media play in democracies but also because ample research shows that democratic countries are better at protecting their citizens’ human rights (e.g., Davenport 2007; Davenport and Armstrong 2004; Poe and Tate 1994; Zanger 2000).”

“Indeed, political rights — free and fair elections, the right to form associations and choose one ’ s government — may be inherently linked to physical integrity rights in that rule of law tends to be better and repression more costly in more democratic contexts (Davenport 2007, 10 – 14).”

“These authors argue, as we do, that violence creates observable zones of pacification (compare Davenport 2004, 2007a, 2007b).”

“Repression is used to deter or end dissent (Tilly, 1978; Earl et al., 2003; Davenport, 2007a); citizens may be more likely to dissent when repressed 1Excepting this rule, Murdie and Bhasin (2011) find that international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with activities on the ground are connected with an increase…”

“Some scholars support the idea of a ‘domestic democratic peace’, in which democracies minimize repression due to constraining institutions and norms of peaceful conflict resolution (Davenport 2007a; Davenport 2007b; Davenport and Armstrong 2004; Hegre et al. 2001).”

“A major body of literature theorizes the relation between repression and political violence (Carey 2006, Carey 2010, Davenport 2007a).”

“Davenport (2007) refers to this as the “punishment puzzle,” as repression has been found to increase, decrease, or have an inverted-U-shaped effect on protests activity, as well as be variable over time, be dependent on past tactics, or have no impact at all (Hibbs 1973; Lichbach and Gurr 1981;…”

“L iterature on censorship emphasizes its role inreducing and silencing opponents throughpress and internet controls (Dimitrov 2014; King, Pan, and Roberts 2015; Lorentzen 2014), aligning with a broader literature on the role of repression in eliminating dissent (Davenport 2007; Svolik 2012).”

“More recently, however, research has broadened its scope (Davenport, 2007a: 18).”

“Repression is designed to withhold the resources required to challenge the government (Davenport 2007; DeMeritt 2016).”

“Dictators therefore frequently resort to repression (Celestino & Gleditsch, 2013, p. 390; Davenport, 2007b), what Davenport (2007a, p.”

“The literature on government repression and human rights abuse is now quite large (see Davenport 2007).”

“These acts of political violence impel policymakers to act, design legislation and safeguards that are meant to reduce the risk of future violence (Davenport, 2007) and create an imperative for understanding the causes of political violence in the population.”

“…is the contentious interaction between governments and challengers: how the actions and tactics of one side influence the actions and tactics of 16 The website also provides Stata code to download and merge data files. another, and whether escalation sparks reciprocal steps (Davenport, 2007).”

“Different types of autocracies exhibit varying outcomes in a range of domains, including media censorship (Stier, 2015), state repression (Davenport, 2007b), policy performance (Croissant & Wurster, 2013) and response to international pressures (Escriba-Folch & Wright, 2015).”

“…the territorial jurisdiction of the state, for the purpose of imposing a cost on the target as well as deterring specific activities and/or beliefs perceived to be challenging to government personnel, practices or institutions” (Goldstein 1978, xxvii; Davenport 2007, p. 2, italics mine).”

“We define repression as the actual or threatened use of coercion against individuals to deter activities seen as challenging social order through constraints on rights such as freedom to circulate and due process (Davenport 2007, 2; Goldstein 1978, xxvii).”

“…of political opposition can backfire and escalate grievances, thus strengthening rather than weakening motives for mobilization, depending on the nature of repression as well as the ability of the opposition to delegitimize the rulers and maintain resilience (e.g. Francisco, 2004; Davenport, 2007).”

“1 3 (especially those who are considered anti-government) to freedom of speech and association are not only limited but citizens are also flagrantly arrested, tortured and killed within the territorial jurisdiction of the state (Davenport, 1995, 2007a; Davenport and Inman, 2012).”

“Political repression literature has focused on explaining why and how authorities use coercive power amid potential and existing challengers (Davenport 2007).”

“Thus, in the barbarian purification, ‘state violence is a pathology — an action or set of actions that political leaders were simply compelled to take because of some system’ or cultural ‘deficiency’ (Davenport, 2007: 4).”

“…can act; (b) controlling or eliminating specific challenges (real or imagined) to existing political leaders, institutions, and/or practices; and (c) facilitating movement in a particular direction – e. g., a preferred strategy of development or ideological orientation” (Davenport 2007, S. 3).”

“Conflict scholars, who are experienced at developing and testing theories about how context conditions the occurrence of violence (e.g., Davenport 2007), are well-suited to helping identify and examine the potentially ignored factors that affect police behavior.”

“Repression can also include the banning of political parties, using informants as provocative agents against dissent, censoring newspapers, arresting movement actors, torturing, disappearances, and execution of movement actors or dissidents (Davenport, 2007, 2009; Tilly, 2003).”

“Davenport (2007c), based on prior work by Barbara Geddes, distinguishes among seven categories of autocracies.”

“Some scholars discuss how transnational human rights movements emerge in response to lack of reform (Keck and Sikkink 1998), while others presume regimes follow a “ law of coercive responsiveness ” (Davenport 2007).”

“This literature approaches civilian violence almost exclusively as a dependent variable of state coercion (Davenport, 2007a, 2007b; Tilly, 2005) or a byproduct of political chaos and social instability (McAdam, 2010).”

“…believed to increase accountability for policy decisions (Gordon and Huber, 2007; Williams, 2013), motivate incumbents to respect civil liberties (Davenport, 2007), and (in some circumstances) protect minorities from communal violence as party leaders seek to maximize votes (Wilkinson, 2004:…”

“Countries experiencing inter- or intra-state wars are found to have higher levels of state repression (Davenport, 2007).”

“As Davenport (2007, 14) highlights, a common rationale of the literature is that “fewer resources enhance the need for coercive behavior by increasing societal grievances.””

“The empirical regularity of reactive repression in face of mobilized dissent is so robust that it has been called the “law of coercive responsiveness” (Davenport 2007, 7–8).14 This empirical regularity could justify the assumption of an automatic reactive repression in earlier studies but it also…”

“…of the strongest findings in this literature is that democratic political institutions are negatively associated with violence, with the caveat that democracy has a smaller constraining effect in the presence of violent dissent (Davenport, 2007a,b; Davenport et al., 2007; Conrad and Moore, 2010).”

“…protest and rebellion in the longer term (Carey 2006, Lichbach 1987, Moore 2000, Pierskalla 2010, Ritter & Conrad 2016, Shellman 2006; also see Davenport 2007 for a review of the different directions in which the evidence points on repression and dissent), perhaps especially if average…”

“We hope that by making available these datasets, we will encourage the creation of additional measures such as these, which would help broaden the study of human rights beyond its current focus on physical integrity rights [43].”

“…prompting scholars to call for disaggregating by type of repression, by space, and by time to better explain the dynamic relationship between repression and dissent (Chenoweth, Perkoski, and Kang 2017; Davenport 2007; Davenport and Inman 2012; Davenport and Moore 2012; Pan and Siegel 2020).”

“Recognizing this gap, Davenport (2007, 18) implores scholars to move beyond country-year analyses: ‘‘Such an approach is not only essential for gauging the robustness of the propositions developed in this [cross-national] literature but also allows us to explore other arguments that have previously…”

“The ‘law of coercive responsiveness’ holds that more severe threats to government authority will elicit repression (Davenport, 2007).”

“Most prominently, regimes governed by more democratic institutions have been found to be significantly less repressive than regimes that do not hold such institutions (De Mesquita et al., 2005; Davenport, 2007a,b).”