State Repression and Political Order

“Indeed, former studies on repression emphasize the importance of regime type and the protective effect that democracies have over compliance with human rights norms (e.g. Davenport, 1995, 1996, 2007; Davenport and Armstrong, 2004; Henderson, 1991, 1993; Poe et al., 1999).”

“Syria: For a survey on the determinants of government repression and human rights violations, see Davenport (2007).”

“…be different from groups that either cannot or will not go to battle.11 Multiple small organizations might aspire to fight in a war, but if they are never able to do so, it is reasonable to assume that they 10For an excellent review of the literature on government repression, see Davenport (2007).”

“…against an individual or organization, within 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” (Davenport 2007: 2).”

“This in turn deters rebellion and mass mobilization (e.g. Moore, 1998; Davenport, 2007; Albertus & Menaldo, 2012).”

“Given that there is some evidence for variation in domestic repression by autocratic regime subtype (Davenport 2007b), it is worth investigating in more detail whether and if so, how, the same logic holds for TR.”

“Authoritarian regimes resort to repressive measures when their legitimacy is threatened (Davenport, 2007; Stern & Hassid, 2012), and their low tolerance toward being challenged often results in heavy censorship in the media (Geddes & Zaller, 1989; Kendall-Taylor et al., 2020).”

“This bias may be particularly pronounced, for example, where a dominant ethnic majority perpetrates violence against a minority (Davenport, 2007; Gohdes, 2017).”

“…involves a travesty of justice in which arrests are made, limitations on speech and association follow, torture, disappearances and killing of individuals or organizations seen to be anti-government within the territorial jurisdiction of the state (Davenport, 1995, 2007a; Davenport & Inman, 2012).”

“There is an almost deterministic relationship between levels of threat posed by the citizens and state repression as captured by the “law of coercive responsiveness” (Davenport, 2007, p. 7).”

“…refers to “actual or threatened use of physical sanctions against an individual or organization, within the territorial jurisdiction of the state, for the purpose of imposing a cost on the target as well as deter-ring specific activities” (Davenport, 2007: 2, cited in Gerschewski, 2013: 27).”

“Since democracy is negatively affiliated with repression (Davenport 1995; Davenport and Armstrong 2004; Davenport 2007a, 2007b),8 rebels who live in democracies are less likely to seek external supporters.”

“This is what Davenport (2007) labels the ‘‘Law of Coercive Responsiveness’’.”

“In other words, we avoid the potential complications of comparing different forms of repression across different nations and social movements, a hazard that, Ruud Koopmans (1997) and Christian Davenport (2007) argue, accounts for the discrepant findings in the repression-dissent literature.”

“Leaders might also pursue other strategies such as co-opting possible opponents (Wintrobe 1998), repressing internal threats (Davenport 2007), or—what we focus on in this article—strategies that directly seek to address the likelihood of a coup d’état, i.e., coup-proofing.”

“Similarly, in the research on repression, it is assumed that the dictator relies on repression to control threatening behavior and dissident (for discussion, see Davenport 2004, 541–45; Davenport 2007b, 7–10).”

“…the actual or threatened use of coercion to deter challenges to the current arrangement of political power, by reducing actors’ will or capacity to execute such challenges.2 That coercion can be physical, or it can take the form of restrictions on civil liberties (Goldstein 1978; Davenport 2007b).”

“…the “ actual or threatened use of physical sanctions against an individual or organization … for the purpose of imposing a cost on the target ” and “ deterring speci fi c activities and/or beliefs perceived to be challenging to government personnel, practices or institutions ” (Davenport 2007: 2).”

“In this literature, violence outside a war is usually either state repression (Davenport, 2007: 1; Herreros, 2011: 20) or common criminality (Archer & Gartner, 1984; Collier, 2000).”

“In democracies and authoritarian regimes alike, ter rorism and other domestic conflict is linked to increasing incidence of repression, including torture, in what Davenport (2007, 7) calls the "law of coercive respon siveness."”

“As the theory of coercive responsiveness predicts, governments will attempt to suppress protests as quickly as possible, lest they become more threatening forms of dissent that destabilise the entire political system (Davenport 2007).”

“For instance, Moore (1998) and Davenport (2007); Hoffman 2006, Bueno de Mesquita (2005), and Byman (2007).”

“This portends many more studies, but it will also delay the persuasive answering of other questions related to mobilization, such as the ‘punishment puzzle’ (Davenport 2007).”

“In addition, the degree of repression and state-inflicted political terror increases the perceived costs and decreases the probability of success of uprisings, and it may accordingly discourage participation in such events (Carey 2006; Davenport 2007; Francisco 2005).”

“…perspective on investor decision-making (e.g., Schijven and Hitt, 2012) with political science research on regimes’ use of violence (e.g., Davenport, 1999, 2007) to propose that investors infer an interim regime’s political intentions during its tenure from crude pieces of public…”

“This relationship is so well theorised and evidenced, it is referred to as the Law of Coercive Responsiveness (Davenport, 2007).”

“At a collective level, nearly all marginalized Tamil women have experienced one aspect of the state’s diverse repertoire of repression (Davenport 2007).”

“Empirical research increasingly ‘recognized that human rights progress is often partial’ and highlighted important scope conditions for successful human rights implementation (Hafner-Burton and Ron 2009, 368; Davenport 2007).”

“Repression, however, is a double-edged sword, it can sometimes lead to more mobilization, while it could lead to demobilization at other times (Davenport, 2007; Lichbach, 1987).”

“Most of the time, autocrats are able to target their repressive efforts toward specific individuals or organizations, but if the opponents of the regime are able to coordinate and organize mass protests, autocrats frequently respond with violence (Davenport, 2007; Gerschewski, 2013; Greitens, 2016).”

“The former occurs through the (actual or threatened) use of physical sanctions (Davenport, 2007, p. 2), for instance, criminalization of same-sex relationships, police raids, and death penalty.”

“…or risk (e.g., Boudreau, 2004; Cunningham, 2004; Goldstone & Tilly, 2001; King, 2008; Kriesi, 1995); the meanings that policy elites attribute to groups (Skrentny, 2006); and why states engage in repression (e.g., Davenport, 2007; Davenport, Mueller, & Johnston, 2005) offer important exceptions.”

“First, the central government may deliberately grant a free hand to the security forces and permit (or even encourage) the use of repressive tactics in order to raise the costs of rebellion and to discourage support for insurgent movements ( Davenport 2007 ).”

“Although the mechanisms linking threat and repression are less established (Davenport, 2007), the case of Wounded Knee suggests that threat may influence the creation or support of ideologies that provide rationale for past, current, or future repression against a group.”

“On the other hand, repression increases the costs of armed fights (Davenport, 2007; Escribà-Folch, 2013).”

“47 Davenport 2007.”

“Threats against authoritarian regimes’ hold on power make state-sponsored harassment, intimidation, and punishment, that is, repression, more likely to take place (Davenport, 2007; Stern & Hassid, 2012).”

“In particular, conflict scholars argue that threshold, fatigue, and newshole effects are likely to affect reporting in armed conflicts and violent settings (Davenport 2007; Weidmann 2016).”

“…on repressionhas generated theories predictingwhenandwherewe shouldbemost likely to observe underreporting; arguing that high-visibility events occurring in urban centers of economically developed, less authoritarian regimes aremore likely to be reported (Davenport 2007; Davenport and Ball 2002).”

“This result, while arguably a rare case, speaks to an important puzzle in the literature on repression and protest: why do autocrats use repression when in many cases it seems to backfire, setting off even larger cycles of protest (Davenport, 2007)?”

“These include accommodative means that allow for participation and contestation (Gurr, 1988, p. 54; Davenport, 2007, p. 11).”

“Contrary to this straightforward logic, however, empirical studies of the effect of repression and counter-insurgency on non-state groups’ conflict preferences and behavior yield diverse results (Davenport, 2007; Hultquist, 2015; Lichbach, 1987).”

“…and confronting plotters, many autocratic governments engage in preventive repression, that is, state-led activities aimed at preventing organized opposition to the regime from emerging and overtly challenging the status quo (e.g., Davenport 2007, 2009; Earl 2011; Sullivan 2016a, 2016b).”

“…that politically subordinate groups cannot fully control their representation in the media, which often exhibit systematic bias against them (Davenport, 2007), agenda seeding holds that protest strategies are critical in influencing how their interests are framed: Through tactics like…”

“21 We control for variables frequently used in the literature (Conrad and Moore 2010; Davenport 2007; Gandhi 2008; Haschke 2014; Henderson 1991, 1993; Mitchell and McCormick 1988; Poe and Tate 1994; Poe et al. 2006; Vreeland 2008): past level of repression, institutional constraints on the executive branch (from Polit…”

“…representation can be meaningfully distinguished from violent repression, which we define as physical sanctions such as political imprisonment, torture, and killings undertaken by state agents or affiliates in order to impose a cost on an individual or an organization (cf. Davenport, 2007: 2).”

“…is specified in continuous terms, the findings are dependably strong across a variety of measures, including dichotomously at both 1000 and 25 annual battle-deaths thresholds (Davenport, 2007c; Kathman and Wood, 2011; Krain, 1997; Mitchell et al., 2014; Poe and Tate, 1994; Poe et al., 1999).”