The DOI matches its Crossref record; 68 of the 69 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
A dictator’s toolkit
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.
Overview
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Citations
Cites
Southwestern Social Science Association (2010) · Social Science Quarterly · doi:10.1111/(issn)1540-6237 · Cited by 13,619
What To Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data
Beck, N., & Katz, J. N. (1995) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.2307/2082979 · Cited by 6,840
The Logic of Political Survival
Bueno de Mesquita, B., Smith, A., Siverson, R. M., & Morrow, J. D. (2003) · doi:10.7551/mitpress/4292.001.0001 · Cited by 4,217 · cited 1×
“In the tests that follow, we evaluate the effect of cooptation on future (as opposed to contemporaneous) levels of repression because research has indicated that changes in institutions of governance often take a few years to impact policy outcomes (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003).”
BackgroundThe Logic of Violence in Civil War
Kalyvas, S. N. (2006) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511818462 · Cited by 3,488
Democracy and dictatorship revisited
Cheibub, J. A., Gandhi, J., & Vreeland, J. R. (2009) · Public Choice · doi:10.1007/s11127-009-9491-2 · Cited by 2,478
Political Institutions under Dictatorship
Gandhi, J. (2008) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511510090 · Cited by 1,910
Analyzing Incomplete Political Science Data: An Alternative Algorithm for Multiple Imputation
King, G., Honaker, J., Joseph, A., & Scheve, K. (2001) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.1017/s0003055401000235 · Cited by 1,834
Back to the Future: Modeling Time Dependence in Binary Data
Carter, D. B., & Signorino, C. S. (2010) · Political Analysis · doi:10.1093/pan/mpq013 · Cited by 1,677
Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions: A New Data Set
Geddes, B., Wright, J., & Frantz, E. (2014) · Perspectives on Politics · doi:10.1017/s1537592714000851 · Cited by 1,567
Self-citationState Repression and Political Order
Davenport, C. (2007) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.101405.143216 · Cited by 1,564
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- Banks, 2012, Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive
- Carey, 2006, The dynamic relationship between protest and repression, Political, 59, 1
- Cingranelli, 2010, The Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Dataset
- Gibney, 2008, Political Terror Scale 1976–2006
Cited by
Sorted by citations
To Repress or to Co‐opt? Authoritarian Control in the Age of Digital Surveillance
Xu, X. (2021) · American Journal of Political Science · doi:10.1111/ajps.12514 · Cited by 316
Regime Threats and State Solutions
Hassan, M. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108858960 · Cited by 188
The Assault on Civil Society: Explaining State Crackdown on NGOs
Chaudhry, S. (2022) · International Organization · doi:10.1017/s0020818321000473 · Cited by 148
Regime legitimation, elite cohesion and the durability of autocratic regime types
Kailitz, S., & Stockemer, D. (2015) · International Political Science Review · doi:10.1177/0192512115616830 · Cited by 153
The Autocratic Welfare State: Old-Age Pensions, Credible Commitments, and Regime Survival
Knutsen, C. H., & Rasmussen, M. (2018) · Comparative Political Studies · doi:10.1177/0010414017710265 · Cited by 146
Metadata
- Authors
- Frantz, E., & Kendall-Taylor, A.
- Affiliations
- Bridgewater State University (US)
- Government of the United States of America (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kendall-Taylor, Andrea
- ORCID
- Frantz, Erica
- Venue
- Journal of Peace Research
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2014-03-20
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 332-346
- ISSN
- 0022-3433 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-3578
- OpenAlex
- W2070733498
- Cited by
- 266
- References
- 69
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 68 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 39 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 35.83
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Peace Research (publishedVersion)
- Journal of international women's studies (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Memory, violence, and history
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › International Relations and Foreign Policy
- Keywords
- dictatorship, repression, co-optation, political parties, legislatures, censorship, torture, political imprisonment, physical integrity rights
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