Let the Rain Settle It: Estimating the Effect of Dissent on Repression ⁄
Year: 2013
Type: preprint
Abstract: Although many factors influence government willingness to violate human rights, there is a scholarly consensus that state repression is an attempt to control popular dissent. However, dissent and repression are endogenous: the state and potential dissidents decide on their actions in expectation of each other’s behavior. To date, empirical models have not accounted well for this endogeneity, leaving scholars either unable to estimate the effects of independent variables on rights violations or drawing incorrect conclusions as to these effects. To solve this problem, we follow recent US voting scholarship and propose a new instrument to model the endogeneity of dissent to repression: rainfall. We argue that while rainfall will deter citizens from active protest, it is unlikely to affect repressive capacity. We couple annual data on rainfall with data from the Social Conflict in Africa Database (SCAD), which reports information on protest and repression in all African states from 1990 to 2009. Using an instrumental variable (IV) approach, we find that dissent fails to have either a statistically or substantively significant effect on repression when endogeneity is taken seriously, suggesting that the preventive aspects of the threat of repression play a meaningful, but unmeasurable, part in their relationship.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Authors: Emily Hencken Ritter, Courtenay R. Conrad
Institutions: University of Alabama, University of California, Merced
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2167282178