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Replication Data for: Censorship and the Impact of Repression on Dissent

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Replication Data for: Censorship and the Impact of Repression on Dissent
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WFELNG
 
Creator Pop-Eleches, Grigore
Way, Lucan A.
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description What is the impact of repression on opposition to authoritarian rule? Studies of repression and dissent have yielded contradictory results. Some research suggests that repression reduces popular resistance while others show that it creates backlash and more dissent. In this article we present an informational theory of repression to account for such divergent findings. We argue that the impact of repression hinges on the degree of censorship. Where alternative media is present, violence is more likely to increase support for opposition. By contrast, where alternative sources of information are limited, repression may reduce support for opposition and actually increase support for incumbents. We test and confirm these expectations with an original dataset that combines the results of a panel survey that spanned the authoritarian repression of electoral protests in Moldova in 2009 and geo-coded data on the subnational variation in repression and alternative information availability. The hypothesized interaction between repression and censorship is corroborated in cross-national analysis of repression, censorship and government support (2005-2016).
 
Subject Social Sciences
Repression
Censorship
 
Date 2021-04-19
 
Contributor Pop-Eleches, Grigore
 
Source Gallup. (2016). Gallup World Poll. [Data file]. Washington, D.C.