Political Competition and Authoritarian Repression: Evidence from Pinochet's Chile

Authoritarian regimes repress to prevent mass resistance to their rule. In doing so, regimes’ security forces require information about the dissidents who mobilize such resistance. Political competition, which fuels partisan rivalries, offers one solution to this problem by motivating civilians to p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:World politics 2022-10, Vol.74 (4), p.479-522
Main Author: Edwards, Pearce
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Authoritarianism
Civilians
Competition
Coups d'etat
Democracy
Dictators
Dissent
Elections
Evidence
Information
Militancy
Murders & murder attempts
Oppression
Partisanship
Political activism
Political dissent
Population
Prevention
Resistance
Security
Violence
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:Authoritarian regimes repress to prevent mass resistance to their rule. In doing so, regimes’ security forces require information about the dissidents who mobilize such resistance. Political competition, which fuels partisan rivalries, offers one solution to this problem by motivating civilians to provide needed information to security forces. Yet civilians share information about any political opponents, not just dissidents, which creates a challenge for regimes that want to target dissidents. Drawing on novel archival data from the immediate aftermath of the 1973 coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile, a period that included civilian collaboration with repression, this article presents evidence that close pre-coup political competition is associated with more frequent repression and more targeting of non-dissidents. The author uses pre-coup democratic elections to measure political competition and addresses the challenge of estimating political preferences unaffected by repression. Qualitative evidence and further quantitative tests probe implications of the partisan rivalry mechanism and account for alternative explanations.
ISSN:0043-8871
1086-3338
DOI:10.1017/S0043887122000132