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https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2021.19
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Thin-skinned leaders: regime legitimation, protest issues, and repression in autocracies
[journal article]
Abstract The literature on autocracies has argued that repression of protest is either a result of the political environment in which protest occurs, or depends on particular characteristics of the protest events themselves. We argue that the interaction of both matters. Authoritarian regimes vary in how the... view more
The literature on autocracies has argued that repression of protest is either a result of the political environment in which protest occurs, or depends on particular characteristics of the protest events themselves. We argue that the interaction of both matters. Authoritarian regimes vary in how they legitimize their rule, and they should be particularly thin-skinned if protesters challenge the basis of their legitimacy. Using event-level data on mass mobilization in autocracies between 2003 and 2015, we use text classification methods to extract protest issues from newspaper reports. Our analysis shows that dictators are more likely to repress protest against incumbents when they claim legitimacy based on the person of the leader. Overall, our study shows that protest issues are not universal in triggering repression; rather, they need to be considered together with the political context in which they are raised.... view less
Keywords
repression; protest; legitimation; political regime; authoritarian system; dictatorship
Classification
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
Free Keywords
authoritarian regimes; demands
Document language
English
Publication Year
2022
Page/Pages
p. 136-152
Journal
Political Science Research and Methods, 10 (2022) 1
ISSN
2049-8489
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0