Authoritarian Crackdowns and Transnational Repression

• In Event: Authoritarian Practices: Internal and International Manifestations

Abstract

The emerging but promising literature dealing with transnational repression has focused on the extraterritorial expansion of authoritarian states. Scholars working on this topic have identified several strategies used by authoritarian states to control and coerce their population abroad. While this body of work has considerably improved our understanding on authoritarian transnational repression practices, there is thus far no clear test of the determinants of transitional repression. This manuscript investigates precisely this question. Drawing on a unique database of nearly 1,200 cases in which authoritarian states around the world threatened, attacked, extradited, abducted, or assassinated their own politically threatening citizens abroad between 1991 and 2019, it investigates the drivers of authoritarian transnational repression. It argues that an increase in domestic repression is likely to rise incidents on transnational repression as crackdowns at home drive dissent abroad and incentivize the state to extend its repressive gaze beyond its borders. This is a first quantitative test of correlates of transnational repression using new and publicly available data, with the aim to be useful to other researchers in situating their qualitative studies in a larger universe of cases, further interrogating relationships using quantitative methods, and providing a data source for this newly emergent field.

Author

• Alexander Dukalskis, University College Dublin