Rules of Repression: Military Rule, Coercion and Autocratic Survival

• In Event: Strategies of Repression and Resistance in Autocratic Regimes

Abstract

Research on authoritarian repression has shown the varieties of ways in which autocrats can use violence to stay in power, from harassment and imprisonment to assassinations and disappearances. While the conditions under which autocrats carry out such violence and its broader ramifications are debated, one idea remains constant: that violence serves to destroy the autocrat’s opposition. In contrast, I argue that another important yet often overlooked purpose of repression is to build support for autocratic rule. Repression builds support when it targets groups that society perceives as dangerous. By arresting, imprisoning, and killings those who pose a threat to society, autocrats can cultivate the support of domestic audiences wary of instability and chaos. I demonstrate this argument empirically using a case study of Egypt after the coup of 2013. Building on elite interviews with Islamists and non-Islamists political figures, as well an original dataset of protest events and police responses based on local newspapers in Arabic, I show how the post-coup regime in Egypt used large-scale repression against Islamists to cultivate support among non-Islamists.

Author

• Jean Lachapelle, University of Oslo