Revealed and Concealed Repression: Theory and Measurement

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Titova, Maria, Canen, Nathan, Ritter, Emily Hencken, Shadmehr, Mehdi
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Titova, Maria
Canen, Nathan
Ritter, Emily Hencken
Shadmehr, Mehdi
author_facet Titova, Maria
Canen, Nathan
Ritter, Emily Hencken
Shadmehr, Mehdi
contents Regimes routinely conceal acts of repression. We show that observed repression may be negatively correlated with total repression, consisting of both revealed and concealed acts. This distortion can generate perverse effects for policy interventions designed to reduce repression and complicates inference about the causes and consequences of repression. We develop a model in which regimes choose whether to conceal repression and activists decide whether to challenge the regime. We identify two measurement problems - one due to concealment and one to deterrence. We construct indices of repression that account for these problems and show how these indices can be expressed in terms of observable variables by leveraging equilibrium relationships. We then propose an empirical strategy to estimate these indices. As a proof of concept, we apply this approach to Russia, estimating repression indices at a monthly frequency for 2020-2025.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_16997
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Revealed and Concealed Repression: Theory and Measurement
Titova, Maria
Canen, Nathan
Ritter, Emily Hencken
Shadmehr, Mehdi
Theoretical Economics
Regimes routinely conceal acts of repression. We show that observed repression may be negatively correlated with total repression, consisting of both revealed and concealed acts. This distortion can generate perverse effects for policy interventions designed to reduce repression and complicates inference about the causes and consequences of repression. We develop a model in which regimes choose whether to conceal repression and activists decide whether to challenge the regime. We identify two measurement problems - one due to concealment and one to deterrence. We construct indices of repression that account for these problems and show how these indices can be expressed in terms of observable variables by leveraging equilibrium relationships. We then propose an empirical strategy to estimate these indices. As a proof of concept, we apply this approach to Russia, estimating repression indices at a monthly frequency for 2020-2025.
title Revealed and Concealed Repression: Theory and Measurement
topic Theoretical Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.16997