A House Divided: Threat Perception, Regime Factionalism and Repression in Africa

Abstract

The Ohio State University Mershon Center for International Security StudiesWhy do governments in Africa repress certain contentious challenges but not others? This study adopts a blended approach to studying repression by taking seriously both the characteristics of contentious events as well as nature of the regime in power. We argue that the more threatening a movement is — as measured by the use of violence, opposition demands, and targets — the more likely the state is to use repressive force. However, we relax the assumption that the state is a unitary actor, and allow for the preferences of state leaders and of the security forces to diverge when it comes to carrying out repressive policies. Countries with a history of factionalism in their security forces face an additional challenge: orders to crack down on protesters, rioters, strikers, etc., may not be followed or could even cause police and military forces to defect. We argue this potential is greatest when the challenge is has ethnoreligious aims. We test these propositions using the Social Conflict in Africa Database, and find significant support for our core theoretical conjecture: regimes with a history of past military factionalism are generally less likely to use repression. Such regimes are especially unwilling to repress ethnoreligiously based, ascriptive movements. These results are robust to several estimators that address the hierarchical nature of the event data. These findings demonstrate the benefits of a blended, event-based approach to studying state repression.Mershon Center for International Security StudiesEvent Web Page, Streaming Video, Event Photo