Media Freedom and the Escalation of State Violence

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

When governments face severe political violence, they regularly respond with violence. Yet not all governments escalate repression under such circumstances. We argue that to understand the escalation of state violence, we need to pay attention to the potential costs leaders might face in doing so. We expect that the decision to escalate state violence is conditional on being faced with heightened threats and on possessing an information advantage that mitigates the expected cost of increasing state violence. In an environment where media freedom is constrained, leaders can deny or reframe an escalation of violations and so expect to reduce potential domestic and international costs attached to that decision. Using a global dataset from 1981 to 2006, we show that state violence is likely to escalate in response to increasing violent threats to the state when media freedom is curtailed – but not when the media are free from state intervention. A media environment that the government knows is free to sound the alarm is associated with higher political costs of repression and effectively reduces the risk of escalating state violence, even in the face of mounting armed threats.

Original languageEnglish
JournalPolitical Studies
Volume71
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)440-462
Number of pages23
ISSN0032-3217
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 05.2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.

    Research areas

  • dissent, human rights, media freedom, repression, violent conflict
  • Politics

Recently viewed

Researchers

  1. Birgit Többen

Publications

  1. Begriff und Merkmale junger Unternehmen
  2. DaF-Lernen außerhalb des Klassenraums
  3. Prices, Self-Interests, and the "Invisible Hand" - Reviewing Ethical Foundations of Economic Concepts in Times of Crisis
  4. The Connected Classroom
  5. Remaking Media Practices
  6. Introduction of non-native Douglas fir reduces leaf damage on beech saplings and mature trees in European beech forests
  7. Spatial planning and territorial governance
  8. Personaltheorie als Beitrag zur Theorie der Unternehmung
  9. Dispute and morality in the perception of societal risks: extending the psychometric model
  10. Interactive effects among ecosystem services and management practices on crop production
  11. A Web-Based Stress Management Intervention for University Students in Indonesia (Rileks)
  12. DeFacto - Temporal and multilingual deep fact validation
  13. Restoring the human capacity for conserving biodiversity
  14. Sustainable Corporate Governance
  15. Friede den Völkern
  16. Principles for knowledge co-production in sustainability research
  17. One Size fits None
  18. From negative to positive sustainability performance measurement and assessment? A qualitative inquiry drawing on framing effects theory
  19. Tausch, Technik, Krieg
  20. Trace Metal Dynamics in Floodplain Soils of the River Elbe: A Review (vol 38, pg 1349)
  21. Preferences and policy - Consuming art and culture in Baltimore and Hamburg
  22. Ronald F. Inglehart
  23. The snow crab dispute on the continental shelf of Svalbard
  24. An Adaptive Lyapunovs Internal PID Regulator in Automotive Applications
  25. Smartphone = Smart Learning? Englischlernen per App und Co.
  26. Can knowledge of priority effects improve outcomes of ecological restoration?
  27. Working conditions and organizational practices to support well-being of multiage workforce in Germany, USA, Japan, and South Korea
  28. Responsibility and Economics
  29. Astronaut
  30. Transformation products of antibiotic and cytostatic drugs in the aquatic cycle that result from effluent treatment and abiotic/biotic reactions in the environment