When Do Private Actors Engage in Censorship? Evidence From a Correspondence Experiment with Russian Private Media Firms

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Quintin H. Beazer ◽  
Charles D. Crabtree ◽  
Christopher J. Fariss ◽  
Holger L. Kern
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Information Control ◽  
Media Firms ◽  
Private Actors

Abstract In authoritarian regimes, repression encourages private actors to censor not only themselves, but also other private actors—a behavior we call “regime-induced private censorship.” We present the results of a correspondence experiment conducted in Russia that investigates the censorship behavior of private media firms. We find that such firms censor third-party advertisements that include anti-regime language, calls for political or non-political collective action, or both. Our results demonstrate the significance of other types of censorship besides state censorship in an important authoritarian regime and contribute to the rapidly growing literature on authoritarian information control.

Atmospheric Police: Delegated Authority in the Clean Development Mechanism

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica F. Green
Keyword(s):  
Clean Development Mechanism ◽  
Market Mechanism ◽  
Carbon Offsets ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Global Environment Facility ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
Development Mechanism

This chapter examines why states decided to delegate key monitoring tasks to private actors in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol. It first provides an overview of the origins of the CDM before discussing the involvement of the Global Environment Facility, the World Bank, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat, and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in the CDM. It also presents three reasons behind delegated authority in the CDM, and specifically why private actors were selected to serve as the “atmospheric police” of the CDM. First, the private sector had relatively long-standing experience in the intricacies of measuring carbon offsets. Second, powerful states agreed that this market mechanism should be part of the Protocol, and that a third-party verifier was needed to monitor the quality of offset projects. Finally, there was a focal institution, the CDM Executive Board, to screen and oversee agents.

On Authoritarian Leadership

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Graeme Gill
Keyword(s):  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Personal Power ◽  
Authoritarian Leadership ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
The Way

This chapter outlines the established view of the way leadership in an authoritarian regime operates, emphasizing its arbitrary and violent dimensions. It criticizes this literature in terms of both its assumptions and its empirical accuracy. The chapter then discusses the key concepts used in the following analysis. It identifies five regime types: single party, electoral authoritarian, military, monarchy and personal dictatorship. It then discusses the nature of authoritarian leadership, conceived in terms of an oligarchy, including the bases upon which personal power can rest. The chapter discusses the nature of rules, introducing the three types of rules identified as central to the conduct of oligarch politics: operational, relational and constitutive rules. An explanation of the structure and a chapter summary of the book follows. An appendix to this chapter lists the twenty-nine rules identified as structuring leadership politics in authoritarian regimes.

Conquering and coercing: Nonviolent anti-regime protests and the pathways to democracy

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
pp. 650-666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nam Kyu Kim ◽  
Alex M Kroeger
Keyword(s):  
Indirect Effects ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Direct And Indirect Effects ◽  
Democratic Transitions ◽  
Leadership Change ◽  
Autocratic Regimes ◽  
Leader Survival ◽  
Empirical Analyses

Recent research finds an association between nonviolent protests and democratic transitions. However, existing scholarship either does not specify the pathways through which nonviolent protests bring about democratization or conduct systematic empirical analyses demonstrating that the specified pathways are operative. This article proposes four pathways through which nonviolent anti-regime protests encourage democratic transitions, emphasizing their ability to directly conquer or indirectly coerce such transitions. Most simply, they can conquer democratic reforms by directly overthrowing authoritarian regimes and installing democracies. They can also coerce democratic reforms through three additional pathways. Nonviolent anti-regime protests can coerce incumbent elites into democratic reforms by threatening the survival of authoritarian regimes. They also increase the likelihood of elite splits, which promote negotiated democratic reforms. Finally, they encourage leadership change within the existing authoritarian regime. Following leadership change, nonviolent movements remain mobilized and are able to coerce democratic concessions from the regime’s new leaders. Our within-regime analyses provide robust empirical support for each pathway. We show that nonviolent anti-regime protests conquer democratic reforms by ousting autocratic regimes and replacing them with democracies. Nonviolent anti-regime protests also coerce elites into democratic reforms by threatening regime and leader survival. These findings highlight the importance of protest goals and tactics and also that nonviolent anti-regime protests have both direct and indirect effects on democratization.

scholarly journals Authoritarian regimes and civil–military relations: Explaining counterbalancing in autocracies

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 559-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abel Escribà-Folch ◽  
Tobias Böhmelt ◽  
Ulrich Pilster
Keyword(s):  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Weak Institutions ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
Quantitative Analyses ◽  
Autocratic Regimes ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Military Relations

How do autocracies structure their civil–military relations? We contend that personalist dictators are more strongly associated with counterbalancing than other authoritarian regime types. Personalists are characterized by weak institutions and narrow support bases, a lack of unifying ideologies and informal links to the ruler. They thus have strong incentives to coup-proof and, as we contend, counterbalancing seems particularly attractive. Quantitative analyses of autocratic regimes’ counterbalancing efforts since the 1960s provide support for this expectation. By showing that institutional coup-proofing significantly varies across autocratic forms of government, we contribute to the literature on comparative authoritarianism and civil–military relations.

scholarly journals On the preconditions for large-scale collective action

AMBIO ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (7) ◽  
pp. 1282-1296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sverker C. Jagers ◽  
Niklas Harring ◽  
Åsa Löfgren ◽  
Martin Sjöstedt ◽  
Francisco Alpizar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Collective Action Problems

Abstract The phenomenon of collective action and the origin of collective action problems have been extensively and systematically studied in the social sciences. Yet, while we have substantial knowledge about the factors promoting collective action at the local level, we know far less about how these insights travel to large-scale collective action problems. Such problems, however, are at the heart of humanity’s most pressing challenges, including climate change, large-scale natural resource depletion, biodiversity loss, nuclear proliferation, antibiotic resistance due to overconsumption of antibiotics, and pollution. In this paper, we suggest an analytical framework that captures the theoretical understanding of preconditions for large-scale collective action. This analytical framework aims at supporting future empirical analyses of how to cope with and overcome larger-scale collective action problems. More specifically, we (i) define and describe the main characteristics of a large-scale collective action problem and (ii) explain why voluntary and, in particular, spontaneous large-scale collective action among individual actors becomes more improbable as the collective action problem becomes larger, thus demanding interventions by an external authority (a third party) for such action to be generated. Based on this, we (iii) outline an analytical framework that illustrates the connection between third-party interventions and large-scale collective action. We conclude by suggesting avenues for future research.

Designing for Participation: Dignity and Autonomy of Service (Part 2)

Design Issues ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 89-102
Author(s):  
Miso Kim
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Mass Production ◽  
Information Control ◽  
Ethical Aspects ◽  
The Social ◽  
Shared Goal

This paper explores a conceptual framework for deepening our understanding of the social and ethical aspects of service, such as human dignity. A philosophical survey of this topic reveals that the basis of dignity is autonomy; however, current frameworks of service, which are often based on the logics of mass production and information control, generally attempt to control people rather than supporting their autonomous actions. As an alternative, I propose a framework of service based on the concept of participation, defined as the collective action of parts related to the whole for the purpose of achieving a shared goal.

scholarly journals Complementary Institutions in Authoritarian Regimes: The Everyday Politics of Constituency Service in Singapore

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elvin Ong
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
The People ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Constituency Service ◽  
Democratic Elections

Recent political science research has suggested that autocrats adopt a variety of institutions such as nominally democratic elections and ruling parties to buttress authoritarian durability. In this article I investigate the role of constituency service in an authoritarian regime. I argue that Singapore's Meet-the-People Sessions (MPS) is a complementary institution that can serve to mitigate the weaknesses of other authoritarian institutions, thereby entrenching authoritarianism, rather than serve as a form of democratic representation. First, it is a mechanism to gain valuable everyday information about grievances within the population, thereby allowing the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) to formulate policies and effectively target its response. Second, it is a convenient venue to recruit and socialize ordinary party members, thus helping the PAP forestall potential party decay. Symbolically, conducting MPS is a material performance of the hegemonic ideology of elitism between PAP politicians and ordinary Singaporeans.

Spontaneous Collective Action: Peripheral Mobilization During the Arab Spring

2017 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZACHARY C. STEINERT-THRELKELD
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Information Diffusion ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Core ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Models Of Disease ◽  
The Arab Spring

Who is responsible for protest mobilization? Models of disease and information diffusion suggest that those central to a social network (the core) should have a greater ability to mobilize others than those who are less well-connected. To the contrary, this article argues that those not central to a network (the periphery) can generate collective action, especially in the context of large-scale protests in authoritarian regimes. To show that those in the core of a social network have no effect on levels of protest, this article develops a dataset of daily protests across 16 countries in the Middle East and North Africa over 14 months from 2010 through 2011. It combines that dataset with geocoded, individual-level communication from the same period and measures the number of connections of each person. Those on the periphery are shown to be responsible for changing levels of protest, with some evidence suggesting that the core’s mobilization efforts lead to fewer protests. These results have implications for a wide range of social choices that rely on interdependent decision making.

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