Enemies

of the
State
!

Dissenters Working within

the System
Pu

Zhiqiang China

Yevgenia

Chirikova Russia

Omar

Afifi Egypt

Rules to Dissent By?

Rules to Dissent By
Know

the law

Examples?
Organize

like-minded individuals

Examples?
Go

after the governments finances

Examples?
Try

to impact public opinion: domestic and foreign

Examples?
Be

popular/conspicuous/known

Examples?

Data?

Hypothetically

speaking, suppose you were asked to give

a presentation about the rule of law in some place, and
you thought it would be a good idea to put it in a
comparative context. What would you do?

Data on the Rule of Law

The

World Justice Project Rule of Law Index

One

of many sources

Freedom
Polity

House

Civil Justice
People

can access and afford civil justice

Civil

justice is free of discrimination

Civil

justice is free of corruption

Civil

justice is free of improper government influence

Civil

justice is not subject to unreasonable delays

Civil

justice is effectively enforced

ADRs

are accessible, impartial, and effective

Civil Justice

Criminal Justice
Criminal

investigation system is effective

Criminal

adjudication system is timely and effective

Correctional

system is effective in reducing criminal

behavior
Criminal

justice system is impartial

Criminal

justice system is free of corruption

Criminal

justice system is free of improper government

influence

Due

process of law and rights of the accused

Criminal Justice

The Law/Courts as a
Double-Edged Sword
Law

as a tool to be used against dissenters

Less

likely to lead to public outcry than violence/repression

Law
A

as a tool to be used by dissenters

politicized arena perhaps outside the control of the

regime

Option 3: Punt
Defamation

suit brought by corrupt official Zhang

Xide against authors Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao
1. Find in favor of official despite the evidence,
further eroding the legitimacy of the courts
specifically and regime more generally
2. Find in favor of the authors and signal to
citizens that the courts were a venue for doing
battle with the party
3. Fail to issue a verdict

The Media as a
Double-Edged Sword
Autocrats

fear a free press

Demonstration

effects of news from elsewhere (China and

the Arab Spring)

Allows

dissenters to organize and to get a sense of how

widely shared their preferences are (tipping point)
!

Autocrats

need a free press

Source

of information about civil society

Source

of information about other governmental actors

Gorbachevs Dilemma
As

one observer noted (Methvin 1987), There

surely must be days maybe the morning after
Chernobyl when Gorbachev wishes he could buy
a Kremlin equivalent of the Washington Post and find
out what is going on in his socialist wonderland.
!

Gorbachev

acknowledged: The restructuring is

progressing with great difficulty. We have no
opposition party. How can we control
ourselves? (Egorov et al 2009: 645-6)

Gorbachevs Dilemma
Dictators
To

need reliable sources of information

find out about the public mood

To discover what they opponents are doing
To know what their subordinates are doing
Remember the herd behavior argument from the previous class
> what does it say about whether low-level subordinates can be
trusted? How do you expect bureaucrats to react to a dictators
orders?

The pros and cons of

sources of information in autocracies
Public

opinion polls

Good

for knowing about the public mood

Less for controlling subordinates/bureaucrats on a regular basis

Elections
Ditto.

Spy

Plus, you want to know how youll perform before the election

agencies

Good

for spying on opponents and unreliable allies (i.e., all allies)

But might collude with bureaucratic agencies. Better for finding conspiracies than
for documenting regime underperformance

(Partially)
More

free media

incentives to be sincere, document underperformance

Criticism of the top echelons of the regime can be off-limits
But might allow everybody to realize the extent of public discontent, facilitate
coordination among opponents

Regimes and media freedom, 1993-2007

A Not So Linear Pattern

Dictatorships and the media

Autocracies

have less media freedom than democracies

(surprise, surprise!)
!

But

equally dictatorial countries allow very different amounts

of media freedom
!

What

explains this variation? The dictators trade-off between

Need

for bureaucratic competence; and

Dangers posed by a free media
!

In

general, natural resource boons reduce the need for

bureaucratic competence; dictators are more likely to allow
individual freedoms when they lack resources (BdM & Smith)

Oil and media freedom

The

hypothesis is that (a) an increase in a countrys oil

wealth reduces media freedom, and (b) the effect should be
limited to autocracies
!

Many
(e.g.,

potentially confounding factors

lots of oil-producing countries are in the Middle East)

Solution:
Oil

price is plausibly exogenous

Compare the same country, over time (country fixed effects)
Not Russia in 1993 vs. Norway in 2007
Not Russia in 2007 vs. Norway in 2007
Rather, Russia in 2006 vs. Russia in 2007, etc

Oil prices and media freedom

Oil prices and media freedom

An Aside about Ideology

Ideology as Currency
Ideology
Get

buys support

the interchangeable to at least buy in

Zealots

make great essentials

If

no one believes the ideology anymore, their support must

be purchased and that gets expensive.
secret

police in China

ballot-stuffing

hands)

police in Egypt (reminded of their dirty

Sources
Egorov,

Georgy, Sergei Guriev, and Konstantin

Sonin. 2009. Why Resource-Poor Dictators Allow
Freer Media: A Theory and Evidence from Panel
Data. American Political Science Review 103 (4): 645
68.
!

The

World Justice Project. 2014. Rule of Law Index.