Roman-Gabriel Olar - Copy thy neighbour: Spatial interdependences in the democracy-repression nexus
The literature on state repression converges towards a main findings: democracy suppress the level of repression a regime uses against its citizens. Non-violent norms of conflict resolution and the electoral costs of repression reduce incentives for regimes to repress their citizens. This paper relaxes the assumption that democracy and repression being the sole product of domestic factors and develops an argument for spatial interdependences at a regional level between democracy and repression. Using latent measures of repression and democracy combined with spatial econometrics and simulation models, the paper shows that previous research has over-estimated the effect of democracy on repression. Moreover, it shows there is a robust diffusion effect of repression at a regional level with a bigger impact on domestic repression than democracy. This paper contributes to the literature on policy and conflict diffusion by showing that there is a strategic logic in regimes’ actions to avoid international attention.
Roman-Gabriel Olar is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Trinity College Dublin. He received his Ph.D in Political Science from the Department of Government at the University of Essex. He is also a Research Fellow at the Michael Nicholson Centre for Conflict and Cooperation, University of Essex. Between 2014 and 2018, he was a member of the Research School on Peace and Conflict at Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
His research focuses on the politics of authoritarian regimes, state repression, civil-military relations and democratization.
His work has been published at Comparative Political Studies, Research & Politics, and Journal of Peace Research.Roman-Gabriel Olar is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Trinity College Dublin. He received his Ph.D in Political Science from the Department of Government at the University of Essex. He is also a Research Fellow at the Michael Nicholson Centre for Conflict and Cooperation, University of Essex. Between 2014 and 2018, he was a member of the Research School on Peace and Conflict at Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
His research focuses on the politics of authoritarian regimes, state repression, civil-military relations and democratization.