TY - JOUR
T1 - Democracy, threats and political repression in developing countries
T2 - Are democracies internally less violent?
AU - Regan, P. M.
AU - Henderson, E. A.
PY - 2002/1/22
Y1 - 2002/1/22
N2 - Although previous research on the correlates of political repression has found a negative linear relationship between democracy and repression, we maintain that the relationship is more complex. We focus instead on the role of threats as a key precipitant to political repression and contend that scholars should attend to both non-linearities in analyses of political repression as well as Fein's (1995) argument that states with intermediate levels of democracy (ie semi-democracies) are more likely to be repressive. Such an orientation leads us to hypothesise that there is an inverted U relationship between regime type and political repression. In this article we examine this relationship for 91 less developed countries over the period 1979-92. The findings support the thesis and indicate that: (1) the level of threat is positively and significantly associated with political repression; (2) the level of threat has a greater impact than regime type on the likelihood of political repression; and (3) controlling for the level of threat, less developed states with intermediate levels of democracies-semidemocracies-have the highest levels of political repression.
AB - Although previous research on the correlates of political repression has found a negative linear relationship between democracy and repression, we maintain that the relationship is more complex. We focus instead on the role of threats as a key precipitant to political repression and contend that scholars should attend to both non-linearities in analyses of political repression as well as Fein's (1995) argument that states with intermediate levels of democracy (ie semi-democracies) are more likely to be repressive. Such an orientation leads us to hypothesise that there is an inverted U relationship between regime type and political repression. In this article we examine this relationship for 91 less developed countries over the period 1979-92. The findings support the thesis and indicate that: (1) the level of threat is positively and significantly associated with political repression; (2) the level of threat has a greater impact than regime type on the likelihood of political repression; and (3) controlling for the level of threat, less developed states with intermediate levels of democracies-semidemocracies-have the highest levels of political repression.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0036141302&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0036141302&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/01436590220108207
DO - 10.1080/01436590220108207
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0036141302
VL - 23
SP - 119
EP - 136
JO - Third World Quarterly
JF - Third World Quarterly
SN - 0143-6597
IS - 1
ER -