Does repression work? Measuring repression’s effect on protest using an instrumental variable model

Protest and repression are reciprocally related. Governments respond with repression when faced with challenges to their rule. Dissidents choose their strategies, turning out to protest or staying home, based on the state’s behaviour. But what effect does repression have on protestors’ decisions? The existing literature is of two minds on this issue. One school of thought argues that repression suppresses protest. A second school of thought argues that repression increases protest by inducing public backlash against the regime. Efforts to adjudicate these claims are complicated by the endogeneity between protest and repression. We use US economic development assistance as an instrument for government repression. Governments seeking US development assistance eschew the repression of protestors. An instrumental variable analysis of the MAROB Middle East dataset shows that repression (instrumented on US development aid commitments) discourages protest by a dissident group. The likelihood of protest decreases by roughly 20% in a given year if the group is repressed. The need for an instrumental variable model is highlighted by the fact that uninstrumented regressions show the opposite effect, giving the spurious appearance of backlash. Unfortunately for protestors, the appearance is deceiving. Repression works.