Revealed and Concealed Repression: Theory and Measurement

TL;DR

This paper develops a model and measurement strategy to better estimate total repression, including concealed acts, and applies it to Russia from 2020 to 2025.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to measure total repression accounting for concealment and deterrence, improving inference about repression dynamics.

Findings

Repression indices reveal higher total repression than observed acts alone.

Concealment and deterrence distort observed repression data.

Application to Russia shows significant concealed repression during 2020-2025.

Abstract

Regimes routinely conceal acts of repression. We show that observed repression may be negatively correlated with total repression, consisting of both revealed and concealed acts. This distortion can generate perverse effects for policy interventions designed to reduce repression and complicates inference about the causes and consequences of repression. We develop a model in which regimes choose whether to conceal repression and activists decide whether to challenge the regime. We identify two measurement problems - one due to concealment and one to deterrence. We construct indices of repression that account for these problems and show how these indices can be expressed in terms of observable variables by leveraging equilibrium relationships. We then propose an empirical strategy to estimate these indices. As a proof of concept, we apply this approach to Russia, estimating repression indices at a monthly frequency for 2020-2025.