Research framework and broader academic knowledge base
Serbia: documented application of the same framework
How do those in power punish and intimidate people without arrest or physical violence?
The government can severely punish a man without imprisonment and physical violence. The critic can lose his job or contract, get a selective tax or other inspection, lose his license, be exposed to expensive lawsuits, supervision, denial of documents, threats to the family or organized public smear.
Each measure may look like an ordinary administrative or private decision, but their sum changes the behavior of those who are not directly affected. The advantage for the government is that the more difficult it is to prove responsibility, and the price of open violence is lower. Nevertheless, an unpleasant or strict decision is not automatic political intimidation. It is necessary to connect the measure with political activity, show unequal treatment of similar people and determine whether multiple actions together serve to silence or isolate a person.
An unpleasant, strict or even legal decision is not an automatic political intimidation. It should be shown that it is aimed at political activity, that it limits the right and that it does not apply equally.
Works supporting this answer, with their evidence type and an explanation of how they relate to the claim.
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Davenport, C. (2007), „State Repression and Political Order“, Annual Review of Political Science 10: 1–23.
- Contribution to this answer
- Davenport shows that state repression begins long before physical violence: the same repertoire includes harassment, surveillance, bans and other restrictions, in addition to arrests, torture and killings. That is why the fact that people did not end up in prison does not mean that the state does not use coercion to make political action more expensive and risky.
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Earl, J. (2003), „Tanks, Tear Gas, and Taxes: Toward a Theory of Movement Repression“, Sociological Theory 21(1): 44–68.
- Contribution to this answer
- Earl is just trying to expand the view beyond “tanks and tear gas”: repression can use different actors and instruments and operate through legal, administrative or economic constraints, not just through open police force. The point of its typology is not to lose sight of such different forms just because they don’t look as dramatic.
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Earl, J. i Braithwaite, J. M. (2022), „Layers of Political Repression: Integrating Research on Social Movement Repression“, Annual Review of Law and Social Science 18: 227–248.
- Contribution to this answer
- Earl and Braithwaite show that political repression should be viewed in layers: movements are not limited only by the police and physical force, but also by law, administrative rules and other state or non-state actors. Thus, organizing can be seriously aggravated through a series of small obstacles that individually do not even look like “repression”.
Explain how the system works
Ritter, E. H. i Conrad, C. R. (2016), „Preventing and Responding to Dissent: The Observational Challenges of Explaining Strategic Repression“, American Political Science Review 110(1): 85–99.
- Contribution to this answer
- Ritter and Conrad show why we do not see part of the repression as a reaction to the protest at all: the government can act preventively, before the opposition appears publicly. If such repression deters people from organizing, a small number of protests may actually be due to pressure, not proof that there is no pressure.
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Tsourapas, G. (2021), „Global Autocracies: Strategies of Transnational Repression, Legitimation, and Co-Optation in World Politics“, International Studies Review 23(3): 616–644.
- Contribution to this answer
- Tsourapas shows how far such pressure can go: the authoritarian government also monitors people who have left the country, uses digital surveillance and can pressure their families at home to change the behavior of a person abroad. The punishment therefore does not have to be pronounced directly to the person whose behavior the government wants to control.
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