Governmental coercion increases rather than suppresses political conflict

Evidence

CA theory would be best supported by finding a strongly curvilinear relation between conflict and coercion. If one or another side greatly outweighs the other’s capacity for coercion, rebellions should not start or regimes ought quickly to collapse, at low cost. The most intense conflicts ought to occur where coercive capacities are closely matched. Granted difficulties in the available data, the most recent study (by Gurr et al.) shows only slight curvilinearity. In addition, some other results that are very odd from the standpoint of CA theory turn up: In general, a positive relationship seems to exist between governmental coercion and conflict. This includes the finding that the cumulative application of sanctions increases conflict, even at the extreme of sanctions, and that the use of sanctions has no discernible time-lagged effect on conflict. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4330

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The counterintuitive empirical finding that repression escalates conflict — even at the highest levels of sanctions, with no time-lag effect — overturns the coercion-balance prediction and forces a reworking of the theory.
• SEED: Angle: ‘When Repression Backfires’ — an essay on how coercive capacity, designed to deter rebellion, reliably increases it, with implications for protest policing and state response to dissent.
• XREF: connects to: Deliberately induced political chaos consolidates rather than weakens the orchestrator’s power — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 442; Societal antagonism toward a party can equip it for later political competition — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 140; Token political incorporation can accelerate rather than appease opposition mobilization. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 577 (+5 more)