Rulers with limited coercive means resort to exemplary punishment of a few

Evidence

But you can also send out your bailiffs, troops, or hit squads after someone has made claims in a way that meets your disfavor. (If you have limited means, furthermore, you can retaliate by means of exemplary punishment: ostentatiously hanging or torturing the few perpetrators on whom your agents can lay their hands.) … You may, for example, facilitate peaceful demonstrations, but set up serious penalties for any demonstrator who engages in a violent act. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 441

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 441