Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP13189
Authors: Ralph Boleslavsky; Mehdi Shadmehr; Konstantin Sonin
Abstract: Popular protests and palace coups are the two domestic threats to dictators. We show that free media, which informs citizens about their rulers, is a double-edged sword that alleviates one threat, but exacerbates the other. Informed citizens may protest against a ruler, but they may also protest to restore him after a palace coup. In choosing media freedom, the leader trades off these conflicting effects. We developa model in which citizens engage in a regime change global game, and media freedom is a ruler's instrument for Bayesian persuasion, used to manage the competing risks of coups and protests. A coup switches the status quo from being in the ruler's favor to being against him. This introduces convexities in the ruler's Bayesian persuasion problem, causing him to benefi t from an informed citizenry. Rulers tolerate freer press when citizens are pessimistic about them, or coups signal information about them to citizens.
Keywords: Authoritarian Politics; Media Freedom; Protest; Coup; Global Games; Bayesian Persuasion; Signaling
JEL Codes: D72; D82
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| media freedom (M38) | likelihood of coups (D72) |
| media freedom (M38) | likelihood of protests (D72) |
| media freedom (M38) | citizen beliefs (D72) |
| citizen beliefs (D72) | likelihood of coups (D72) |
| citizen beliefs (D72) | likelihood of protests (D72) |
| media freedom (M38) | ruler's perception by citizens (H11) |
| ruler's perception by citizens (H11) | likelihood of successful coup (D72) |
| media freedom (M38) | counterprotests (D74) |
| ruler's choice of media freedom (D72) | citizen behavior (P37) |