Repression in the New Era

The ever-changing economic environment and the emergence of the Internet have prompted autocracies to adapt their repressive strategies by leveraging the information asymmetries between governments and citizens.However, scholarly debate persists on whether and how these external factors lead to autocracies' greater or lesser reliance on physical repression.Scholars have not even reached consensus, in the first place, on how repression should be conceptually defined and empirically measured.My study addresses a gap in the literature by evaluating the existing datasets and differentiating between the nuances surrounding repression.I argue that current datasets need to be strengthened by paying more attention to the intentions underlying the repression and the specific categorization of violence.I also argue that greater economic development and more advanced Internet technology prompt autocracies to rely less on conspicuous violence because killings would be more severely resisted by a more educated and politically aware citizenry.I hypothesize that 1) economic development correlates negatively with political killings, and 2) Internet penetration correlates negatively with political killings but positively with minor forms of repression.Using data from autocratic regimes between 2016 and 2023, I employ fixed-effects models to test the hypothesis.Statistical results fail to confirm the hypotheses.These findings highlight the need for further investigation, including addressing potential confounders, mitigating underreporting biases, refining the operationalization of variables, and conducting country-specific case studies.