ABSTRACT

Those who would revolt against an autocrat often face a dilemma caused by uncertainty: they would like to revolt if the ruler would respond with democratization, but they would prefer to concede if the ruler would choose instead to violently suppress the revolution. Consequently, the autocrat must decide how to best signal his willingness to use violence in hope of deterring revolt. Using a simple signaling model, we find that rulers cannot meaningfully convey their type by transferring wealth to the citizenry. However, they can convey their type through shows of force, as long as the strong type of autocrat – who would use violent repression in the case of revolution – has a competitive advantage in displaying his strength. We additionally demonstrate that rulers favor shows of force when their willingness to suppress revolution is questioned and that citizens at times prefer to pay the direct cost of shows of force to learn about the ruler’s type, rather than to remain uninformed. The results illustrate a more general result in costly signaling models: information transmission is only possible when the cost of the signal is smaller for the type that wants to distinguish himself.

摘要

反抗独裁者往往面临不确定性带来的困境：如果统治者以民主化回应，他们愿意反抗，但如果统治者选择暴力镇压革命，他们宁愿让步。因此，独裁者必须决定如何最好地表明他愿意使用暴力以遏制反抗。使用一个简单的信号模型，我们发现统治者不能通过将财富转移给公民来有意义地传达他们的类型。然而，他们可以通过展示武力来传达他们的类型，只要强大的独裁者——在革命的情况下会使用暴力镇压——在展示自己的力量方面具有竞争优势。我们还证明，当统治者镇压革命的意愿受到质疑时，他们更喜欢展示武力，而且公民有时更愿意支付展示武力的直接成本来了解统治者的类型，而不是保持不知情。结果说明了在代价高昂的信号模型中的一个更普遍的结果：只有当信号的代价对于想要区分自己的类型来说更小时，信息传输才有可能。