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Preventive Repression: Two Types of MoralHazard

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2018

TIBERIU DRAGU  and
ADAM PRZEWORSKI Open the ORCID record for ADAM PRZEWORSKI [Opens in a new window]
TIBERIU DRAGU*
Affiliation:
New York University
ADAM PRZEWORSKI*
Affiliation:
New York University
*
*Tiberiu Dragu, Associate Professor ofPolitics, New York University, tiberiu.dragu@nyu.edu.
†Adam Przeworski, Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor ofPolitics and Economics, New York University, adam.przeworski@nyu.edu.
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Abstract

Authoritarian leaders maintain their grip on power primarily throughpreventive repression, routinely exercised by specialized securityagencies with the aim of preventing any opponents from organizingand threatening their power. We develop a formal model to analyzethe moral hazard problems inherent in the principal-agentrelationship between rulers and their security agents in charge ofpreventive repression. The model distinguishes two types of moralhazard: “politics,” through which the security agents can exertpolitical influence to increase their payoff by decreasing theruler’s rents from power, and “corruption,” through which the agentscan increase their payoff by engaging in rent-seeking activitiesthat do not decrease the ruler’s rents from power. The surprisingconclusion is that both the ruler and the security agent are betteroff when the only moral hazard problem available is politics ratherthan when the agent can choose between politics and corruption. Wealso show that the equilibrium probability of ruler’s survival inpower is higher when politics is the only moral hazard available tothe agent. These findings lead to our central conclusion thatopportunities for corruption undermine authoritarian rule bydistorting the incentives of the security agencies tasked withpreventing potential threats to an authoritarian ruler’s grip onpower.

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Type
Research Article
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American Political Science Review , Volume 113 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 77 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018 

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Footnotes

We thank Xiaochen Fan, Jennifer Gandhi, Barbara Geddes, WilliamGodel, Pablo Montagnes, Pia Raffler, Arturas Rozenas, JakobSchneebacher, Ken Shotts, and seminar participants at New YorkUniversity and 2016 Priorat Workshop in Theoretical PoliticalScience for helpful comments and suggestions. All errors areours.

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