A License to
Kill
Introducing international and domestic political threats into the examination (Table 1,
model 3),
results disclose that dissent and lagged repression still wield statistically significant
influences on repressive behavior – in the same direction and at comparable levels to that
identified above . Supporting Hypothesis 1, results also disclose that “political threats” generally
wield an influence on repressive activity. Supporting Hypothesis 2, results disclose that these
influences generally exceed those of behavioral threat. At the same time, I find that the inclusion
of these variables does not substantively alter the influence of the conflict measures (refuting
Hypothesis 3). While the general findings bode well for my argument, the hierarchy of
influences was different than anticipated.
Without exception, domestic threats are larger in terms of their impact on state repression
when compared to international threats. Additionally, the most encompassing political threats,
Truman-McCarthy (1948–1954) and Vietnam (1965–1975), did not result in the largest amount
of repression (refuting Hypothesis 4) – in fact, the latter had one of the weakest influences.
Rather, the periods of Carter and Reagan (1981-1982) revealed the largest influences, political
threats that I expected would be much more limited in scope. These findings are particularly
interesting because while invocations of communism (at home and abroad), anti-radicalism and
anti-subversion were widely associated with Reagan’s administration (Curry 1988; Zwerman
1990), the period associated with Carter was not; indeed, the latter is commonly believed to be
one of most pacific periods within US history. As discussed earlier, the Interlude (between 1955
and 1964) continued many anti-Red practices of the Truman-McCarthy period but at a much
lower level and thus it makes little sense that this would be third in terms of overall influence on
31
Here, I employ the period of Détente as the control category for the former and the Truman-McCarthy period as
the control category for the latter.
32
Directly relevant to the analysis above, one explanation for the results could be a problem that has continually
plagued the study of repressive behavior and societal conflict: the possibility that repression and dissent influence
one another, commonly referred to as the “conflict-repression nexus” (e.g., Lichbach 1987). For example, moving
from dissent to repression, research has consistently found that protest increases repression (e.g., Hibbs 1973; Poe
29
Convention