A License to
Kill
Hypothesis 2: political threats would outweigh the influence of behavioral threats.
Third, I expect that political threats have interactive effects. For instance,
Hypothesis 3: When political threats are established and dissent takes
place, it is expected that the positive influence of dissent would be much
greater
than when political threats did not exist (in other words, the
interaction between
political threats and dissent will be statistically as well as
substantively
significant).
This influence is explained by the fact that state responsiveness to behavioral threat lies at the
heart of the regime’s legitimacy. In a context where political authorities have identified threats
as being worthy of attention, this is magnified several-fold. Indeed, in this context, if challenges
are not met swiftly and severely, the regime could lose even more legitimacy than had there been
no declaration at all – something that political leaders would prefer to avoid.
The Type of Threats. Within this research, I not only wish to differentiate between
behavioral and political threats but also among distinct forms of the latter. As conceived, some
political threats are “encompassing” in nature; i.e., they are broad-sweeping categorizations
levied against a defined national enemy, which can manifest itself in a variety of different
locations at the same time (the anti-Red campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s in the US). In this
case,
Hypothesis 4: “Encompassing” political threats increase the amount of
repression directed against the whole population.
Additionally, there are some political threats that are more “selective” in nature. Here, there is
an effort made to more clearly define threats and identify regional, state and/or local-level
challengers (e.g., US black nationalists in Northern cities during the 1960s and 1970s). As such,
I expect that
9
Convention