IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/igtrxx/v14y2012i04ns0219198912400051.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Simple Model Of Repression And Revolt In Autocracies Applied To The Arab Spring

Author

Listed:
  • MARIO GILLI

    (Department of Economics, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano, Italy)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide a specific point of view on the protests that have characterized the Arab countries from December 2010 and are still going on. To understand some of the reasons behind these events, I propose a sequential game with asymmetric information on the likelihood of having a successful uprising. This means that on one hand the government choices may signal the true state of nature and on the other hand the citizens' choices are a way to learn the truth. I assume specific parameters' values to obtain a full characterization of the set of equilibria. This allows to show the interaction of three main factors in determining the possible resulting political regimes: the country's wealth, the autocratic institutions and the general political mood. The complex interaction of these three variables explains why apparently heterogeneous countries may have similar political processes and apparently similar countries face different political situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Mario Gilli, 2012. "A Simple Model Of Repression And Revolt In Autocracies Applied To The Arab Spring," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(04), pages 1-29.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:igtrxx:v:14:y:2012:i:04:n:s0219198912400051
    DOI: 10.1142/S0219198912400051
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219198912400051
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S0219198912400051?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Konrad, Kai A., 2009. "Strategy and Dynamics in Contests," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199549603.
    2. Gerard Padro i Miquel, 2006. "The Control of Politicians in Divided Societies: The Politics of Fear," NBER Working Papers 12573, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Adeel Malik & Bassem Awadallah, 2011. "The Economics of the Arab Spring," OxCarre Working Papers 079, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    4. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2009. "Democratic Capital: The Nexus of Political and Economic Change," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 88-126, July.
    5. Jess Benhabib & Alejandro Corvalen & Mark M. Spiegel, 2011. "Reestablishing the income-democracy nexus," Working Paper Series 2011-09, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    6. Anderton,Charles H. & Carter,John R., 2009. "Principles of Conflict Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521698658, December.
    7. Mario Gilli & Yuan Li, 2013. "A Model of Chinese Central Government: the Role of Reciprocal Accountability," Working Papers 230, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2013.
    8. Anderton,Charles H. & Carter,John R., 2019. "Principles of Conflict Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107184206.
    9. Adeel Malik and Bassem Awadallah, 2011. "The economics of the Arab Spring," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2011-23, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    10. Adeel Malik & Bassem Awadallah, 2011. "The economics of the Arab Spring," CSAE Working Paper Series 2011-23, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    11. Acemoglu,Daron & Robinson,James A., 2009. "Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521671422.
    12. Przeworski,Adam & Alvarez,Michael E. & Cheibub,Jose Antonio & Limongi,Fernando, 2000. "Democracy and Development," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521793797.
    13. Przeworski,Adam & Alvarez,Michael E. & Cheibub,Jose Antonio & Limongi,Fernando, 2000. "Democracy and Development," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521790321.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roland Hodler, 2018. "The Political Economics Of The Arab Spring," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 821-836, April.
    2. Daron Acemoglu & Tarek A. Hassan & Ahmed Tahoun, 2018. "The Power of the Street: Evidence from Egypt’s Arab Spring," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(1), pages 1-42.
    3. Faria, João Ricardo & McAdam, Peter, 2015. "Macroeconomic adjustment under regime change: From social contract to Arab Spring," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-22.
    4. Joao Ricardo Faria & Peter McAdam, 2013. "From Social Contract to Arab Spring: Macroeconomic Adjustment under Regime Change," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0813, School of Economics, University of Surrey.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Besley, Timothy & Kudamatsu, Masayuki, 2007. "Making autocracy work," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3764, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Nedra Baklouti & Younes Boujelbene, 2018. "The Nexus Between Democracy and Economic Growth: Evidence from Dynamic Simultaneous-Equations Models," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 9(3), pages 980-998, September.
    3. Vahabi,Mehrdad, 2019. "The Political Economy of Predation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107591370.
    4. Mr. Marc G Quintyn & Sophia Gollwitzer, 2012. "Institutional Transformations, Polity and Economic Outcomes: Testing the North-Wallis-Weingast Doorsteps Framework," IMF Working Papers 2012/087, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Martin Gassebner & Michael J. Lamla & James Raymond Vreeland, 2013. "Extreme Bounds of Democracy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 57(2), pages 171-197, April.
    6. Daron Acemoglu & Suresh Naidu & Pascual Restrepo & James A. Robinson, 2019. "Democracy Does Cause Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 47-100.
    7. Gehlbach, Scott & Keefer, Philip, 2011. "Investment without democracy: Ruling-party institutionalization and credible commitment in autocracies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 123-139, June.
    8. Eric Chaney, 2012. "Democratic Change in the Arab World, Past and Present," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 44(1 (Spring), pages 363-414.
    9. Kammas, Pantelis & Sarantides, Vassilis, 2019. "Do dictatorships redistribute more?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 176-195.
    10. Aidt, Toke S. & Jensen, Peter S., 2014. "Workers of the world, unite! Franchise extensions and the threat of revolution in Europe, 1820–1938," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 52-75.
    11. Alberto Batinti & Joan Costa‐Font & Timothy J. Hatton, 2022. "Voting Up? The Effects of Democracy and Franchise Extension on Human Stature," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 161-190, January.
    12. Ivar Kolstad & Arne Wiig, 2014. "Diversification and democracy," CMI Working Papers 9, CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute), Bergen, Norway.
    13. Bougharriou, Nouha & Benayed, Walid & Gabsi, Foued Badr, 2019. "The democracy and economic growth nexus: Do FDI and government spending matter? Evidence from the Arab world," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-29.
    14. Ghosal, Sayantan & Proto, Eugenio, 2009. "Democracy, collective action and intra-elite conflict," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(9-10), pages 1078-1089, October.
    15. Stephen L. Parente & Luis Felipe Sáenz & Anna Seim, 2022. "Income, education and democracy," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 193-233, June.
    16. Daniel Treisman, 2011. "Income, Democracy, and the Cunning of Reason," NBER Working Papers 17132, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. BenYishay, Ariel & Betancourt, Roger, 2014. "Unbundling democracy: Political rights and civil liberties," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 552-568.
    18. Aidt, T.S. & Jensen, P.S., 2012. "From Open to Secret Ballot: Vote Buying and Modernization," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1221, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    19. Mulligan, Casey B. & Tsui, Kevin K., 2015. "Political entry, public policies, and the economy," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 377-397.
    20. Welander, Anna & Lyttkens, Carl Hampus & Nilsson, Therese, 2015. "Globalization, democracy, and child health in developing countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 136, pages 52-63.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Protest; repression; autocracy; D74; N45;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B4 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology
    • C0 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - General
    • C6 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling
    • C7 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory
    • D5 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • M2 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wsi:igtrxx:v:14:y:2012:i:04:n:s0219198912400051. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/igtr/igtr.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.