IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/1462.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

If You Do Not Change Your Behavior : Preventive Repression in Lithuania under Soviet Rule

Author

Listed:
  • Nazrullaeva, Eugenia

    (School of Public Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science; CAGE, University of Warwick)

  • Harrison, Mark

    (Department of Economics and CAGE, University of Warwick ; CEPR)

Abstract

Who is targeted by preventive repression and why? In the Soviet Union, the KGB applied a form of low-intensity preventive policing, called profilaktika. Citizens found to be engaging in politically and socially disruptive misdemeanors were invited to discuss their behavior and to receive a warning. Using novel data from Lithuania, a former Soviet republic, in the late 1950s and the 1970s, we study the profile and behaviors of the citizens who became subjects of interest to the KGB. We use topic modeling to investigate the operational focuses of profilaktika. We find that profilaktika began as a way of managing specific threats or “known risks” that arose from the experience of postwar Sovietization. The proportion of “unknown risks” – people without risk factors in their background or personal records – increased by the 1970s. These people were targeted because of their anti-Soviet behaviour, which the KGB attributed to “contagious” foreign influences and the spread of harmful values.

Suggested Citation

  • Nazrullaeva, Eugenia & Harrison, Mark, 2023. "If You Do Not Change Your Behavior : Preventive Repression in Lithuania under Soviet Rule," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1462, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:1462
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2023/twerp_1462_-_harrison.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hager, Anselm & Krakowski, Krzysztof, 2022. "Does State Repression Spark Protests? Evidence from Secret Police Surveillance in Communist Poland," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 116(2), pages 564-579, May.
    2. Dragu, Tiberiu & Przeworski, Adam, 2019. "Preventive Repression: Two Types of Moral Hazard," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(1), pages 77-87, February.
    3. Ritter, Emily Hencken & Conrad, Courtenay R., 2016. "Preventing and Responding to Dissent: The Observational Challenges of Explaining Strategic Repression," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(1), pages 85-99, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Apoorva Lal & Mac Lockhart & Yiqing Xu & Ziwen Zu, 2023. "How Much Should We Trust Instrumental Variable Estimates in Political Science? Practical Advice Based on Over 60 Replicated Studies," Papers 2303.11399, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    2. Pearce Edwards, 2021. "The politics of nonviolent mobilization: Campaigns, competition, and social movement resources," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(5), pages 945-961, September.
    3. Kimberly R Frugé, 2019. "Repressive agent defections: How power, costs, and uncertainty influence military behavior and state repression," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 36(6), pages 591-607, November.
    4. David Cingranelli & Skip Mark & Mark Gibney & Peter Haschke & Reed Wood & Daniel Arnon, 2019. "Human Rights Violations and Violent Internal Conflict," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-33, January.
    5. El-Mallakh, Nelly, 2020. "How do protests affect electoral choices? Evidence from Egypt," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 299-322.
    6. Brett L Carter, 2023. "Can Western Donors Constrain Repressive Governments? Evidence from Debt Relief Negotiations in Africa," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 67(6), pages 1183-1217, July.
    7. Joan Barceló & Robert Kubinec & Cindy Cheng & Tiril Høye Rahn & Luca Messerschmidt, 2022. "Windows of repression: Using COVID-19 policies against political dissidents?," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 59(1), pages 73-89, January.
    8. Park, Hyungmin, 2023. "Developmental Dictatorship and Middle Class-driven Democratisation," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1485, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    9. Amanda A Licht & Susan Hannah Allen, 2018. "Repressing for reputation," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(5), pages 582-595, September.
    10. Rahman, Muhammad Habibur & Anbarci, Nejat & Ulubaşoğlu, Mehmet A., 2022. "“Storm autocracies”: Islands as natural experiments," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    11. Felix Kersting, 2022. "Welfare Reform and Repression in an Autocracy: Bismarck and the Socialists," Working Papers 0227, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    12. Keremoğlu, Eda & Hellmeier, Sebastian & Weidmann, Nils B., 2022. "Thin-skinned leaders: regime legitimation, protest issues, and repression in autocracies," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 136-152.
    13. Travis B. Curtice & Brandon Behlendorf, 2021. "Street-level Repression: Protest, Policing, and Dissent in Uganda," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 65(1), pages 166-194, January.
    14. Kikuta,Kyosuke, 2022. "The drowning-out effect: voter turnout, uncertainty, and protests," IDE Discussion Papers 867, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    15. Krzysztof Krakowski & Max Schaub, 2022. "Elite murder and popular resistance: Evidence from post-World War II Poland," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-148, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Howard Liu & Christopher M. Sullivan, 2021. "And the Heat Goes On: Police Repression and the Modalities of Power," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 65(10), pages 1657-1679, November.
    17. Adam Scharpf & Christian Gläßel, 2020. "Why Underachievers Dominate Secret Police Organizations: Evidence from Autocratic Argentina," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 791-806, October.
    18. Naji Bsisu & Amanda Murdie, 2022. "Interventions and repression following civil conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 59(2), pages 213-228, March.
    19. Roessler, Martin & Zwerschke, Patrick & Old, Jonathan, 2021. "Democracy and the Transnational Dimensions of Low-Level Conflict and State Repression," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt0dp237jm, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    20. Andreas Beger & Daniel Hill Jr, 2019. "Examining repressive and oppressive state violence using the Ill-Treatment and Torture data," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 36(6), pages 626-644, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    coercion ; communism ; preventive repression ; security ; social norms ; surveillance ; Soviet Union JEL codes: N44 ; P37;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-
    • P37 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Legal

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wrk:warwec:1462. 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: Margaret Nash (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.html .

    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.