New article on monarchies & repression forthcoming in SPSR.
Together with my colleague Daniel Bischof, I wrote an article about the connection between repression and political violence in the Arab world. The project grew out of a sense of dissatisfaction with the argument that Arab monarchies are somehow immune to political violence and turmoil because of their institutional features. Our analysis shows that once we control for repression – a standard variable explaining levels of political violence – monarchies are no longer special. Moreover, repression is related to political violence in a u-shaped fashion: Too little and too much repression cause political violence. The article is now published in the Swiss Political Science Review.
