This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

« Back to Results

Authoritarianism and the Media

Paper Session

Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Hanover D & E
Hosted By: Association for Comparative Economic Studies & Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics
  • Chair: Robert S. Gibbons, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Bombs, Broadcasts and Treason: Allied Intervention and Domestic Opposition to the Nazi Regime in Germany During World War II

Maja Adena
,
WZB Berlin
Ruben Enikolopov
,
Pompeu Fabra University
Maria Petrova
,
Pompeu Fabra University
Hans Joachim Voth
,
University of Zurich

Abstract

Can foreign media and air power turn people against their own government? Most of the historical literature is skeptical that bombs and broadcasts can instigate opposition, and some suggests that the opposite is true. In this paper, we use a high stakes setting - Germany during World War II – to show that air power and the air waves “worked” as a way of undermining regime support. We collect data on individuals tried for high treason before the People’s Court, and merge it with information on the bombing of over 1,000 German towns and cities during the peak of the Allied air offensive. Using plausibly exogenous variation in signal strength, and in the intensity of Allied bombing, we can pin down causal effects: Places that suffered more wartime destruction from the air, and with better reception of Radio London, saw markedly more opposition. Where bombing coincided with a strong BBC signal, it was particularly effective in convincing Germans to conspire against their own government. In addition, pre-existing political attitudes, as reflected in 1933 vote shares, amplified the effectiveness of foreign propaganda. Effects on German morale extended to the armed forces: Fighter pilots from bombed-out cities performed markedly less well after raids.

The Impact of Media Censorship: 1984 or Brave New World?

David Yang
,
Harvard University & Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Yuyu Chen
,
Peking University

Abstract

Direct evidence on whether and why censorship works is limited. We conduct a field experiment in China to examine whether providing access to uncensored internet leads citizens to acquire politically sensitive information, and become affected by it. We track subjects’ media consumption, beliefs regarding media, economic beliefs, political attitudes, and behaviors. We find 4 main results: (i) free access alone does not induce subjects to acquire politically sensitive information; (ii) temporary encouragement leads to a persistent increase in acquisition, indicating that demand is not low due to fixed factors; (iii) acquisition brings broad, substantial, and persistent changes to knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and intended behaviors; and (iv) social transmission of information is statistically significant but small in magnitude. We calibrate a simple model to show that China’s censorship apparatus may remain robust to a large number of citizens receiving access to uncensored internet, given the low demand for and moderate social transmission of uncensored information.

How Modern Dictators Survive: An Informational Theory of the New Authoritarianism

Sergei Guriev
,
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Daniel Treisman
,
University of California-Los Angeles

Abstract

We develop an informational theory of dictatorship. Dictators survive not because of their use of force or ideology but because they convince the public—rightly or wrongly—that they are competent. Citizens do not observe the dictator's type but infer it from signals inherent in their living standards, state propaganda, and messages sent by an informed elite via independent media. If citizens conclude that the dictator is incompetent, they overthrow him in a revolution. The dictator can invest in making convincing state propaganda, censoring independent media, co-opting the elite, or equipping police to repress attempted uprisings—but he must finance such spending at the expense of the public's living standards. We show that incompetent dictators can survive as long as economic shocks are not too large. Moreover, their reputations for competence may grow over time—even if living standards fall. Censorship and co-optation of the elite are substitutes, but both are complements of propaganda. Due to coordination failure among members of the elite, multiple equilibria emerge. In some equilibria the ruler uses propaganda and co-opts the elite; in others, propaganda is combined with censorship. In the equilibrium with censorship, difficult economic times prompt higher relative spending on censorship and propaganda. The results illuminate tradeoffs faced by various recent dictatorships.

Media Capture Through Favor Exchange

Ferenc Szucs
,
Stockholm University
Adam Szeidl
,
Central European University and CEPR

Abstract

We establish three results about favoritism in the Hungarian media. (1) We document distortionary two-way favors between politicians and the media, in the form of government advertising and media coverage. For both directions of favors, our empirical strategy is to compare the allocations of actors with changing versus unchanging connection status. We interpret our findings as media capture. (2) We document an organizational change in favoritism: a first phase when favored media was controlled by a single connected investor; a second phase when this relation- ship broke down and two-way favors were terminated; and a third phase when control of newly favored media was divided between multiple connected investors. (3) We develop and implement a portable structural approach to measure the economic cost of misallocative favoritism.
Discussant(s)
Tymofiy Mylovanov
,
University of Pittsburgh and Kiev School of Economics
Gérard Roland
,
University of California-Berkeley
Abdulaziz B. Shifa
,
Syracuse University
JEL Classifications
  • P5 - Comparative Economic Systems
  • H0 - General