October 30, 2019
Sean Yom (Temple University) Repression is traditionally conceptualized as a domestic process in which regimes apply physical sanctions, or the threat of such, against individuals or groups within their national territories. Yet today, repression has become increasingly transnationalized such that these coercive acts can no longer be theorized as purely domestic processes. Regimes, including both autocracies and democracies, collaborate with one another; they share resources, learn new strategies, circulate worst practices, coordinate information, and innovate legally. Many hunt their citizens abroad like lone wolves; others outsource the deed at home in wolfpacks. Modern repression thus contains an international dimension that needs to be unpacked and conceptualized. This project explores the transnationalization of repression, synthesizing our knowledge of autocratic collaboration, diffusion, and regionalism to generate the conceptual foundations of a new research agenda. It defines transnational repression through four constituent components – extension of violence abroad, mobilization of exogenous resources, coordination of information, and upgrading of techniques. It further suggests that transnationalized repression may occur at the flashpoint of several causal conditions: similar regime types between transacting states, common opposition affinities, interoperable capabilities, and a permissive international environment.
Repression is traditionally conceptualized as a domestic process in which regimes apply physical sanctions, or the threat of such, against individuals or groups within their national territories. Yet today, repression has become increasingly transnationalized such that these coercive acts can no longer be theorized as purely domestic processes. Regimes, including both autocracies and democracies, collaborate with one another; they share resources, learn new strategies, circulate worst practices, coordinate information, and innovate legally. Many hunt their citizens abroad like lone wolves; others outsource the deed at home in wolfpacks. Modern repression thus contains an international dimension that needs to be unpacked and conceptualized. This project explores the transnationalization of repression, synthesizing our knowledge of autocratic collaboration, diffusion, and regionalism to generate the conceptual foundations of a new research agenda. It defines transnational repression through four constituent components – extension of violence abroad, mobilization of exogenous resources, coordination of information, and upgrading of techniques. It further suggests that transnationalized repression may occur at the flashpoint of several causal conditions: similar regime types between transacting states, common opposition affinities, interoperable capabilities, and a permissive international environment.