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Media Freedom in Autocracies: Popular Uprising, Elites

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Media Freedom in Autocracies: Popular Uprising, Elites Media Freedom in Autocracies: Popular Uprising, Elites Wrongdoing and Revolt-Proofing∗ Gaetan Tchakounte Nandongy Princeton University July 21, 2020 Abstract Why do contemporary autocracies allow media freedom when these information producers can catalyze mass mobilization that can upend the regime? In a formal model, I highlight two important effects of media freedom: (1) an independent media has a disciplining effect on regime elites as it reduces the frequency of wrongdoing.(2) A free press also reduces elites level of uncertainty around the regime's revolt- proofing, enhancing their incentive to engage in wrongdoing. Thus, the preference for media freedom must incorporate the influence of these two conflicting forces. Under very limited information around revolt- proofing the second effect dominates, and the ruler adopts media censorship. While media independence mitigate the frequency of misconduct, and raise leadership survival when there is small uncertainty. While conventional wisdom advances natural resources and media manipulation arguments, this study suggests that the uncertainty around the regime rebellion-proof plays an important role. Keywords| Autocracies, Global Game, Revolution, Revolt-proofing, Power Consolidation, Regime Elites 1 Introduction Independent media can be extremely harmful for regime survival in dictatorships. A free press may exacerbate citizens' perception of bad governance, by exposing the misdeeds of government officials (Chappell Lawson (2002), McFaul (2005)). Misuse of public funds, instances of corruption by govern- ment officials, and embezzlement are likely to reach the masses in a political environment where the press is uncontrolled. A widespread information about elites wrongdoing can raise citizens political awareness that the regime is inept at managing the country's affairs, and reinforce their incentives ∗I am indebted to John B. Londregan and Leonard Wantchekon for many helpful discussions and their continuous support throughout this project. I would also like to thank Carles Boix, Dahyun Choi, German Gieczewski, Brice Gueyap Kounga, Ian Heffernan, Matias Iaryczower, Amaney Jamal, Gleason Judd, Korhan Korcak, Delanyo Kpo, Joe Ruggiero, Francis Touola Meda, Claire Willeck, Deborah Yashar, Wilfried Youmbi Fotso, Grace Zeng, seminar participants at Graduate Research Seminars in Princeton for invaluable comments. yPhD Candidate, Department of Politics, Princeton University, [email protected] to engage in anti-regime political actions (Acemoglu and Robinson (2012), Ortiz et al.(2013), Branch and Mampilly (2015), Chayes(2015)). Indeed, it is often assumed that the ruler will do his best to stifle independent criticisms, and manage to hold absolute control of the press (Friedrich and Brzezinski (1956)). However, empirical evidence propose a mixed relationship between the level of democracy and media freedom. Figure 1 plots the level of media freedom across countries between 1993 to 20161, controlling for the level of democracy. There is a noisy positive relationship between the level of democracy, and the degree of media freedom adoption. For example, the press in Burkina Faso (BFA), Gabon (GAB), Congo (COG), Tanzania (TZA) or Koweit (KWT) is partially freer than the press in democratic countries like Ukraine (UKR), Georgia (GEO). Why would some authoritarian regimes adopt a partially free press while others do not? Figure 1: Media Freedom (93-16) across countries A country is more democratic the higher its index. If the Media freedom index is between 0 − 40, the country does not allow free media. The press in a country is partially free and free if the index lies between 40 − 70 and 70 − 100, respectively. When it comes to understanding the adoption of a free press in dictatorships, the existing literature makes two important assumptions to demonstrate its utility at exposing bureaucrats mismanagement. 1Freedom of House publishes media freedom index across countries. The measure is based on a survey of public opinion about "whether there are regulations and laws that influence the press"; "if there is political pressure and control of the media"; "Economic influence of the medias"; "Repressive actions against journalists". The index of democracy is contained in the Polity IV 2018 dataset. 2 First, scholars on this topic typically assume that the corrupt bureaucrat is a low-tier official that can lose her job if her mismanagement is exposed by the media (Egorov et al. (2009); Lorentzen (2014)). The assumption of firing or sanctioning a dishonest bureaucrat is unrealistic when the official in question is highly influential in the dictator's inner circle. Because of his membership in the ruling clique, or the selectorate, a high-ranked official (e.g. the Minister of Defense, a General officer or a Secretary of the State) is very instrumental for the ruler's tenure in office (Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003), Harber (2008))2. These elites usually enjoy large impunity so much that their removal can trigger a political crisis3. Second, the previous literature assumes the bureaucrat has complete information about the regime's strength (Lorentzen (2014)). This assumption neglects the situation in which there is uncertainty around the regime ability to resist a popular uprising because the ruler has discretely engaged in power consolidation. In this paper, I examine how (1) the ruler's inability to inflict a punishment on a corrupt crony, and (2) the elites' uncertainty about how rebel proof the regime is, alter the incentives to grant or impede the liberty of the press in authoritarian regimes. I develop a model of Global Game with endogeneous information where three groups of players interact: an incumbent ruler, a regime elite, and a continuum of exante identical citizens. The elite is the ruler's crony who cares about regime survival and prefer engaging in a socially undesirable behavior ( e.g. any wrongdoing such as corruption, embezzlement). However, he is uncertain as to whether a misconduct would bring about a mass protest that could terminate the regime's tenure. The uncertainty stems from two key political features often ascribed to authoritarian regimes: the limited information and the use of violence to resolve political conflicts. The first political feature materializes between the ruler and the senior official (e.g. regime elites, ministers, etc...). For some tactical reasons highlighted in the literature on power consolidation by dictators (Reiter (2020), Stein (2016), Van De Walle (2001), Quillivan (1999) and Luttwak (1969))4, the ruler may reinforce his leadership with structures such as a parallel military, competent secret intelligence, exploitation of special loyalties that can potentially strengthen the regime's ability to resist attacks. These structures may increase elites uncertainty about the regime ability to defend 2Bueno De Mesquita, Smith, Siverson and Morrow (2003) develops a theory of political survival in which they identify the restricted groups of elites that determines whether a leader assumes or remains in office: the selectorate. For the case of dictatorships, this is a group of cronies that controls economic resources, and have a veto on some of the ruler's decisions. 3For example, Idi Amin Dada from Uganda, Milton Obote's top army officer, mounted a coup d'´etatonce he learned he was going to be arrested for misappropriating army funds ("General Idi Amin overthrows Ugandan government". British Council. 2 February 1971). 4Reiter (2020) and Sudduth (2016) also argue that the ruler adopt these power consolidation measures to reduce the chances of successful coups and increase military effectiveness against belligerent threat. 3 itself against a popular uprising, and therefore, impact their preference for wrongdoing. I capture the regime's revolt-proofing with a continuous state variable θ5. The second political feature associates citizens reaction to elites wrongdoing. A strand of research has recognized that, unlike voters in democracies, citizens in dictatorships must rely on violence to stimulate political change and make politicians responsive to their demands (Svolik (2012), Gelhbach et al. (2016), Wood (2003)). The model features this characteristic when considering how an elite wrongdoing affects citizens' motivation to engage in political action 6. I show that granting independent media produces two effects. First, there is a reduction in the frequency of wrongdoing following the adoption of an independent media provided that the degree of elites uncertainty is not extremely large. In fact, when the press is free, citizens can perfectly detect cases of elites misconduct and protest more often. Thus, the likelihood of regime upheaval when there is wrongdoing is lower than with censorship. Whereas when the media are silenced, there is imperfect detection of economic mismanagement from the citizens' perspective. Senior officials in the government therefore enjoy more degree of freedom when deciding whether to engage in corrupt behavior because of citizens inability to make accurate inference from elites actions. Thus, wrongdoings are more likely to emerge in a setting with media censorship. Second, media freedom reduces the degree of uncertainty around revolt-proofing. I show that when the regime elite has acute uncertainty, a free press increases instances of wrongdoing. Given that he engages more in wrongdoing under moderate limited information, the effect of media freedom can only increase instances of misconducts through a reduction of uncertainty around revolt-proofing. In addition,
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