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.

Conflict in Law and Politics

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 8, 2017 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Dusable
Hosted By: Econometric Society
  • Chair: Bruno Strulovici, Northwestern University

A Model of Protests, Revolution, and Information

Matthew O. Jackson
,
Stanford University
Salvador Barbera
,
Autonomous University of Barcelona

Abstract

A population considering a revolt must participate in sufficient numbers to succeed. We study how their ability to coordinate is affected by their information. The effects of information are non-monotone: the population may coordinate on a revolt if there is very little information or if they know a lot about each other's preferences for change, but having each agent know about the willingness of a few others to revolt can actually make a revolt impossible. We also show that holding mass protests before a revolution can be an essential step in mobilizing a population. Protests provide costly signals of how many agents are willing to participate, while easier forms of communication (e.g., via social media) may fail to signal willingness to actively participate. Thus, although social media can enhance coordination, it may still be necessary to hold a protest before a revolution in order to measure the size of the population willing to revolt. We also examine how having competing groups involved in a revolution can change its feasibility, as well as other extensions, such as what the minimal redistribution on the part of the government is in order to avoid a revolution, and the role of propaganda, homophily and networks, and counter-demonstrations.

Can rules and institutions be sustained by self-interested agents? A theory of diluted incentives, monitoring cascades, and social collapse

Bruno Strulovici
,
Northwestern University

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the following question: can a society populated by purely self-interested agents sustain socially beneficial rules and institutions? The central premise of the paper is that the information necessary to enforce rules and institutions cannot be taken for granted: For example, criminal investigations are difficult tasks which may be botched or biased. Socially-valuable regulations concerning labor, health, and other public matters may be ignored or circumvented, and those in charge of enforcing them may be bribed, deceived, or tempted to abuse their power.

The model makes three main assumptions. First, each signal about an agent's behavior is either costly to acquire or manipulable by some other agent whose identity may only be revealed by an investigation. Second, the population is large and all actions are disciplined by third-party enforcement. Third, the investigation process following a crime has a sequential ``monitoring-the-monitor'' structure in which each monitor may conduct a genuine, costly investigation, shirk, fabricate or destroy evidence, and/or be bribed by the person he investigates.

Under a general specification for agents' actions and payoffs, the model has an essentially unique equilibrium, in which no agent ever makes any effort: agents' failure to internalize the value of institutions and rules leads to a complete social collapse. The result is driven by a combination of two factors: the difficulty to incentivize any given agent for the many tasks that he may face (diluted incentives) and the existence of monitoring cascades which require unbounded punishments or rewards to implement any significant level of investigation.

Geography, Resources and Conflict

Marcin Dziubinski
,
University of Warsaw
Sanjeev Goyal
,
University of Cambridge
David Minarsch
,
University of Cambridge

Abstract


There is a collection of kingdoms. A kingdom shares a common border with other kingdoms, that may in turn share borders with still others. Every kingdom is endowed with resources and is controlled by a ruler. The ruler can choose to fight with neighboring rulers to expand his domain.
The winner of a war takes control of the loser's resources and the kingdom. The probability of winning depends on the resources of the combatants
and on the technology of fighting. Rulers seek to maximize the size of resources they control. We study the influence of geography, resources,
and technology on the dynamics of war and the prospects for peace.

Institutions, Repression, and the Spread of Protest

Raphael Boleslavsky
,
University of Miami
Mehdi Shadmehr
,
University of Miami

Abstract

We analyze the strategic interactions between a state that decides whether to repress a group of activists and the general public that decides whether to protest following repression. Strategic complementarities between the strategies of the public and the state generate multiple equilibria, suggesting a role for social norms. This analysis sheds light on conflicting empirical findings regarding the determinants of repression. We then use this framework to investigate the effects of exogenous restrictions on repression, imposed by international institutions, showing that weak restrictions can paradoxically increase repression. This result provides a rationale for the puzzling empirical finding that international pressure can increase repression. Finally, we study the effects of endogenous restrictions, imposed by domestic institutions set up by the state to restrict its own subsequent repression. We characterize when the state can benefit from introducing such institutions, offering an explanation for the presence of partially independent judiciaries in authoritarian regimes.
JEL Classifications
  • D0 - General