Factors of Repressiveness of Political Systems in Democratic States: Comparative Analysis of Electoral Democracies from 1974 to 2017

This paper is devoted to the analysis of the factors of repressiveness of democratic states. The author explores the question of why do the democracies, commonly associated with respect to human rights and tolerance, use repressive measures? The author reviews a body of literature on the ties between the political regime and repressiveness and concludes that the use of political repressions is a defensive mechanism employed by the government when it perceives a threat from the population in the form of protests. Five hypotheses are made, based on that conclusion: the government tends to use repression when the country’s economy is in decline (and an additional one about the relation between the intensity of protests and the economic situation), when the wealth inequality in the society is high, when a large proportion of the population lives below the poverty threshold and when the education attainment level of the population is low. The paper presents the results of a quantitative analysis of the influence of these factors on the likelihood of government repression and their intensity. Two of the hypotheses were fully confirmed, suggesting an increase of the likelihood and intensity of repression due to the deterioration of the country's economy, as well as due to the high level of economic stratification. Two of the hypotheses were partially confirmed. They were about the relationship of the proportion of the population lives below the poverty threshold and the education attainment level of the population with repressiveness. One of the hypotheses had to be rejected. It was assumed that the democratic government would use repression more likely and with greater intensity in response to any protests in the context of economic downturn and it will repress with less probability and intensity in the context of economic growth even if there are mass protests.