Mirjam Edel / Maria Josua

How Authoritarian Rulers Seek to Legitimise Repression: Framing Mass Killings in Egypt and Uzbekistan

GIGA Working Papers | 2017


  • Series

    GIGA Working Papers

    Series Number

    299

    Number of Pages

    28

    Publisher

    German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA)

    Location

    Hamburg

    The silhouette of a speaker.
    © iStock / Edu Leite

    Abstract

    How do authoritarian rulers legitimate repressive actions against their own citizens? Even in autocracies with limited accountability, discursive justifications are often put forward to decrease the costs of domestic repression. Although the research depicts state repression as the opposite of legitimation, justified coercion against some groups may generate legitimacy in the eyes of other parts of the population. This paper conceptualises the suggested links between legitimation and repression. It studies the justifications of mass killings by integrating framing theory with recent research on the domestic and international dimensions of authoritarian rule. Given the common threats at the global level and the diffusion of repressive tactics, we assume that discursive justifications of repression in authoritarian regimes change over time, probably due to learning processes. We compare Egypt and Uzbekistan to analyse the government rhetoric in the Rabi‘a and Ferghana Valley protest crackdowns, respectively, taking into account the audiences of the framing and the sources of the frames that justify repression.

    Dr. Mirjam Edel

    Dr. Mirjam Edel

    University of Tübingen



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    Democratization | 2018

    How Authoritarian Rulers Seek to Legitimize Repression: Framing Mass Killings in Egypt and Uzbekistan

    Dr. Mirjam Edel

    University of Tübingen

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    Authoritarian Learning, Regional Diffusion, and Domestic Factors: How Egypt and Uzbekistan Seek to Legitimize Repression

    ECPR General Conference 2016, Charles University in Prague, Prague Organisers: European Consortium for Political Research Dr. Maria Josua (Speaker), Dr. Mirjam Edel (Speaker)

    Dr. Mirjam Edel

    University of Tübingen

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