Media Freedom in the Shadow of a Coup
Media Freedom in the Shadow of a Coup
复制标题
政变阴影下的媒体自由
DOI：
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发表时间：
2018
影响因子：
3.6
通讯作者：
K. Sonin
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Raphael Boleslavsky;Mehdi Shadmehr;K. Sonin
民众抗议和宫廷政变是独裁者面临的两大国内威胁。我们表明，向公民通报统治者的自由媒体是一把双刃剑，可以缓解一种威胁，但会加剧另一种威胁。知情的公民可能会抗议统治者，但他们也可能在宫廷政变后抗议恢复她。我们开发了一个模型，在这个模型中，公民参与了一个政权更迭的全球游戏，媒体自由是统治者的贝叶斯说服工具，用于管理政变和抗议的竞争风险。政变将有利于统治者的现状转变为不利于统治者的现状，这在统治者的贝叶斯说服问题中引入了凸性，使统治者从知情的公民中受益。当公民对他们感到悲观时，统治者容忍更自由的新闻，或者政变向公民发出关于他们的信息。
Popular protests and palace coups are the two domestic threats to dictators. We show that free media, which informs citizens about their rulers, is a double-edged sword that alleviates one threat, but exacerbates the other. Informed citizens may protest against a ruler, but they may also protest to restore her after a palace coup. We develop a model in which citizens engage in a regime-change global game, and media freedom is a ruler’s instrument for Bayesian persuasion, used to manage the competing risks of coups and protests. A coup switches the status quo from being in the ruler’s favor to being against her. This introduces convexities in the ruler’s Bayesian persuasion problem, causing her to benefit from an informed citizenry. Rulers tolerate freer press when citizens are pessimistic about them, or coups signal information about them to citizens.