返回Google圖書搜尋

Covert Repression

其他書名	Lessons from the Stasi Files
出版	University of Rochester, 2017
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=5mEAywEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋"Covert repression, while crucial for retaining control in authoritarian regimes, remains an understudied topic due to data limitations. This thesis uses an original dataset containing detailed information from a sample of almost 300 informants to the German Democratic Republic's Ministry for State Security (Stasi) to shed light on the way in which an authoritarian system can use, enroll, and retain its informants. Chapter 1 considers the way in which the GDR used its informants to counter the effects of a destabilizing process. I conceptualize regime's recruitment of collaborators in terms of market interactions, where the society supplies the potential sources, Stasi needs constitute the demand for them, and the level of state control is determined by an interaction of the actions of the regime with those of the citizens. A destabilizing process such as the exposure of the population to West German TV shifts in the supply of informants, and shifts out the demand. Hence, the price offered for the informant services increases, but the total effect on the number of sources is indeterminate. Data analysis confirms that informants in areas with access to WGTV were offered higher rewards. A popular understanding of the operation of authoritarian regimes sees them as using repression not only to suppress the opposition directly but also to force civilians into cooperation. However, existing evidence shows that the methods of informant enrollment varied considerably from coercion, promises of benefits, to appeals to political conviction. Chapter 2 demonstrates the mechanisms that determined the mode of recruitment, linking them to personal characteristics of the informants (party membership, past convictions, access to specific information) and the level of international tensions. Offering gifts to informants is one of the ways in which authoritarian states ensure their continued collaboration. Chapter 3 aims to understand the relationship between the rewards offered to the informants in East Germany and the information they provided. I find that the payments were predominantly used as rewards, but they also served as incentives for further collaboration. Moreover, introducing payments, while in general increasing informant productivity, hurt the otherwise positive relationship between informant tenure and report submissions."--Pages x-xi