Repressive governments restricted citizens’ freedoms for longer under the guise of COVID-19 lockdown measures, research by DPIR’s Tiril Rahn reveals

Repressive states implemented lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic both earlier and for longer than more liberal governments, according to new research from DPIR MPhil researcher Tiril Rahn.

In her paper - Windows of repression: Using COVID-19 policies against political dissidents? - published in the Journal of Peace Research,  the International Relations student argues that pandemic measures were observationally similar to repressive behaviours by authoritarian regimes.

Co-authored with Joan Barceló, Cindy Cheng, Robert Kubinec and Lucas Messerschmidt–the research paper outlines how it was therefore difficult for the international community to differentiate and exert pressure over repressive regimes to limit violent action against its civilians.

Tiril added: “Governments with underlying incentives to oppress their citizens were able to take advantage of the global health crisis to strengthen their political position through repression.

COVID-19 ensured that Governments could do this without bearing the costs of greater international and domestic pressure.”

The research found that governments who engaged in state violence against citizens pre-pandemic were:

• 10% more likely to enact lockdown and curfew policies, and
• their policies were implemented 48 days earlier and kept in place for 23 more days than less repressive governments.

The findings also revealed empirical evidence to support the worry by the UN that some states were using emergency powers during the pandemic to crush dissent and extend their time in power–based on previous regime history.

The research draws on the novel dataset – CoronaNet Government Response Dataset – which covers daily data with more than 110,000 entries from 198 countries and 700 researchers.

It is one of the first research strands to investigate how different states respond to emergencies–in particular health emergencies–and will be of interest to scholars and policy-makers.