Open-Source Information and Repression

Abstract

As the digital space becomes an ever more attentive "chronicler" of human activity, the chance that acts of government incompetence or wrongdoing leave incriminating traces rises steadily. The present paper proposes a simple game-theoretic model to explore how an incumbent government with reelection concerns responds to this development. In the model, if executive power is not sufficiently checked, the government intensifies (concealed) repression against free speech; as a result, voters receive less and less, rather than more, information about the type of their government--and the chance that incompetence spells electoral defeat erodes. The model's predictions are consistent with recent global trends in freedom of expression. Among other things, the present analysis stresses the increasing importance of fortifying institutions that safeguard free speech and warns that international institutions like the European Union will be subject to growing centrifugal forces.