Why do Security Agents Repress? Enforcement in Hierarchical Organizations

Abstract

Why do individual officers in the security forces follow an autocrat's order to repress a protest? This article shows that the hierarchical structure of these organizations helps (i) ensure that officers repress and (ii) deter protests. The paper studies a model where officers are organized vertically in a chain of linked principal-agent relationships, with the officer at the very bottom tasked with repression. This officer represses if at least one principal, in any of the principal-agent relationships, always punishes shirking; and so there is repression even if only one officer supports the autocrat. Furthermore, this hierarchical structure can help deter protests. This is because protests can provide information about the composition of the security forces, but the expected value of this information decreases with the height of the hierarchy. Protests are therefore less likely when the security hierarchy is tall. These benefits of hierarchical organization arise in other settings too.