Anti-Press Violence in Subnational Undemocratic Regimes: Veracruz, Gujarat, and Beyond

The global trend of increasing violence against the press has spurred research interest into the questions of where, why, and how communicators are repressed. As a result, scholarship has demonstrating that hybrid regimes - which mix undemocratic and democratic elements - constitute a specifically dangerous and lethal context for these actors. Decentralized countries, in which some subnational political elites have retained authoritarian features, have been identified as the most perilous context for communicators. However, despite the burgeoning interest in illiberal practices and repression on the subnational level, it is still relatively unexplored how and why subnational political elites repress communicators within their multi-level setting. The author argues that communicators in subnational undemocratic regimes who can spread the scope of compromising information beyond subnational boundaries can cause uncertainties for subnational undemocratic regimes. The book explores how the political elites of these regimes repress these communicators in response.

Jos Bartman is a political scientist specializing in subnational politics, comparative politics and authoritarianism. He received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He currently works as a research coordinator at Free Press Limited, where he investigates and coordinates the investigation into cold murder cases of journalist-killings. By investigating these cases, and by initiating in litigation as a result, he hopes to contribute to the ending of the pervasive impunity that coincides with attacks on the press