Political repression
[1][2] Repression tactics target the citizenry who are most likely to challenge the political ideology of the state in order for the government to remain in control.
[4] It is often manifested through policies such as human rights violations, surveillance abuse, police brutality, imprisonment, involuntary settlement, stripping of citizen's rights, lustration, and violent action or terror such as murder, summary executions, torture, forced disappearance, and other extrajudicial punishment of political activists, dissidents, or the general population.
[18] States so often engage in repressive behaviors in times of civil conflict that the relationship between these two phenomena has been termed the "Law of Coercive Responsiveness".
[19] When their authority or legitimacy is threatened, regimes respond by overtly or covertly suppressing dissidents to eliminate the behavioral threat.
This intolerance is manifested through discriminatory policies, human rights violations, police brutality, imprisonment, extermination, exile, extortion, terrorism, extrajudicial killing, summary execution, torture, forced disappearance and other punishments against political activists, dissidents, and populations in general.
[23] In personalist dictatorships, initiating conflicts with other states and people outside their own borders is more common because of a lack of accountability via extremely limited or no competitive elections.
This phenomenon was observed in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, where the effects of repression increased approaching elections, even with deteriorating social and economic conditions.
[27] In North Korea, accused of highly repressive activity in media and public culture, 100% of citizens vote in ‘no choice’ parliamentary elections so the state can identify defectors.
Citizens are required to show complete devotion to North Korea's current leader and sacrifice their safety if they choose to speak out.
[28] Repressive measures including prison camps, torture, forced labor, and threats of execution are just some of the costs of defection.
