Power Sharing and Media Freedom in Dictatorships

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between elite power sharing and media freedom in dictatorships. While conventional wisdom posits that dictators have a strong incentive to control the media, they also need information to sustain their authoritarian rule. In this article, we argue that dictators need to allow for a higher level of media freedom when sharing more power with other elites. Specifically, dictators create transparency through media freedom to induce trust and cooperation among elites within the regime. We confirm the hypothesis by analyzing data from 98 dictatorships from 1960 to 2010. Our finding is robust to different model specifications. This article contributes to the literature by showing that authoritarian media freedom is determined by not only dictators’ need for local information as the conventional wisdom suggests, but also the power dynamics within their ruling coalitions.