"The Physical Consequences of Fiscal Flexibility: Sovereign Credit & Physical Integrity Rights"

A pdf of my manuscript with Matthew R. DiGiuseppe, "The Physical Consequences of Fiscal Flexibility: Sovereign Credit & Physical Integrity Rights," is now available on my Research page.  The article is forthcoming at the British Journal of Political Science.  Here is the abstract:.

Leaders are assumed to face fiscal constraints on their ability to remain in office by providing a competitive distribution of public and/or private goods. However, many leaders can relax this constraint by borrowing on sovereign credit markets. We argue that states with the fiscal flexibility offered by favorable credit terms have the resources necessary to (1) respond to citizen demands with policies other than widespread repression and (2) avoid agency loss that may result in unauthorized repression by state agents. Empirical analyses indicate that creditworthy states have greater respect for physical integrity rights and are less likely to suffer diminished respect for those rights when facing violent dissent or negative shocks to government revenues