Concealed Repression and Conflict (with Nico Voigtländer)

States repress insurgency through public force and hidden coercion. We study Pakistan’s 2007–2008 campaign against Taliban-linked militancy, combining administrative records on enforced disappearances with sub-district panels on political violence and protest. The campaign generated visible military operations in Pashtun areas and covert spillovers against Baloch individuals outside the main theater of Baloch insurgency. This variation allows us to compare political responses to open and concealed repression. Visible repression is followed by armed backlash, with little protest response. Covert repression is associated instead with muted mobilization and a fall in militant violence. Overt and covert repressions produce sharply different political responses.