{"id":177332,"date":"2019-10-18T20:17:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-19T01:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/10\/18\/this-explains-a-lot\/"},"modified":"2019-10-18T20:17:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-19T01:17:00","slug":"this-explains-a-lot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/10\/18\/this-explains-a-lot\/","title":{"rendered":"This Explains a Lot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It turns out that <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/ajps.12475\">members of the secret police are extraordinary in their mediocrity<\/a>:<\/p>\n<div>\n<section data-lang=\"en\" lang=\"en\">\n<blockquote>\n<h3><span style=\"color: blue;\">Abstract<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: blue;\">      <\/span><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"color: blue;\">                   <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Autocrats depend on a capable secret police. Anecdotal  evidence, however, often characterizes agents as surprisingly mediocre  in skill and intellect. To explain this puzzle, this article focuses on  the career incentives underachieving individuals face in the regular  security apparatus. Low\u2010performing officials in hierarchical  organizations have little chance of being promoted or filling lucrative  positions. To salvage their careers, these officials are willing to  undertake burdensome secret police work. Using data on all 4,287  officers who served in autocratic Argentina (1975\u201383), we study  biographic differences between secret police agents and the entire  recruitment pool. We find that low\u2010achieving officers were stuck within  the regime hierarchy, threatened with discharge, and thus more likely to  join the secret police for future benefits. The study demonstrates how  state bureaucracies breed mundane career concerns that produce willing  enforcers and cement violent regimes. This has implications for the  understanding of autocratic consolidation and democratic&nbsp;breakdown.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;m wondering how this can be more broadly applied to the US state security apparatus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It turns out that members of the secret police are extraordinary in their mediocrity: Abstract Autocrats depend on a capable secret police. Anecdotal evidence, however, often characterizes agents as surprisingly mediocre in skill and intellect. To explain this puzzle, this article focuses on the career incentives underachieving individuals face in the regular security apparatus. Low\u2010performing &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[368,364,578,526],"class_list":["post-177332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-corruption","tag-evil","tag-incompetence","tag-law-enforcement-misconduct"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}