Essays on Political Economy of Non-Democracies and Networks

This thesis investigates the political economy in non-democratic contexts through three papers. The first explores “plundering coalitions” that extract resources in settings with weak property rights, revealing that hierarchical structures enhance coalition resilience against external threats. The second investigates the Mahsa Amini protests in Iran, finding that peaceful, women-led, and student-led demonstrations reduce migration intentions by fostering hope for reform. The third examines the interaction between government targeting strategies and criminal networks, identifying a unique Bayesian Nash equilibrium corresponding to a threshold where criminals with number of connections above that threshold are targeted by social planner and adopt identical criminal efforts.