s It All the Same? Repression of the Media and Civil Society Organizations as Determinants of Anti-Government Opposition

States may use repression to control establishments such as the media and civil society organizations (CSOs). Yet, repressing the media and CSOs may backfire and trigger anti-government opposition. I study the effects of state repression targeting the media and CSOs on the onset of violent and nonviolent anti-government opposition by employing a global panel dataset with a timespan between 1961 and 2013. The findings suggest that repression of the media and CSOs have a divergent impact on anti-government opposition: repression of the media is the major driver of nonviolence, but it has no effect on the onset of violent opposition; repression of CSOs matters only for violent opposition, but not for nonviolence. I explain this result by concentrating on the different ways in which repression targeting the media and CSOs affect the resources and opportunity for mobilization, with a focus on the diversity of mobilization pools available for anti-government opposition.