Replication Data for: The Bureaucratic Politics of Authoritarian Repression: Intra-Agency Reform and Surveillance Capacity in Communist Poland

Coercive institutions are central to authoritarian rule. But their internal structures are poorly understood. Bureaucratic reorganizations within security institutions are an overlooked source of variation in authoritarian coercive capacity. Careerist security officers engage in yardstick competition to secure promotions or more favorable assignments. When intra-agency reforms interact with these career concerns, they cause changes in coercive capacity or repression. These changes are common but not predicted by the current literature, because they do not reflect the threat environment or popular grievances. In this paper, I test the effects of intra-agency reforms on surveillance capacity. I exploit a rare source of exogenous variation in the structure of the secret police in communist Poland. An administrative unit reform led to proliferation of security administrations in some districts but not others. Difference-in-differences models find that when a district was split and more units were created, the creation of more higher-level posts within the security service caused a statistically significant increase in the number of informants, relative to districts that were not divided. The reform's effects were large. They substantially altered the agency's coercive capacity during a period of institutional stability. Common but previously overlooked internal dynamics of coercive agencies have important consequences for repression and authoritarian rule.强制机构（coercive institutions）是威权统治的核心组成部分，但学界对其内部结构的认知仍十分有限。安全机构内部的官僚重组，是影响威权强制能力变化却长期被学界忽视的关键变量。仕途导向的安全官员会通过标尺竞争（yardstick competition）来争取晋升或更优的岗位分配。当机构内部改革与这类仕途诉求相互作用时，便会引发强制能力或镇压行为的变化。这类变化虽普遍存在，却未被现有学术文献所预判，因为它们并非源于威胁环境或民众不满的变化。 本文旨在检验机构内部改革对监视能力的影响。本文以共产主义波兰时期的秘密警察（secret police）体系结构变革为研究场景，利用了一则罕见的外生变异来源。一项行政区划改革使得部分辖区增设了安全管理机构，其余辖区则未发生此类变化。双重差分模型（difference-in-differences models）结果显示，相较于未拆分的辖区，在被拆分并增设更多机构的辖区中，安全部门内部增设更多高级职位的做法，会导致线人数量出现统计学意义上的显著增长。 此次改革的影响幅度可观，在机构体系保持稳定的时期内，它极大地改变了该机构的强制能力。强制机构内部虽普遍存在却长期被忽视的运行逻辑，对镇压行为与威权统治均具有重要影响。