TY - JOUR
T1 - Silencing Critics
T2 - Why and How Presidents Restrict Media Freedom in Democracies
AU - Kellam, Marisa
AU - Stein, Elizabeth A.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Elizabeth A. Stein received financial support for this research from the Doris Zemurray Stone endowment for Latin American Studies at the University of New Orleans.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, The Author(s) 2015.
PY - 2016/1/1
Y1 - 2016/1/1
N2 - The media hold democratically elected leaders accountable by exposing corruption and policy failures. Although many politicians accept media criticism as intrinsic to liberal democracy, some politicians rein in freedom of the press or intimidate media outlets to silence their critics. We identify circumstances that motivate and enable presidents to curb media freedom in presidential democracies. We argue that (a) presidents who hold ideological positions contrary to those of the mainstream media adopt the media as viable opponents in the absence of an effective electoral opposition, and (b) the media are vulnerable to presidential infringements on their freedom where legislatures and judiciaries hold weak powers relative to presidents, and are therefore unable to constrain presidents’ actions against media freedom. We support our argument with quantitative analyses of press freedom ratings in presidential and semi-presidential democracies from 1993 to 2013.
AB - The media hold democratically elected leaders accountable by exposing corruption and policy failures. Although many politicians accept media criticism as intrinsic to liberal democracy, some politicians rein in freedom of the press or intimidate media outlets to silence their critics. We identify circumstances that motivate and enable presidents to curb media freedom in presidential democracies. We argue that (a) presidents who hold ideological positions contrary to those of the mainstream media adopt the media as viable opponents in the absence of an effective electoral opposition, and (b) the media are vulnerable to presidential infringements on their freedom where legislatures and judiciaries hold weak powers relative to presidents, and are therefore unable to constrain presidents’ actions against media freedom. We support our argument with quantitative analyses of press freedom ratings in presidential and semi-presidential democracies from 1993 to 2013.
KW - Latin American politics
KW - media freedom
KW - presidents and executive politics
KW - quality of democracy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84949684282&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1177/0010414015592644
DO - 10.1177/0010414015592644
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84949684282
SN - 0010-4140
VL - 49
SP - 36
EP - 77
JO - Comparative Political Studies
JF - Comparative Political Studies
IS - 1
ER -
