| Summary/Abstract |
Authoritarian regimes face a dilemma in punishing dissidents. They need extralegal punishments to ensure social stability, but they also want to legalize punishment decisions to sustain an image of adherence to the rule of law. These contradictory goals present an agency problem: local officials must selectively implement the competing goals of the central government. By analyzing data on 1408 dissidents in China from 2007 to 2014, this article argues that local officials are more likely to select legitimate punishments when they experience stronger pressure for career development and their province has a wealthier local economy. These findings reveal the effects of the principal-agent problem on the dynamics of stability preservation in China and indicate that punishment decisions serve not only the needs of regime survival but also the needs of individual officials.
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