This dissertation analyzes how states use pro-government militias (PGMs) to engage in state-sponsored repression. I aim to better understand the link between PGMs, their leaders, and the civilians they repress. Although most research on state repression assumes that state sanctioned violence will be carried out by the state military, I show that leaders actually tend to dispatch groups with looser ties to the regime, as it provides them greater plausible deniability for resultant abuses. I am interested in understanding why leaders deploy specific types of security agents to engage in repression, as well as how the characteristics of militias influence the forms, targets, and levels of violence in a state. Lastly, I explore how leaders utilize PGMs to prolong their tenure in office and maintain their political power.In order to perform these analyses, I use a novel dataset on PGM characteristics and repressive actions with a global sample from 1989-2007. My dissertation finds evidence that leaders often employ PGMs strategically to maximize their effectiveness and repressive capacities. They also confirm that state-sponsored violence is not always carried out only by official government forces, and leaders can make strategic decisions to maximize their repressive capabilities. In this work, which was recently revised and resubmitted to International Studies Quarterly, I explore the effectiveness of human rights records and naming and shaming, especially by NGOs, to explain the creation of violence security apparatuses that are often used to carry out acts of repression. I demonstrate that leaders are more likely to create and align with PGMs after instances of naming and shaming by the international community. They do so in order to outsource their repression to groups with loose ties to the regime, which they expect to help them to avoid future condemnation from the international community. This raises important questions about how leaders respond to punishment.
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