Giving people lawyers in a dictatorship is a total gamble—it either saves the government or burns it down.
When village chiefs lead legal programs, they strengthen the government's grip; when independent lawyers do it, citizens become more active and less trusting of the state. This shows that 'legal aid' is a double-edged sword for authoritarian rulers.
Legal Empowerment under Autocracy: A Field Experiment in Rural China
SSRN · 6448941
Autocrats expanding legal access face a dilemma: channeling grievances into official institutions can stabilize rule, but it can also empower citizens to press claims. I evaluate this tradeoff with a 20-week cluster-randomized experiment across 70 Chinese villages embedded in a government village-lawyer program. Treatments randomized the messenger (village chief versus lawyer) and incentives (material benefits, with or without public social recognition). Chief-led mobilization boosts lecture att