Does the “More Murder in the Middle” hypothesis explain the political violence in Nicaragua?

The “More Murder in the Middle” hypothesis proposed by Helen Fein in 1995 argues that a regime becomes more repressive when the regime is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic. In this regard, before the deadly anti-government 2018 protests, Nicaragua was deemed by various scholars as a hybrid regime. Nowadays, Nicaragua can be considered a fully authoritarian regime with no room for dissent, critical thinking, freedom of speech, and freedom of association. Therefore, the present article aims to answer the research question: Does the “More Murder in the Middle” hypothesis explains the peak of political repression in the Nicaraguan case? In this sense, between 2007, when Daniel Ortega came to power, and 2020, there are media reports of over 200 peasants who were killed allegedly by public forces such as the Nicaraguan Army and paramilitary groups with the tolerance of the Nicaraguan state for allegedly being former members of the counterrevolutionary guerrillas back in the decade of 1980s. Despite almost five years since the anti-government protests happened in Nicaragua, the regime of Daniel Ortega insists on using political violence as a resource to keep apparent stability in the country. Political violence can take many forms, including political repression, which can also use different tactics. Recently, the regime forced 222 former political prisoners into exile and stripped them of their Nicaraguan nationality. However, there are still about 35 political prisoners in Nicaraguan jails. Consequently, the present article will focus on a particular form of political violence: political repression, which entails human rights abuses. Those human rights abuses can include mass killings, targeted murders, imprisonment for political reasons, torture, and censorship. The research assumption is that Daniel Ortega’s regime decided to use violence because, in terms of cost-benefit analysis, repression is less costly and more effective in keeping a certain degree of stability. Another research assumption is that the regime uses more evident forms of political repression with sophisticated legal and institutional engineering to justify the prosecution of opposition. In terms of methodology, the present paper will use human security, particularly the political security dimension, as an analytical tool to examine the previously mentioned hypothesis by using various indicators, such as the official death toll during the protests in 2018 from international organizations such as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). In addition, the present paper will use data from various sources on the killing of peasants in the North of Nicaragua before, during, and after the 2018 protests. The research expectation is to find a pattern explaining the repression peak in 2018. The systematic killings of peasants in the North of Nicaragua might account for the escalation of political violence and the subsequent rise. Therefore, the present paper will use quantitative data regarding the figures related to human rights abuses but will rely on a qualitative analysis, particularly legal and historical analysis, to examine more nuanced ways of political repression, such as censorship. In addition, this paper will follow a case study approach.