Cooperating with the State: Evidence from Survey Experiments on Policing

Abstract: What factors affect citizens' willingness to cooperate with the state? We explore this question through a study of citizens' willingness to report crimes to the police, one of the quintessential forms of cooperation with the state apparatus. We develop a ``calculus of cooperation'' that highlights three sets of factors that potentially influence citizens' incentives to report a crime: benefits of cooperation received only if the crime is solved, benefits of cooperation received regardless of whether the crime is solved, and costs of cooperation. We evaluate the importance of these considerations using data from a set of survey experiments conducted in Russia and Georgia in late 2012 and early 2013.