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Networks are one of the essential building blocks of society. Not only do firms cooperate in R&D networks, but firms themselves may be seen as networks of information-exchanging workers. Social movements increasingly make use of networks to exchange information, just as on the negative side criminal and terrorist networks use them. However, the literature on networks has mainly focused on the cooperative side of networks and has so far neglected the competition side of networks. Networks themselves may face competition from actors with opposing interests to theirs. Several R&D networks may compete with one another. The firm as a network of employees obviously faces competition. In particular, given the importance of connectivity for networks, competing networks may try to disrupt each other, by trying to convince key players in competing networks to defect, or to stop sponsoring key links (strategic network disruption). In response, networks that face competition will adapt their structure, and will avoid vulnerable network structures. Such network competition is what our paper is concerned with.

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We present a game-theoretic model of the repression-dissent nexus, focusing on preemptive repression. A small group of instigating dissidents triggers a protest if each dissident participates. The dissidents face random checks by security forces, and when an individual dissident is caught while preparing to participate, he or she is prevented from doing so. Each dissident can invest in countermeasures, which make checks ineffective. For large benefits of protest, higher preemptive repression in the form of a higher number of checks has a deterrence effect and makes dissidents less prone to invest in countermeasures, decreasing the probability of protest. For small benefits of protest, higher preemptive repression instead has a backfiring effect. Both myopic and farsighted governments avoid the backfiring effect by setting low levels of preemptive repression (velvet-glove strategy). However, only a farsighted government is able to exploit the deterrence effect by maintaining a high level of preemptive repression (iron-fist strategy).

How is collective defence by players affected when they face a threat from an intelligent attacker rather than a natural threat? This paper analyses this question using a game-theoretic model. Facing an intelligent attacker has an effect if players move first and visibly set their defence strategies, thereby exposing any players who do not defend, and if the attacker is, moreover, not able to commit to a random attack. Depending on the parameters of the game, the presence of an intelligent attacker either increases the probability that players jointly defend (where such joint defence either does or does not constitute a utilitarian optimum), or decreases the probability that players jointly defend (even though joint defence is a utilitarian optimum).