This article is concerning the topic of authoritarian repressive strategies in hybrid regimes in Latin America. Despite the current academic literature being interwoven with references to the presence of authoritarian repressive strategies in competitive regimes, there is only a little attention being paid to the analysis of their causes in hybrid regimes by the researchers. The goal of this article is to fill the gap, at least partly, and to contribute to resolving this issue by confronting the existing theoretical knowledge with the empirical reality of Latin America. The conclusions show that a big part of the theoretical knowledge that was gathered in recent years will need to be at least revised. First, I find that extensive international relations to the USA reduces the level of intimidation against oppositions, but not affect the other authoritarian repressive strategies. Second, the results show that rulers do not choose the form of repression based on whether they have or not they have a legislative majority. And finally, these results show that our ability to explain the causes of long-term repression is fairly limited.