Month: October 2021

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Does co-optation matter for protest mobilization?

Today we held another ElMaRB seminar, during which Margarita Zavadskaya and Alexandra Rumyantseva, data analyst at the Center for Advanced Governance (Moscow) and lecturer at the EUSP presented the research they have been working on – ‘Does co-optation matter for protest mobilization? Evidence from the Russian protests against the pension reform in 2018’. Andrei Semenov, Senior Researcher at the Center for Comparative History and Politics at Perm State University and Aleksanteri Institute former Visiting Researcher, acted as a discussant.

The Russian pension reform in 2018 put an end to the ‘rallying around’ the political leader V. Putin and pulled down his rating back to the usual 60%. The reform revised the retirement age and suggested a five-year increase from 55 to 60 for women and from 60 to 65 for men. This lead to a massive outcry and protests in almost all Russian regions. Tens of thousands of protesters took into the streets claiming that the state reneged on its basic social obligations and that given the average life expectancy it is unlikely to most of the would-be retirees would live up to the pension age at all.

This research addresses the question of whether the in-system political parties affected the frequency and scale of protests in Russian regions. There is evidence that some systemic opposition supported the protesters, while most of the observers argue that systemic parties cooperated with the state and promoted demobilization of the protest movement. In other words, does political co-optation decrease protest?

Zavadskaya and Rumiantseva’s preliminary findings suggest that in-system parties, against expectations, favor the scale and frequency of protest: a larger share of systemic opposition in local legislatures is positively associated with a protest on a city level. They collected an original dataset of 616 municipal districts from which in 317 there were protests. They measured protest through its frequency per region and locality as well as a number of coalitions between opposition actors.

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Expert discussion on the 2021 State Duma Elections at the Aleksanteri Institute

If you missed our discussion on the elections held on the 8th of October, worry no more – now you can watch it with subtitles in our blog! The event was moderated by Margarita Zavadskaya, who gave a brief outline of the 2021 election results. Her introduction was followed by a presentation by Vladimir Gel’man, who spoke about how differently (or not) these elections were compared to the previous ones. Olga Dovbysh continued the conversation, discussing what was the role of online media and global international platforms such as Google in this voting. Elena Gorbacheva spoke about traditional media and shared what the media monitoring of five TV-channels ElMaRB project conducted for Golos revealed about the election campaign in Russia. Markku Kangaspuro spoke about Finnish-Russian relations from a historical perspective and pondered, whether these elections change anything for Finland. During the Q&A session, the researchers discussed the issues of Smart Voting, the real popularity of the United Russia party, and other themes. Were there any alarms or surprises this year? Is there anything positive to look forward to? Watch the recording and find out.

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(No) alarms and no surprises? Aleksanteri Institute experts discuss recent Russian State Duma elections

On the 17-19th of September, the Russian people elected the new Duma. However, elections were marred with fraud, forced mobilisation, and controversial use of electronic voting. What does it suggest for the future of the Russian political regime? What does it mean for the Finland-Russia relationship? Does it compromise the use of innovation such as e-voting? Why no protests followed the election? Has the ‘Smart Vote’ strategy been efficient this time? What does it mean for the Russian civil society? With increasing pressure on media, what is the future for the Russian opposition?

Our ElMaRB project together with the Russian Media Lab organises an expert discussion on the recent Russian elections on the 8th of October, Friday, from 15:00 to 17:00 in Zoom. The panel of experts – Olga Dovbysh, Vladimir Gel’man, Elena Gorbacheva, Markku Kangaspuro, and Margarita Zavadskaya – will discuss these and other questions from the perspectives of electoral manipulation, media, internal and external politics.

The event will be organised in Zoom, join us on the 8th of October, 15:00 sharp at https://helsinki.zoom.us/j/61039024561?pwd=bFRaMXJudWErUmxiUWU0OTI5Z3NBdz09