Norbert Kersting “Direct Democracy and Integrity. Russia and beyond”

Referendums at used in modern authoritarian systems as well as in democracies. The new Direct Democracy Integrity Index is a newly developed empirical instrument to evaluate the variety and integrity of referendums. Based on the electoral cycle a referendum cycle was defined in order to evaluate the implementation and the integrity of referendums. It covers electoral laws and electoral procedures as well as thematic limitations of referendums in different political systems. It highlights voter registration and the initiation of referendums. It focuses on campaign and media coverage as well as on campaign financing. Furthermore, the voting process itself, the post referendums vote count, and the role of the electoral authorities are important areas for evaluation. The new instrument was used to analyse constitutional referendum as in the Turkish, Russia, etc. What is the level of integrity in Russia and elsewhere? Where is integrity and what kind of malpractices exist?

Ora John Reuter “The Authoritarian Turnout Gap:  How Civic Duty Helps Autocrats Win Elections”

In electoral autocracies, regime supporters tend to vote at higher rates than regime opponents.  In the 2016 State Duma elections in Russia, the turnout rate among United Russia supporters was 12 percentage points higher than the turnout rate among opposition party supporters.  This gap gives the regime a built-in electoral advantage.   This paper suggests that the root of this gap lies in differing orientations toward civic duty among regime and opposition supporters.  Using original survey data from Russia, I present evidence that most voters feel an ethical obligation—a civic duty—to vote. I suggest that the duty to vote under autocracy is rooted not in norms of democratic participation, but rather in reverence for the state. Because autocratic regimes often penetrate and politicize the state, I argue that opposition voters are less likely to revere the state and less likely than regime supporters to believe that voting is a civic duty. Using a previously vali-dated measure of the duty to vote, I find evidence in Russia consistent with these arguments. The theory and findings suggest that authoritarian incumbents have an inherent mobilizational advantage: their supporters feel a duty to vote, but regime opponents do not. This may help explain why opposition parties under autocracy find it hard to turn out their supporters.

Inga Saikkonen “Public Policy and Elections in Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from the Policy on Native Languages in Russia”

How do public policy changes affect electoral support for authoritarian regimes at the sub-national level? Existing research has mostly focused on the generation of political budget cycles and the manipulation of electoral rules that regimes use to mobilize citizens or better control voters and parties. Missing from this scholarship, however, is an exploration of the electoral effects of non-fiscal and non-electoral policies that have the potential to impact voter support for incumbents. We examine this issue with fine-grained electoral and census data from one of the world’s most prominent authoritarian regimes–the Russian Federation–to evaluate the potentially far-reaching consequences of the Putin regime’s recent changes to the policy governing instruction in native languages in ethnic republics. We examine electoral change in the 2008, 2012 and 2018 presidential elections to uncover implications for public policy, electoral politics and regime durability. Our results highlight the potential consequences of public policy for electoral outcomes and broader regime stability in authoritarian regimes.

The paper is co-authored with Allison C. White, Colorado State University.

Katalin Miklóssy “Electoral adaptability in the Eastern EU”

The current European concern about how to tackle the apparent erosion of the rule of law in the Eastern members of the EU has calibrated the focus on elections as the main democratic instrument of changing power-holders. Much less attention has been directed to ways in which contemporary illiberal leaderships apply to maximize their chances for staying in power. It can be argued that preparation for and proceedings of elections display a remarkable flexibility, designed to adapt to fast changing pressures coming from below or from the international arena. The administrations’ ability to react to upcoming challenges are partly due to their openness to networking with each other and resembling regimes. In addition, the Pandemic gave an extra opportunity to boost authoritarian tendencies especially because Western democracies applied also shortcuts in parliamentary decision-making, limited civic freedoms and rescheduled elections as crisis management. This provided an unexpected point of reference to apply new argumentative means, which became suddenly available for illiberal elites.

Vladimir Gel’man “Governing Authoritarian Elections: The Case of Russia”

The mechanisms of electoral governance under authoritarianism aimed at preservation of political monopoly under the guise of multi-party and multi-candidate contest. However, the very framework of legal regulations and their implementation relied upon numerous political and institutional devices, carefully chosen and arranged on the basis of “menu of manipulations”, typical for some electoral authoritarian regimes. Under such conditions, regimes employs the combination of high barriers, vague norms, biased enforcement of rules, and top-down mechanisms of control. Russia demonstrated the evolution of mechanisms of electoral governance towards near-elimination of very possibilities for unwanted electoral results. Still, these mechanisms are imperfect, as they perform at the expense of legitimacy of elections and not always prevents undesired outcomes. This is why authoritarian elections is a risky game, vulnerable to disequilibrium, observed in the wake of post-election protests in 2011-2012. Based on this perspective, I will discuss the experience of elections in Russia since the Soviet collapse until the State Duma elections of 2021.