Shoring Up Autocracy: Participatory Technologies and Regime Support in Putin’s Russia

Chapman, Hannah S.

doi:10.1177/0010414021989759

Cited by 19 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…By documenting biased perceptions of media and propaganda among Russians, my study joins a small but growing literature on political disagreements in information processing in autocracies (Robertson 2015;Chapman 2021;Huang and Yeh 2017;Wojcieszak et al 2018;Laebens and Öztürk 2020). I highlight how political dispositions prevent citizens from recognizing the lies of propaganda, even when its bias is obvious.…”

mentioning

confidence: 88%

Rethinking Propaganda: How State Media Build Trust Through Belief Affirmation

Shirikov¹

2022

Preprint

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Research on propaganda and censorship often focuses on strategies that autocrats can use to persuade skeptical citizens. I argue that this focus overestimates the role of persuasion in authoritarian rule, and I describe a different strategy that popular autocrats can use—affirmation propaganda—that builds credibility by speaking to citizens' existing views. Affirmation propaganda results in more positive perceptions of propaganda outlets and in skepticism about independent media. I test this argument using three studies in Russia. In two randomized experiments, I demonstrate that pro-regime citizens trust reports from state media more than reports from independent media. Additional survey evidence suggests that regime supporters deny disinformation and censorship by propaganda outlets despite often recognizing the pro-government bias of these outlets. One implication of this analysis is that independent media pose less of a challenge to authoritarian rule than previously thought. I also discuss the limitations of affirmation propaganda.

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confidence: 88%

Rethinking Propaganda: How State Media Build Trust Through Belief Affirmation

Shirikov¹

2022

Preprint

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“…Others have instead examined how citizens in authoritarian and hybrid regimes actively negotiate with the state for a range of social rights related to welfare (Frazier, 2019; Henry, 2009). Citizens complaining to the state via “quasi‐democratic institutions” including mayors' mailboxes, letters to officials, complaint barometers, and direct lines, represent another form of active participation in lieu of protesting (Chapman, 2021). For example, in contemorary China, individuals complaining via mayors' mailboxes perfom authoritarian citizenship in a variety of ways, including subjecthood, legal, and socialist (Distelhorst & Fu, 2019).…”

Section: Constructing Authoritarian Citizenshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sorting citizens: Governing via China's social credit system

Hou

2022

Governance

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China's social credit system can be examined as a governance tool which sorts citizenship behaviors into trustworthy and untrustworthy categories as part of the regime's long‐standing effort to cultivate a loyal citizenry. Based on a data set comprised of central‐level official documents, national model citizen lists, and media reports, this study qualitatively examines how the Chinese state constructs “good” and “bad” citizen ideal types. Contrary to media depictions of the system as digital totalitarianism, political behaviors are not the sole criterion for sorting citizens into categories. In fact, the state constructs “bad” (untrustworthy) citizens as those who engage in a wide range of behaviors, including financial and professional misconduct. Simultaneously, the state also uses the system to construct and cultivate “good” (trustworthy) citizens as those who publicly demonstrate loyalty to the regime. Theoretically, this study sheds light on how the world's most powerful authoritarian regime governs through a system that distributes material and symbolic capital.

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“…As Truex (2017) shows, even performative responsiveness can increase popular trust and regime satisfaction, especially in contexts where citizens' expectations about political access are low. This is because it gives citizens the impression that they have a voice in politics and are more than "being relegated to mere bystanders in the political discourse" (Chapman 2021(Chapman , 1461. Moreover, it can improve citizens' subjective political efficacy, making them more likely to engage with the government in the future (Dipoppa and Grossman 2020;Sjoberg, Mellon, and Peixoto 2017).…”

Section: Electoral Cycles Of Responsiveness To Citizen Petitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It also enables elections to perform their informational and signaling functions (Bahry and Sliver 1990;Geddes, Wright, and Frantz 2018;Magaloni 2006;Malesky and Schuler 2011). Responsiveness to citizen grievances is a useful tool for increasing popular support because it demonstrates the regime's competence (Gorgulu, Sharafutdinova, and Steinbuks 2020), increases subjective political efficacy (Dipoppa and Grossman 2020;Sjoberg, Mellon, and Peixoto 2017), and raises trust in the government (Chapman 2021;Truex 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

Electoral Responsiveness in Closed Autocracies: Evidence from Petitions in the former German Democratic Republic

Lueders

2021

Am Polit Sci Rev

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Contested elections are usually seen as precondition for constituent responsiveness. By contrast, I show that even uncontested elections can create incentives for autocratic regimes to address citizen demands. I propose that closed autocracies engage in cycles of responsiveness before uncontested elections to assure citizens of their competence and raise popular support. They do so to mitigate the short-term destabilizing effects of elections. Analyzing a unique dataset of petitions to the government of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), I calculate that response times to petitions were up to 31% shorter before the GDR’s uncontested elections. Moreover, I introduce the concept of “substantive responsiveness,” which focuses on the material consequences of responsiveness for petitioners, and show that petitions were 64% more likely to be successful. The paper advances our understanding of electoral mobilization in closed regimes and contributes to an emerging research agenda on responsiveness and accountability in autocracies.

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Shoring Up Autocracy: Participatory Technologies and Regime Support in Putin’s Russia

Cited by 19 publications

References 68 publications

Rethinking Propaganda: How State Media Build Trust Through Belief Affirmation

Rethinking Propaganda: How State Media Build Trust Through Belief Affirmation

Sorting citizens: Governing via China's social credit system

Electoral Responsiveness in Closed Autocracies: Evidence from Petitions in the former German Democratic Republic

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