The Regional Roots of Electoral Authoritarianism in Russia

Fabricating votes for Putin: new tests of fraud and electoral manipulations from Russia

“…Generally, it is well-known that there has been a significant erosion of sub-national democratic institutions and electoral competition under Putin (Golosov 2011;Panov and Ross 2013;Reddaway and Orttung 2005;Reuter and Remington 2009;Reuter and Buckley 2015;Reuter and Robertson 2012;Rochlitz 2014). Yet, this unfavourable national context notwithstanding, in these various studies, some regions consistently feature as among the worst abusers of citizens' right to cast a democratic vote, while others continue to feature greater levels of electoral integrity.…”

Growing Old Without Grace: Electoral Authoritarianism and the Age Composition of Russia's Regional Legislative Assemblies

“…In addition, party building under authoritarianism necessarily involves overcoming the commitment problem of sub-national elites, which makes it imperative for them to invest their resources in the dominant party (Reuter and Remington 2008). In Russia, the regional aspect of dominant party building became especially salient because the formation of its authoritarian party system was accompanied by the political recentralisation effort of the federal authorities (Konitzer and Wegren 2006;Sharafutdinova 2010) and by a largescale incorporation of the authoritarian elements of regional politics into a new nation-wide authoritarian political order (Golosov 2011b). Thus the set of theoretically informed expectations regarding the possible impact of electoral authoritarianism upon the age composition of Russia's regional legislative assemblies is mixed.…”

Authoritarian and Democratic Diffusion in Post-Communist Regions

“…The result with respect to municipalities is somewhat surprising, but may be explicable given the role that regional governors-who in many regions tend to serve as gatekeepers when it comes to authorizing political or economic activity (Golosov, 2011;Hale, 2015;Kynev, 2006; 17 EU projects are often low-budget, but may nevertheless make a substantial difference in resource-poor regional contexts as when for instance computer and broadband resources are provided to a financially struggling NGO. Finally, we also estimate the regressions for individual components of the democracy index that may be particularly relevant for the purposes of our study (civil society, municipal autonomy and elite composition) and specific types of EU projects.…”

“…A large body of scholarship on Russia has precisely explored such within-nation processes by comparing political regime development in Russia's sub-national regions (Gel'man & Ross, 2010;Gelman, Ryzhenkov, Brie, Ovchinnikov, & Semenov, 2003;Hale, 2006;Lankina, 7 Libman, & Obydenkova, 2016;McFaul, Petrov, & Riabov, 2004;McMann, 2006;StonerWeiss, 1997). For instance, in-depth research has been conducted into how the Kremlin under Putin's rule undermined sub-national proto-democratic institutions and electoral competition (Golosov, 2011;Panov & Ross, 2013;Reddaway & Orttung, 2005a;Reuter & Remington, 2009); and how it has tended to reward regional elites for delivering a pro-Kremlin vote rather than for good governance or economic performance (Reuter & Buckley, 2015;Reuter & Robertson, 2012;Rochlitz, 2014). Scholars have also analyzed how regional authorities tend to emulate the practices of neighboring regions in ways that may further erode democratic institutions (Gel'man & Lankina, 2008;Moraski & Reisinger, 2014).…”

“…The republics are regions with territorially-concentrated ethnic minority populations, which traditionally enjoyed higher status in the Soviet Union's and in post-soviet Russia's ethno-federal hierarchy. As noted by a 18 number of scholars, the republics had been instrumental in creating powerful political machines ensuring the reproduction of communist-era and early post-communist period regional structures of power and patronage (Golosov, 2011;Hale, 2007;Matsuzato, 2004).…”