Most contemporary autocracies hold elections. Does the public value these elections and, if so, do they value them enough to punish incumbents that subvert elections? We examine this question in the case of contemporary Russia by examining whether individuals withdraw support from regime leaders when local elections are abolished. Over the past 20 years, most Russian cities have replaced their directly elected mayors with appointed chief executives. This paper uses the largest dataset on public opinion ever assembled on Russia—containing over 1.4 million polling responses drawn from two decades of polling by Russia’s top polling agencies—to analyze how the abolition of elections in Russia’s large cities has affected public attitudes toward the authorities. We find that election abolition reduces support for President Vladimir Putin. This effect is stronger in settings with histories of robust electoral competition. This suggests that the public is more likely to punish incumbents for abolishing elections when those elections are perceived as meaningful.
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Quintin H. Beazer is an associate professor of political science at Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL. He received his undergraduate degree from Utah State University and then earned a Master’s in Economics and a PhD in Political Science at the Ohio State University. Prof. Beazer studies comparative and international political economy and authoritarian politics, with specialization in the politics of post-communist countries. His research has been published in journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, and International Studies Quarterly. Together with Holger Kern, he is co-organizer of the Virtual Workshop on Authoritarian Regimes (VWAR), found at www.authoritarianregimes.org.
