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In many countries politicians rely on employers to influence the voting behavior of their workers, but we know little about this tactic. Workplace Politics draws on surveys of firm managers and employees in eight countries, as well as a wealth of fine-grained data from Russia, to show that firm managers who depend on the state, cannot easily move their assets, or can easily replace workers are especially likely to mobilize their workers during elections. However, because workplace mobilization is unpopular in the broader electorate, politicians use this strategy less often in information-rich settings where voters are likely to learn about it. This book helps explain why countries whose economies are dominated by state interventions in markets, immobile capital, and slack labor markets may be especially prone to clientelism and autocratic rule.
Tim Frye is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy at Columbia University. He received a B.A. from Middlebury College and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University. He has written five books on politics and economics, including, most recently, Workplace Politics: How Politicians and Employers Subvert Elections (Oxford University Press, 2025). He is a member of the Scholars’ Council at the United States Library of Congress and recently stepped down as editor of Post-Soviet Affairs after serving for 10 years. One current research project examines public opinion in autocratic Russia with a focus on support for the full-scale invasion in Ukraine. A second project with Jordan Gans-Morse and Oleksandra Keudel studies the factors driving Ukrainian’s willingness to comply with state tax, judicial, and mobilization policies.
