Why do incumbents in electoral authoritarian regimes retain power? This study seeks to answer this fundamental question by linking electoral fraud and sincere voting for the incumbent with incumbent’s distributive politics and by looking at the puzzle of authoritarian survival from two perspectives. An elite-oriented strategy suggests that authoritarian incumbents deliver benefits to political elites to secure their loyalty, which is eventually converted into electoral fraud, repression of the opposition, and other authoritarian policy outcomes. A mass-oriented strategy implies that authoritarian incumbents also deliver benefits to the general public in order to secure genuine mass support, which eventually results in sincere voting for the incumbent. This argument is tested on cross-regional data on federal transfers, electoral fraud and the sincere incumbent’s vote from Russia as a prominent case of persistent electoral authoritarianism. Not only were the central transfers allocated proportionally to the regional level of electoral support for the incumbent, but it also appears that elites diverted larger sums of transfers in their favor compared with ordinary voters. The loyalty of regional elites was eventually converted into distinct authoritarian policy outcomes, including electoral fraud and persecution of the media. This resulted in a general bias of the electoral playing field in favor of the incumbent and, thereby, contributed to sustaining the authoritarian equilibrium. By contrast, the analysis finds no evidence that the politicized transfers influenced sincere voting for the incumbent. These mixed findings indicate that popular support under electoral authoritarianism is still puzzling and calls for further examination, whereas securing loyalty of political elites via delivering them clientelist benefits is crucial for regime survival in personalist electoral dictatorships.

Everyone interested is invited!

Working language is English.

Videoconference with Moscow office of the LCSR (Krivokolenny Pereulok , 3, room 3-333) will be provided. Guests from Moscow are invited to make a request for a pass to the building to Tereza Tonyan (ttonyan@hse.ru)  by 12 am of the seminar’s day.

Guests from St. Petersburg are invited to make a request for a pass to the building to Olesya Volchenko (ovolchenko@hse.ru) by 12 am of the seminar’s day.

Also after the seminar a videotape will be put up after the summary of the presentation.