The Czar

Putins Brand of Authoritarianism

Centralization

of Power

All

power in the hands of Putin and his essentials

Took the economic power of the oligarchs
Made regional governors appointees
Took control of media outlets

of influentials reduced from 200 to 50 between

2002 and 2007

Loyal

soldiers (essentials?) to make the system work

Riding

Herd on civil society (Popov)

Impact of Centralization
Corruption
Complacency
Abuse
Lack
The

of Power

of Information about National Mood

Public Chamber
Handpicked informants
Consultative, no decision-making authority

Opposition
Creates

the Systemic Opposition to voice the concerns of

social interests. Parties, GONGOS, etc.
Elderly
Nationalists
The

Real

Poor

Opposition

Political

rights are limited (while other rights are respected)

Harassment: tax audits, building-code violations, use of pirated software
University of St. Petersburg fire code violations after accepting EU
grant on election monitoring
Two months to register an NGO (5 days for a business), legal costs are
40% greater for an NGO than a business
Must control TELEVISION

Economic Performance

Does

the authoritarian regime generate better

performance?

Or,

do authoritarian regimes only last where they

provide strong performance?

Why Engage in Election Fraud

Probably

not necessary to win, so why do it?

Decentralized
Local

and regional leaders engage in it to show their loyalty.

Yabloko gets no votes in the district of its leader
Demonstration to real opposition parties
Medvedev not allowed to win as many votes as Putin
Finally

provokes protests in 2011

Methods of Election Fraud

Ballot Stuffing - a single voter casts multiple votes
Vote Count Fraud - polling station official pads count (see
Bendfords Law)
Carousels - bus voters to multiple polling stations
Absentee Certificates - used at multiple polling stations
Corporate Voting - employees of companies that work around the
clock can vote in polling place near work, company busses them to polls
and attempts to influence their votes
Vote Theft - voters turn up at polling station and are informed they
already voted
Fake Monitors - fill polling stations quota of observers
Webcams - government provided webcams for transparency, some
live feeds show sunshine after nightfall

Evidence of Election Fraud

Benfords

Law: Frequency of numerals in first digits of

naturally occurring numbers
Leading Digit Probability
1
30.1%
2
17.6%
3
12.5%
4
9.7%
5
7.9%
6
6.7%
7
5.8%
8
5.1%
9
4.6%

2012 Presidential Elections,

Results for All Candidates from 2,150 Polling Places

2012 Presidential Elections,

Results for Putin from 2,150 Polling Places

2011 Parliamentary Elections

Field

Experiment

NGO

(Citizen Observer) sent observers to 156 of 3,164 polling

places in Moscow
Observed polling stations were randomly selected
Impact

of observation?

11%

Fraud and preference falsification

Remember

the logic of preference falsification from

the previous class?
If

everybody dislikes the regime but everybody believes everybody

likes it, there will be no revolution
But if the regimes unpopularity becomes obvious, even committed
supporters will defect
Electoral
Herd

fraud follows the same logic

behavior: local officials will either over-provide or underprovide fraud

We can see it in the numbers

Who is committing the fraud?

Previous

slides looked for fraud at the local level, in

individual polling stations

Moreover, turnout of figures suggest that fraud often takes the

form of adding/subtracting votes rather than falsifying results
outright

That

is, fraud requires the active support of an army

of local officials

But what are the incentives faced by these officials?

The local officials dilemma

Local

officials can provide fraud in exchange for

rewards
Money,

But

promotions, opportunities for advancement

engaging in fraud can be costly

Rewards

are conditional on the incumbent winning the election

If the incumbent loses, there might be punishments (e.g., judicial
prosecution)
Local

officials want the incumbent to win, but their

individual probability of affecting the election
outcome is nil

What would you do?

If

you were a local official, when would you prefer

to engage in fraud?
1. When you expect the incumbent to win even without fraud
2. When you expect the incumbent to win only with fraud
3. When you expect the incumbent to lose even with fraud

How

do you decide whether the incumbent is

sufficiently likely to win?
Incumbents

perceived popularity, strength of challenger(s)

Results of your own precinct, before fraud

Contexts in Descending Order

1. When the incumbent will win even without fraud (++)
2. When you expect the incumbent to win only with
fraud (+)
3. When you expect the incumbent to lose even with
fraud (-)
How

do you decide whether the incumbent is sufficiently

likely to win?
Incumbents

perceived popularity, strength of challenger(s)

Results of your own precinct, before fraud

How do you decide whether the incumbent is

sufficiently likely to win?

Incumbents

challenger(s)
Results

perceived popularity, strength of

of your own precinct, before fraud

Implications
Herd

behavior: fraud will be either over-provided

or under-provided

Popular incumbents do not need fraud in order to win, but their

supporters manufacture a landslide (PRI)
Unpopular incumbents need a lot of fraud, but local officials are
reluctant to offer it

Fraud

will be more prevalent in precincts where the

incumbent is stronger

Fingerprints of fraud: Russia 2012

Fingerprints of fraud: Russia 2012

Fingerprints of fraud: Russia 2012

Observing Real Competition

Siloviki strongmen, mostly former KGB
Clans that compete for powerful posts

officers

Use

courts and (sometimes entirely fictitious) criminal

accusations to take hostages

After

wresting control of economy from private

sources, they are fighting one another for it.
Goal is to reduce the size of the winning coalition

Those

with the dirtiest hands are most likely to escape

the purges. Why?

CARs?

Sources
Amsterdam,

Robert. 2008. The real power struggle. The

New York Times December 2.
Enikolopov, Ruben, Vasily Korovkina, Maria Petrovaa,
Konstantin Sonina, and Alexei Zakharov. 2012. Field
experiment estimate of electoral fraud in Russian
parliamentary elections. PNAS 110(2): 448-52.
Rundlett, Ashlea, and Milan W. Svolik. 2014. Deliver the
Vote! Micromotives and Macrobehavior in Electoral
Fraud. Manuscript. University of Illinois at Urbana
Champaign.
Ball, James. 2012. Russian election: does the data suggest
Putin won through fraud? The Guardian Datablog.

Sources

Pribylovsky,

Vladimir. 2013. Clans are marching.

OpenDemocracy.net.