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Emerging literature shows that citizens in established democracies do not unconditionally support central democratic principles when asked to weigh them against co-partisanship or favored policy positions. However, these studies are conducted in highly polarized contexts, and it remains unclear whether the underlying mechanisms also operate in more consensual contexts. Furthermore, it is unclear whether "critical citizens" or satisfied democrats are more eager to support democratic principles. We study these questions with evidence from a conjoint experiment conducted in Finland (n = 1030), an established democracy with high levels of democratic satisfaction and a consensual political culture. We examine how transgressions of two central democratic norms, the legitimacy of political opposition and the independence of the judiciary, affect leader favorability. We also explore how these differ across ideological and policy congruence and across levels of political disaffection. Our results show that some segments of the Finnish population are willing to condone authoritarian behavior if this brings them political benefits. Furthermore, we find that satisfied rather than "critical" citizens are more likely to sanction such behavior. These findings suggest that dangers of democratic deconsolidation may appear even in consensus democracies with relatively low levels of political polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral manipulation is an activity conducted primarily at the local level, and the emerging comparative literature has shown that patterns of manipulation often exhibit striking spatial heterogeneity within countries. Yet, the causes of this variation are less well understood. This article explains variation in electoral manipulation at the local level, and presents a theoretical framework focusing on the role that local socioeconomic conditions play in affecting regime agents' capacity to carry out electoral manipulation. Specifically, we argue that local-level heterogeneity in electoral manipulation can be explained by regime agents' targeting of manipulation at localities where the electoral returns of illicit efforts are greatest and the risks associated with manipulation lowest. We test our hypotheses with multilevel statistical models that use unique local (county) level sociodemographic and electoral data from Russia. Our findings contribute to the comparative literature on electoral malpractice and authoritarian politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do patterns of electoral mobilisation differ between titular and non-titular ethnic minorities in Vladimir Putin’s Russia? Despite the fact that ‘titular privileging’ has been identified as one of the central causal mechanisms for patronage-based electoral mobilisation in Russia, existing literature has not tested this systematically. This study investigates whether turnout patterns differ between titular and non-titular ethnic minorities in Russia. We leverage unique raion-level electoral and demographic data in a series of multilevel models to analyse whether turnout patterns between these two groups vary in recent Russian legislative elections (2003 and 2011) and presidential contests (2004 and 2012). The empirical findings suggest that electoral turnout is consistently higher in raions with a higher share of titular minorities and that this effect is moderated in unexpected ways by contextual characteristics at the raion and regional levels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the burgeoning comparative literature on electoral authoritarian regimes, fewer studies have accounted for the emergence of hegemonic and competitive authoritarian regimes at the subnational level. This article examines the variation in subnational electoral authoritarianism with data from the Russian Federation. First, the article shows that by using a comparative regime classification most Russian subnational cases can be classified as electoral authoritarian between 1991 and 2005. Yet, there are considerable differences in competitiveness between the electoral authoritarian regimes. The article accounts for this variation by drawing on both comparative electoral authoritarianism literature as well as more context-specific explanations. Statistical analysis on 192 subnational electoral authoritarian cases shows that the determinants of Russian subnational authoritarian stability are rather similar to those found in cross-national studies. Subnational (non)competitiveness in Russia appears to be related to the structure of the regional economy and natural resource rents, and to a lesser degree to the specific Russian federal context. Authoritarian “know how” also plays a role in authoritarian regime building. The findings of the article contribute to the literature on electoral authoritarianism, subnational democratization and Russian subnational politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]