Reverse coattail effects in undemocratic elections: an analysis of Russian locomotives

This article argues that the effectiveness of the tactics ruling parties use to control the electoral arena may depend on the electoral experience of its subordinates. To substantiate this point, the work examines Russia’s “locomotives” – the practice of placing regional governors on the list of the ruling party, United Russia, during national legislative elections. It argues that electoral payoffs also came from select regions without locomotives. Given the move to appointed governors, list exclusion likely indicated gubernatorial vulnerability. As a result, governors left off United Russia’s list may have responded by seeking to demonstrate their electoral utility, and those with longer tenures were more likely to succeed in these efforts. An analysis of the 2007 Duma elections shows that United Russia’s vote share was higher in regions where long-serving governors were left off the list. Since Russia’s appointment system dramatically changed the gubernatorial corps between 2007 and 2011, the article also considers changes in the effects of list placement over time. It finds that the relationship between list exclusion and higher vote shares for United Russia disappears as governors with electoral experience were removed from office.     

A new turn to authoritarian Rule in Russia?

Many observers have pointed to the increasingly authoritarian nature of President Putin's regime in Russia. This apparent turn away from democracy has generally been attributed either to Russian political culture or to the security background of Putin himself and many of those he has brought to office. However, analysis of the democratization literature suggests that the sources of Russia's authoritarianism may lie in the nature of the initial transition from Soviet rule, and in particular the way in which elites were able to act with significant independence from civil society forces because of the weakness of such forces. This weakness enabled successive elites led by Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin to construct a political system in which popularly based involvement and participation were severely restricted. In this sense, Putin is merely building on what went before, not changing the regime's basic trajectory.     

Turning Counter-Terrorism into Counter-Revolution: Russia Focuses on Kazakhstan and Engages Turkmenistan

Abstract

From the early days of Putin's presidency, Russia's energy policy towards Central Asia has been intertwined with the policy of counter-terrorism, which initially was aimed at exploiting the threat of the Taliban in order to cajole the post-Soviet regimes into closer cooperation with Moscow. The deployment of US and NATO forces in the region in autumn 2001 signified a serious shrinking of Russia's influence but it invested considerable effort in recovering its position. A series of setbacks from spring 2004 to spring 2005 culminating in the'orange revolution’ in Ukraine made this period a true annus horribilis for Russian foreign policy but the brutal crackdown on the uprising in Andijan, Uzbekistan in May 2005 was the turning point. It helped Russia to design a counter-revolutionary strategy according to which it would be ready to provide extensive support to the regimes that were ready to defend themselves with forceful means. In order to legitimize this support, Moscow decided to revive and strengthen several post-Soviet inter-state organizations that for many years had essentially been ‘paper structures’. Russia has achieved some success in instrumentalizing the counter-revolutionary momentum to advance its energy interests; in this sense, it certainly works much better than the tired counter-terrorism policy. Building on this success is going to be more difficult due to the pronounced anti-Western content of this strategy.     

Campaign appeals in Nigeria's 2007 gubernatorial elections

Ethnicity has emerged as a prominent issue in electoral contests around the world, particularly in countries that have embraced multiparty elections in the past few decades. What factors influence ethnic mobilization and the politicization of ethnicity? Although a number of factors have been hypothesized to influence the politicization of ethnicity in the comparative politics literature, many of these relationships have not been established through empirical testing. This study empirically tests a number of the hypotheses derived from the literature with our unique data set on candidates' ethnic appeals in the Nigerian 2007 gubernatorial elections. We find that political parties' use of ethnic appeals is correlated with the competitiveness of the election, nature of the campaign, partisan attachments, and social, demographic, and economic characteristics of the states. Of particular note is the finding that the salience of ethnic identity in the electorate influences political leaders' use of ethnic appeals.     

NATO enlargement and Russian security: A comparison of findings from two analytical approaches

The article compares the results of two model analyses on the implications of NATO enlargement for Russia's security in six regions: North‐West, West, South‐West, Caucasus, Central Asia, and Far East. One was done by Vitali Tsygichko using his ‘Model of Defense Sufficiency’ (MDS), the other one by these authors using Tsygichko's data as input to the ‘Generalized Force Ratio Model’ (GEFRAM). While agreeing with regard to the general trend in the development of Russia's security situation, the results differ significantly as to whether these trends indicate a reduction of security below Russia's stated requirements. The results are preliminary and meant as an input to a continued debate on the subject among analysts.     

Russia's Artificial Intelligence Strategy: The Role of State-Owned Firms

In 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that whichever country becomes the leader in artificial intelligence (AI) “will become the ruler of the world.” Yet Russia lags competitors like China and the United States substantially in AI capabilities. What is Russia's strategy for boosting development of AI technologies, and what role do groups within the Russian elite play in shaping this strategy? Russia's AI development strategy is unique in that it is led not by the government, nor by the private sector, but by state-owned firms. The government's distrust of Russia's largest tech firm, Yandex, has sidelined the company from national AI planning. Meanwhile, Russia's defense conglomerate Rostec publicly appears to focus less on artificial intelligence than on other high-tech priorities. As a result, Russia's AI development has been left to a state-owned bank, Sberbank, which has taken the lead in devising plans for government-backed investment in AI.     

Russia-North Korea Economic Ties: Is There More Than Meets the Eye?

Russia's relations with North Korea are often ignored in the West. The conventional view is that Russia's role with respect to the North is purely political and diplomatic, predicated on Russia's permanent membership in the UN Security Council. Often overlooked is the fact that Russia maintains a range of economic links with the DPRK. Taken together, they constitute quite a substantial leverage that Russia can exercise over North Korea, when and if it chooses to do so. The paper aims to investigate the economic dimension of the Russia-North Korea relationship. The article also examines North Korea's domestic economic situation, mostly drawing upon Russian expert assessments.     

Shaping the race issue: A special kind of journalism

The paper examines the press coverage of the Los Angeles Times in the 1982 gubernatorial election between Mayor Tom Bradley and George Deukmejian in terms of the proclivity to highlight Bradley's race in campaign news stories. The paper focuses on the statement made by Deukmejian campaign manager, Bill Roberts, in the early days of October, with his candidate trailing badly in the polls, that “there was a hidden anti‐black vote” that would aid Deukmejian on election day. The authors detail the Los Angeles Times coverage of this statement and the tendency of the Times to focus on this story during the entire month of October rather than to report on the issues addressed by the candidates. The analysis notes that as campaign coverage zeroed in on the race issue, so did polls and voter interest. After examining the coverage and Deukmejian's narrow victory, the authors pose questions of ethics to reporters engaged in this writing and outline concerns for such practices in future elections and campaigns.     

Russia as a ‘virtual great power’: Implications for its declining role in European and Eurasian security

Instead of analyzing just some recent developments of Russia's domestic, foreign and security policies, this article focuses in particular on mid‐ and long‐term strategic trends and the consequences of Russia's decline for European and Eurasian Security. It argues that Russia is still in a long‐term socio‐economic decline and it is unrealistic to expect that Moscow will regain its former status as a Great Power or even Superpower in the mid‐term future even of its economy and military power improve rapidly and substantially. Against this background, two other powers of the Eurasian landmass, the EU and China will surpass Russia in international standing and secure great power status in the coming decades with far‐reaching consequences for the international system and Russia's security as well as for its role in Europe and Central as well a East Asia. In this light, the article analyzes strategic trends in domestic, foreign and security policies, including the impact of often overlooked factors such as demographic trends and the health crisis, of decentralization, regionalization and fragmentation within the Russian Federation, the future of Russia's military reform policies (including Russia's draft military doctrine of October 1999 and its nuclear illusions) and their implications for Russia's future foreign and security policies.     

Russian national security concepts 1997 and 2000: A comparative analysis

After the collapse of the Soviet Union the newly independent Russia had to redefine its relations with the outside world. In order to establish new relationships with both new and traditional cooperation partners, the country's leadership had to define the main strategic objectives, identify the main interests and threats to Russia's security and propose new ways of coping with the challenges the vast country confronted. The first years of independence were marked by a power struggle between various parts of the political elite, which delayed the process of defining the country's strategic goals in the field of national security. In December 1997, the Concept of National Security of the Russian Federation was published, and in January 2000 a new version was made public. This brief article is a comparative study of the concepts of national security embodied in the two documents, focusing on Russia's relations with the outside world and use of nuclear deterrence as a means to solve security and status dilemmas.     

What it takes to win when the game is rigged: the evolution of opposition electoral strategies in Moscow, 2012–2017

This paper examines how the political opposition innovated strategies to overcome obstacles presented by Russia’s uneven electoral playing field. Using evidence from two municipal elections in Moscow, I argue that members of the opposition have coordinated around local contests in response to political opportunities created by the Kremlin, including the anti-electoral fraud protests of the winter of 2011–2012 and the resurrection of gubernatorial elections in 2012. Following these openings, grassroots electoral initiatives recruited and trained opposition-minded individuals, first focusing on established activists and then on politicized individuals, to run for municipal council seats. The campaigns provided training using ad hoc educational seminars and later developed electronic tools that lowered barriers to political participation. As a result of these campaigns, electoral competition has boomed at the local level in Moscow even as regional and national contests have become less competitive. The campaigns demonstrate the continued vulnerability of authoritarian regimes that rely on elections for political legitimacy. Furthermore, the development of highly portable online tools for campaigning has potentially long-term democratizing consequences.     

The making of a public in a political campaign: A participant observation study

Abstract

The author served as a press assistant in the 1978 gubernatorial campaign of Ohio Lieutenant Governor Richard F. Celeste. This article examines the evolution of campaign strategy in the 1978 Democratic primary. Faced with token opposition, Celeste used the primary to introduce policies and establish themes for his general election campaign against incumbent James E. Rhodes. This study focuses on the Celeste campaign's efforts to identify and reach a particular constituency within the Ohio electorate. The “making of a public,” influenced by demographics and the results of opinion surveys, became a tentative, reactive process. The candidate's public identity and strategy were negotiated during the course of the primary campaign. Pressed by events and criticism from the press, the candidate eventually deemphasized the specifics of issues as he sought to redefine himself for a public of voters.     

Russia's Attempts to Undermine Democracy in the West: Effects and Causes

By exploiting pre-existing divisions in Western societies and attempting to sway elections toward candidates palatable to the Kremlin, the Russian Federation has had some success in eroding social cohesion and confidence in the institutions of democracy. But pulling the West down has not improved Russia's position in the world. Russia today is less well-regarded, less prosperous, and less secure than it was before it began its campaign of sowing disorder. Since the Kremlin sees its actions as justified responses to the West's alleged attempts to undermine Russia, this is a price it is willing to pay. Rather than trying to convince Russia to cease its malign activities, Western societies need to look inward. We need to eliminate the societal divisions that Russia exploits rather than try to convince Russia not to exploit them, denying it fertile ground on which to scatter its seeds of disinformation and propaganda. Only then will we solve the “Russia problem.”     

EU and NATO Enlargement: Russia's Expectations,Responses and Options for the Future1

Abstract

For Russian policymakers no events in the post-Cold War period have had more momentous consequences or received greater public commentary, both before and after they occurred, than the almost simultaneous enlargement of NATO and the EU that took place in 2004. The most sensitive aspect of this ‘dual enlargement’ for the Russian Federation was the extension of these two organisations into the Baltic States, which had been part of the Soviet Union itself. Despite some uneasiness, Moscow anticipated that the extension of the EU into the former Soviet sphere, even into the former Soviet Union itself, would constitute a generally positive development, while NATO penetration of that sphere would be extremely harmful. Accordingly, Russia voiced little opposition to the EU's plans and made only limited efforts to insure that its major interests would be protected, while it actively sought to forestall the NATO project, especially with regard to the Baltics. As it turned out, however, most of Russia's expectations regarding the impact of these processes were mistaken, and Russia's interests were poorly served by its prior and subsequent responses.     

Ties that bind? The rise and decline of ethno-regional partisanship in Malawi, 1994–2009

In the first three elections following Malawi's return to democracy in 1993, voting patterns displayed a clear ethno-regional pattern. Then in 2009 the regional pattern broke down in dramatic fashion, with the incumbent President, Bingu wa Mutharika, attracting majority support across all three regions. This article first examines whether ethnic identities were at the root of Malawi's ethno-regional electoral pattern. Our tests show that while ethnic identities were associated with partisan attachments in some areas, regional patterns were more consistently related to other factors, particularly views of the government's performance and the inclusiveness of the ruling party. We then examine the breakdown of the regional pattern, drawing on trend analysis of public opinion data from 1999 to 2008. We show that by 2009 the majority of Malawians in all three regions had come to hold positive views of Mutharika's performance and had come to see his government as inclusive. We conclude, therefore, that shifts in patterns of partisanship had more to do with political factors – Mutharika's symbolic and substantive policies during this first term – than ethnic identities. Malawi reminds us that incumbents, when faced with incentives to construct multi-ethnic support bases, can use the power of the state to reach out across ethnic political boundaries and re-order supposedly entrenched patterns of partisanship.     

Assessing Russia's cards: three petty games in Central Asia

Moscow's growing influence in Central Asia stems from the evolution of the region's five states in close correspondence with Vladimir Putin's semi‐authoritarian model. Absent adequate resources and consistent policies, however, Russia must engage in complicated manoeuvring in order to advance its interests. The result is not overt geopolitical competition with the West—often defined by the tired notion of the ‘Great Game’—but rather a series of at least three separate intrigues, or ‘petty games’.     

No Return to the Past for Russia

Russian society is awakening and issues of domestic political and economic performance have come under closer scrutiny. To respond to the change, the Kremlin has moved to modify its method of governance – and strengthen its instruments of control – but there can be no return to the past. How the political process will evolve, and what the results will be, is impossible to predict, but the change will impact on Russia's domestic and foreign policies. In the meantime, Russia's international partners will have to deal with a familiar set of policies aimed at balancing between Moscow's real needs, its views of Russia's role and the opportunities which present themselves.     

Millenarian groups and law enforcement agencies: The lessons of Waco

Why do violent movements participate in elections? To answer this question, we examine Hamas's formation of the Reform and Change Party and its iconic victory in the 2006 elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council. We argue that Hamas's formation of this party was a logical step, following nearly two decades of participation in local and municipal elections. Hamas's need to attract resources from external donors, who make funding decisions based on civilian support for the movement, best explains why Hamas decided to participate in local elections in the early 1990s, taking Hamas on a path that eventually led to its 2006 legislative victory. Hamas's foray into elections was consistent with its dual strategy of directing violence against Israel and building Palestinian support through welfare services. We demonstrate that changes in political opportunities (Fatah's decline and the increase in Hamas's popularity), institutional incentives (lax electoral laws and the holding of municipal elections), and the rise of moderate voices within Hamas explain the timing of its entry into legislative elections. Finally, we discuss Hamas's electoral victory, the need for cooperation between Fatah and Hamas, and the role played by international actors as significant factors influencing prospects for peace and democratization in the region.     

The return of the empire? Russia's counteraction to transatlantic democracy promotion in its near abroad

Russia's recent actions in its neighbourhood have not only upset Western policies but have also reinvigorated arguments that Russia may be promoting autocracy to counteract democracy promotion by the European Union and the United States. They have also underlined a broader problem: that of how illiberal powers may react to democracy promotion, especially when their strategic interests are at stake. This article investigates these issues by studying Russia's interactions with the countries in its neighbourhood and democracy promoters. First, the article argues that even if Russia has contributed to the stagnation of democratization and ineffectiveness of democracy promotion in its neighbourhood, its actions do not constitute autocracy promotion and largely lack ideological underpinnings. Second, Russia's counteraction to democracy promotion stems from its ambitions of restoring its great power status, maintaining its regional influence, and perceiving Western policies as a threat to its interests. Third, when it considers its strategic interests undermined, Russia employs economic and military threats (sometimes incentives) against its neighbourhood countries to make the compliance with Western policies less preferable.     

The future of the United States as a European power: The case of NATO enlargement

Abstract

European Union enlargement has left Russia on the margins of European political processes and led to widespread suspicion in the Moscow foreign policy establishment of European motives. This has resulted in, first, increasing resistance to the imposition of European norms and, second, a more assertive policy, particularly in the EU's and Russia's ‘overlapping neighbourhoods’. Although Moscow is likely to continue the strategy of engagement initiated under Putin, Brussels must radically rethink the nature and extent of Russia's ‘Europeanisation’. Russia's drive for modernisation will coexist with the strengthening of sovereignty and the power of the state, seen by the Putin administration as key to external and internal security. The EU will have to limit its ambition and work within this ‘window’—wider or narrower depending on state of play—of policy possibilities.