Graeme Robertson | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (original) (raw)
Papers by Graeme Robertson
A key debate in the new literature on authoritarianism concerns the role of institutions in gener... more A key debate in the new literature on authoritarianism concerns the role of institutions in general and legislatures in
particular. While much of the literature accepts that authoritarian legislatures matter, there is little agreement as to why and how. In this article, we argue that a key function of authoritarian legislatures is to help leaders reduce social protest. In contrast to existing literature, which stresses the representative function of authoritarian legislatures, we argue that legislatures reduce social protest by providing rent-seeking opportunities to key opposition elites who, in return for access to these spoils, demobilize their supporters. We test this argument using original data on the distribution of leadership positions in 83 Russian regional legislatures and two new datasets on opposition protest in Russia. Our findings suggest that legislative cooptation may extend the lifespan of authoritarian regimes by helping to reduce antiregime protest.
Citizen perceptions of the extent of fraud in a given authoritarian election can differ widely. T... more Citizen perceptions of the extent of fraud in a given authoritarian election can differ widely. This article builds on the literature on information acquisition and processing in democracies to argue that much of this variation is due to the way in which citizens’ underlying political orientations affect both the kind of information they gather and how they process that information. These differences in information acquisition and processing have important implications for how election monitoring reports, access to the internet and other sources of information are likely to affect the stability of contemporary authoritarian regimes. The theory is tested using observational data and a survey experiment from the Russia presidential election of 2012.
While liberal democracy has become more common since the end of the Cold War, non-democratic regi... more While liberal democracy has become more common since the end of the Cold War, non-democratic regimes remain the modal form of government around the world. 1 Consequently, much scholarly and political energy has continued to be devoted to understanding the ways in which authoritarian regimes work and how they might open up or liberalize politically.
While the large-scale protest movement that arose in 2011-12 to challenge the Russian government ... more While the large-scale protest movement that arose in 2011-12 to challenge the Russian government has seemingly abated in the face of political marginalization and repression, the emergence of anti-war protests and other forms of mobilization suggest that the movement retains significant organizational and ideational capacity. This paper reviews evidence from a database of online social media interactions from 2012 to 2015, which suggests that Russia’s opposition movement maintains autonomous spaces for communication and ideological reinforcement, the ability to take on new members and inculcate them in the ethos and solidarity of the movement, and the capacity to contest local issues, all of which are associated with a successful emergence from abeyance.
Journal of Democracy, 2004
Journal of Democracy, 2003
ABSTRACT It is well known that the “democracy gap” is particularly wide in the countries of the A... more ABSTRACT It is well known that the “democracy gap” is particularly wide in the countries of the Arab world, not one of which is democratic, and all of which have predominantly or overwhelmingly Muslim populations. Indeed, the 16 Arab countries form the largest single readily identifiable group among all those states that “underachieve” (relative to what one would expect from their levels of Gross Domestic Product per capita [GDPpc]) when it comes to the holding of competitive elections. In sharp contrast to this stands the scarcely less striking—yet undernoticed—situation among the world’s 31 Muslim-majority but non-Arab countries, which in fact form the single largest bloc of all those countries that “greatly overachieve” relative to their GDPpc levels when competitive elections are in question. How to analyze this pattern? The first stage is quantitative, and requires reviewing two independent data sets, each of which covers the years 1972 to 2000. This first stage has a double aim: to compare the overall degree of electoral competitiveness found in Arab as opposed to non-Arab Muslim-majority countries; and to compare the degree of electoral competitiveness found in very poor majority-Muslim countries with that found where religions other than Islam predominate. The second stage is qualitative, and involves independently assessing which of the world’s 47 Muslim-majority states meets a reasonable set of basic criteria for “electoral competitiveness.” The third and final stage in the analysis is to highlight the five major theoretical and political implications that the results of the first two steps suggest.
A key debate in the new literature on authoritarianism concerns the role of institutions in gener... more A key debate in the new literature on authoritarianism concerns the role of institutions in general and legislatures in
particular. While much of the literature accepts that authoritarian legislatures matter, there is little agreement as to why and how. In this article, we argue that a key function of authoritarian legislatures is to help leaders reduce social protest. In contrast to existing literature, which stresses the representative function of authoritarian legislatures, we argue that legislatures reduce social protest by providing rent-seeking opportunities to key opposition elites who, in return for access to these spoils, demobilize their supporters. We test this argument using original data on the distribution of leadership positions in 83 Russian regional legislatures and two new datasets on opposition protest in Russia. Our findings suggest that legislative cooptation may extend the lifespan of authoritarian regimes by helping to reduce antiregime protest.
Citizen perceptions of the extent of fraud in a given authoritarian election can differ widely. T... more Citizen perceptions of the extent of fraud in a given authoritarian election can differ widely. This article builds on the literature on information acquisition and processing in democracies to argue that much of this variation is due to the way in which citizens’ underlying political orientations affect both the kind of information they gather and how they process that information. These differences in information acquisition and processing have important implications for how election monitoring reports, access to the internet and other sources of information are likely to affect the stability of contemporary authoritarian regimes. The theory is tested using observational data and a survey experiment from the Russia presidential election of 2012.
While liberal democracy has become more common since the end of the Cold War, non-democratic regi... more While liberal democracy has become more common since the end of the Cold War, non-democratic regimes remain the modal form of government around the world. 1 Consequently, much scholarly and political energy has continued to be devoted to understanding the ways in which authoritarian regimes work and how they might open up or liberalize politically.
While the large-scale protest movement that arose in 2011-12 to challenge the Russian government ... more While the large-scale protest movement that arose in 2011-12 to challenge the Russian government has seemingly abated in the face of political marginalization and repression, the emergence of anti-war protests and other forms of mobilization suggest that the movement retains significant organizational and ideational capacity. This paper reviews evidence from a database of online social media interactions from 2012 to 2015, which suggests that Russia’s opposition movement maintains autonomous spaces for communication and ideological reinforcement, the ability to take on new members and inculcate them in the ethos and solidarity of the movement, and the capacity to contest local issues, all of which are associated with a successful emergence from abeyance.
Journal of Democracy, 2004
Journal of Democracy, 2003
ABSTRACT It is well known that the “democracy gap” is particularly wide in the countries of the A... more ABSTRACT It is well known that the “democracy gap” is particularly wide in the countries of the Arab world, not one of which is democratic, and all of which have predominantly or overwhelmingly Muslim populations. Indeed, the 16 Arab countries form the largest single readily identifiable group among all those states that “underachieve” (relative to what one would expect from their levels of Gross Domestic Product per capita [GDPpc]) when it comes to the holding of competitive elections. In sharp contrast to this stands the scarcely less striking—yet undernoticed—situation among the world’s 31 Muslim-majority but non-Arab countries, which in fact form the single largest bloc of all those countries that “greatly overachieve” relative to their GDPpc levels when competitive elections are in question. How to analyze this pattern? The first stage is quantitative, and requires reviewing two independent data sets, each of which covers the years 1972 to 2000. This first stage has a double aim: to compare the overall degree of electoral competitiveness found in Arab as opposed to non-Arab Muslim-majority countries; and to compare the degree of electoral competitiveness found in very poor majority-Muslim countries with that found where religions other than Islam predominate. The second stage is qualitative, and involves independently assessing which of the world’s 47 Muslim-majority states meets a reasonable set of basic criteria for “electoral competitiveness.” The third and final stage in the analysis is to highlight the five major theoretical and political implications that the results of the first two steps suggest.