IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/bofitp/bdp2016_009.html

Elections, protest and trust in government: A natural experiment from Russia

Author

Listed:
  • Frye, Timothy
  • Borisova, Ekaterina

Abstract

How do flawed elections and post-election protest shape political attitudes? Taking advantage of the largely exogenous variation in the timing of a survey conducted in Moscow, we examine the short-term impact of the parliamentary election of December 4th, and the large protest of December 10th on trust in the Russian government. The fraud-marred parliamentary election had little effect on attitudes toward government, perhaps because allegations of vote improprieties were not new information. In contrast, the large protest of December 10th increased trust in government. Heightened trust arises largely from non-supporters of the ruling party updating their beliefs rather than from social desirability bias, a perceived improvement in government performance, or a "halo" effect. This finding is consistent with the view that autocrats can increase trust in government by unexpectedly allowing protest without repression. It also suggests that when evaluating trust in government citizens may cue not off the content of the protest, but off the holding of the protest itself.

Suggested Citation

  • Frye, Timothy & Borisova, Ekaterina, 2016. "Elections, protest and trust in government: A natural experiment from Russia," BOFIT Discussion Papers 9/2016, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bofitp:bdp2016_009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/212852/1/bofit-dp2016-009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lorentzen, Peter L., 2013. "Regularizing Rioting: Permitting Public Protest in an Authoritarian Regime," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 8(2), pages 127-158, February.
    2. Luke Keele, 2007. "Social Capital and the Dynamics of Trust in Government," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(2), pages 241-254, April.
    3. Dunning,Thad, 2012. "Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107017665, November.
    4. Little, Andrew T., 2012. "Elections, Fraud, and Election Monitoring in the Shadow of Revolution," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 7(3), pages 249-283, June.
    5. Dunning,Thad, 2012. "Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107698000, November.
    6. Pavel Yakovlev & David Gilson, 2015. "Public Trust and Press Freedom," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(1), pages 214-225.
    7. Christopher J. Anderson & Yuliya V. Tverdova, 2003. "Corruption, Political Allegiances, and Attitudes Toward Government in Contemporary Democracies," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(1), pages 91-109, January.
    8. Kramer, Gerald H., 1983. "The Ecological Fallacy Revisited: Aggregate- versus Individual-level Findings on Economics and Elections, and Sociotropic Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 92-111, March.
    9. Malesky, Edmund & Schuler, Paul, 2010. "Nodding or Needling: Analyzing Delegate Responsiveness in an Authoritarian Parliament," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(3), pages 482-502, August.
    10. Simpser,Alberto, 2013. "Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107030541.
    11. Egorov, Georgy & Guriev, Sergei & Sonin, Konstantin, 2009. "Why Resource-poor Dictators Allow Freer Media: A Theory and Evidence from Panel Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(4), pages 645-668, November.
    12. Scott Gehlbach & Alberto Simpser, 2015. "Electoral Manipulation as Bureaucratic Control," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(1), pages 212-224, January.
    13. Daniel Treisman, 2011. "Presidential Popularity in a Hybrid Regime: Russia under Yeltsin and Putin," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(3), pages 590-609, July.
    14. Reuter, Ora John & Szakonyi, David, 2015. "Online Social Media and Political Awareness in Authoritarian Regimes," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 29-51, January.
    15. repec:cup:apsrev:v:68:y:1974:i:03:p:951-972_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frye, Timothy & Borisova, Ekaterina, 2016. "Elections, protest and trust in government: A natural experiment from Russia," BOFIT Discussion Papers 9/2016, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    2. Andrew T Little, 2017. "Are non-competitive elections good for citizens?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 214-242, April.
    3. Ananyev, Maxim & Poyker, Michael, 2022. "Do dictators signal strength with electoral fraud?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2024. "The Political Economics of Non-democracy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 594-636, June.
    5. Guriev, Sergei & Treisman, Daniel, 2020. "A theory of informational autocracy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    6. Sonin, Konstantin & Egorov, Georgy, 2014. "Incumbency Advantage in Non-Democracies," CEPR Discussion Papers 10178, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    7. Edmond, Chris & Lu, Yang K., 2021. "Creating confusion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    8. Willemien Kets & Alvaro Sandroni, 2021. "A Theory of Strategic Uncertainty and Cultural Diversity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(1), pages 287-333.
    9. Little, Andrew T., 2017. "Propaganda and credulity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 224-232.
    10. Robert F. Kane & Ching-Yang Lin, 2019. "Up(and down)-skilling and directed technical change," Working Papers EMS_2019_03, Research Institute, International University of Japan.
    11. David Szakonyi & Ora John Reuter, 2020. "Electoral Manipulation and Regime Support: Survey Evidence from Russia," Working Papers 2020-19, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    12. Hao Hong & Tsz-Ning Wong, 2020. "Authoritarian election as an incentive scheme," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(3), pages 460-493, July.
    13. Parker Hevron, 2018. "Judicialization and Its Effects: Experiments as a Way Forward," Laws, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-21, May.
    14. Massimo Finocchiaro Castro & Calogero Guccio, 2020. "Birds of a feather flock together: trust in government, political selection and electoral punishment," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 263-287, September.
    15. Baldwin, Kate & Bhavnani, Rikhil R., 2013. "Ancillary Experiments: Opportunities and Challenges," WIDER Working Paper Series 024, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Thomas R. Dyckman & Stephen A. Zeff, 2019. "Important Issues in Statistical Testing and Recommended Improvements in Accounting Research," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-11, May.
    17. Grüner Sven, 2020. "Sample Size Calculation in Economic Experiments," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 240(6), pages 791-823, December.
    18. Youwei Wang & Yuxin Chen & Yi Qian, 2018. "The Causal Link between Relative Age Effect and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from 17 Million Users across 49 Years on Taobao," NBER Working Papers 25318, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Peter J. Buckley, 2016. "Historical Research Approaches to the Analysis of Internationalisation," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 56(6), pages 879-900, December.
    20. repec:jdm:journl:v:17:y:2022:i:6:p:1176-1207 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Haoge Chang & Joel Middleton & P. M. Aronow, 2021. "Exact Bias Correction for Linear Adjustment of Randomized Controlled Trials," Papers 2110.08425, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2021.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • P26 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Property Rights
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:bofitp:bdp2016_009. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bofitfi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.