Autonomy and Dissent: Linking Opposition and Small Business Strength in Russia

• In Event: Bureaucrats and Business in Communist and Post-Communist Countries

Abstract

Several accounts of political behavior in hybrid regimes point to economic autonomy as a prerequisite for robust political action against incumbents (McMann 2006; Radnitz 2012, Arriola 2013). Does the size of a private enterprise play a role in how actors connected to it perceive the degree of autonomy they enjoy—and, by extension, their likelihood of supporting the opposition? I propose that while actors connected to large enterprises might be prime targets for repression and therefore more likely to behave as “improbable democrats” (Junisbai 2012), pro-opposition activity of actors connected to smaller enterprises may be able to “slip under the radar” and have a positive cumulative effect on opposition support. I examine the case of Russia, where incumbents have embedded large enterprises into their patronal networks or targeted them with repression. Specifically, I test whether the prevalence of “small,” and “micro” enterprises accounts for sub-national variation in support for opposition parties contesting State Duma elections. This contributes to our understanding of the limits of regime incumbents’ ability to monitor and structure economic and political life to suppress opposition on the one hand, while also measuring the impact of actors who have diminished material capacity for political action.

Author

• Josiah Augustine, George Washington University