Demand for Repression: Popular Approval of Repression during Protests in Russia

• In Event: Methods of Authoritarian Domination (Virtual Session)

Abstract

Scholars of the dissent-repression nexus often assume that repression of protesters by autocrats undermines support for the regime. From this perspective, coercion is inherently costly. In this paper, we challenge this assumption and advance the argument that citizens’ pre-existing beliefs about different socio-political groups determine how people evaluate repressive acts. We propose that repression of a certain group is more acceptable to those that dislike the group and can even increase their support for the regime. In fact, not repressing disliked groups comes with a cost in the form of declining popular approval. Suppressing a group disliked by a substantial share of the population is thus a potent strategy for both squashing dissent and boosting incumbent approval numbers. To probe this explanation, we conduct a pre-registered survey experiment on a representative sample of around 4000 respondents in a typical personalist and electoral authoritarian regime, namely Russia. The experiment randomly exposes respondents to a fictional, but realistic, event in the form of large, non-violent protests. We pre-evaluate respondents’ beliefs about different socio-political groups, vary the participating group as well as the government’s handling of the situation, and then ask respondents to assess the regime’s response as well as their sympathy towards the incumbent. The study corroborates our hypothesis and thus has important implications for our understanding of the workings of authoritarian coercion in contemporary autocracies.

Authors

• Jakob Tolstrup, Aarhus University

• Suthan Krishnarajan, Aarhus University