Voting Behavior and Legislatures: Insights and Implications

Session Submission Type: Created Panel

Session Description

The panel addresses the issues of ballot order manipulation in authoritarian regimes, the impact of migration on democratic support, the influence of oligarchs and regional political machines on elections, and legislators' use of social media. The paper by Todd and Minh Duc Trinh examines how ballot order manipulation is used in authoritarian elections in Russia, Vietnam, and China, providing evidence for the fabricated randomization processes and candidate allocation manipulation. Cuibus shows that several previously neglected factors, particularly migrants' slow process of value absorption, prevent the remitting of democratic norms in Central and Eastern European countries. Kapanadzehe explores the influence of oligarchs and regional political machines with strong ties to regional executive offices on the electoral process in Georgia. Romanov, Khokhlov, and Below examine how Russian legislators vary their public response to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine on social media using text-as-data methods and analyzing social media posts of State Duma deputies on a Russian-language social media platform. The paper by Nitsova investigates public support for oligarchs and trust in government policies aimed at oligarchs in Ukraine during the war, using an original conjoint survey experiment to study the drivers of public support for oligarchs.

Sub Unit

• Division 13: Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries

Individual Presentations

• Ballot Order Manipulation in Russia, Vietnam, and China - Jason Douglas Todd, Duke Kunshan University; Minh Duc Trinh, Purdue University

• Does Migration Make Better Democrats? The Limits of Political Remittances in CEE - Mihnea Vlad Cuibus, Oxford University

• The Influence of Oligarchs and Regional Political Machines on Georgian Elections - Zaur Kapanadze, Texas Tech University

• How Russian Legislators Portray the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine on Social Media - Mikael Belov, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); Daniil Romanov, Oxford University; Nikita Khokhlov, Dublin City University

• Oligarch Networks & Legislatures in Developing Democracies: The Case of Ukraine - Silviya Nitsova, The University of Manchester

Discussant

• Roman Hlatky University of North Texas