Electoral Disruptions and Autocratic Displacement in Hybrid Regimes: Evidence from the 2019 Istanbul Mayoral Elections

• In Event: Democratic Backsliding and the Erosion of Human Rights (Co-sponsored by Political Sociology Section)

Abstract

Democratic theory views elections as safety valves that channel conflict vertically toward the state. But what happens in hybrid regimes when this channel is blocked i.e., when elections are held but results are annulled? We propose a theory of autocratic displacement to explain how institutional blockage reconfigures social conflict. We argue that when vertical accountability is severed, political frustration does not dissipate but is redirected horizontally toward vulnerable minorities. We trace this process through three mechanisms: the cumulative incubation of hostility during procedural uncertainty, the bottom-up displacement of mobilization when elites are silenced, and “convergent scapegoating,” where opposing partisans align against a common target due to asymmetric costs. We test these arguments using a natural experiment: the 2019 Istanbul mayoral election, where the regime annulled an opposition victory before permitting a re-run. Analyzing 265,470 tweets by 121,772 users using a fine-tuned Large Language Model, we find that anti-refugee hostility accelerated significantly during the annulment period, driven by ordinary users and characterized by cross-partisan convergence. The findings demonstrate how authoritarian survival strategies convert institutional failure into intergroup violence.

Authors

• Abdul Basit Adeel, Pennsylvania State University

• Ibrahim Enes Atac, Pennsylvania State University