Mobilizing the Demobilized: Authoritarian Regime Inducements to Participation in Conflict

• In Event: The Politics of Russia’s War Machine

Abstract

Many modern authoritarian regimes rely on the political demobilization of the public—often taking the form of complaisant, cynical disengagement from politics—to ensure pliancy and inertness (Alyukov 2022; Shields 2021). At the same time, these regimes often appeal to existential external threats to produce a rally-round-the-flag effect or a sense of legitimacy (Hellmeier 2021). When so much effort is put into politically demobilizing the public, how can such regimes then mobilize the population to voluntarily participate in the regime’s chosen causes? We preregistered and fielded a survey experiment in Russia in late 2024, in the midst of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, to investigate the effectiveness of three mobilizational strategies on a politically demobilized public. Following from ongoing debates about the material or ideational nature of Russia’s efforts to secure participation in its war efforts, this paper investigates three mobilizational strategies that the regime can use: financial inducements, patriotic appeals, and social conformism. We find that—contrary to our expectations—these treatments have negative or null effects on Russians’ willingness to join the military. We explore these results further in the paper. This research contributes to literatures on political mobilization in autocracies, authoritarian legitimation, and individuals’ motivations to fight. We also demonstrate the limits of authoritarian regimes’ abilities to motivate the public to join in their violent endeavors, no matter the supposed benefits to doing so.

Author

• Noah Buckley, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)