The Impact of COVID on Authoritarian Politics: Evidence From Russia

Session Submission Type: In-Person Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel uses emerging evidence from Russia to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on an authoritarian political landscape. The panel includes research on the strategies that state-controlled media employed to frame the health crisis, investigations into how concerns about COVID may have impacted voter behavior and subsequent outcomes in the 2020 referendum on the Russian Constitution, and unique survey data providing insight into how political attitudes and beliefs about government in Russia have been affected by the unfolding pandemic.

Sub Unit

• Division 13: Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries

Individual Presentations

• The Political Impact of the Pandemic in Russia and Ukraine - Grigore Pop-Eleches, Princeton University; Graeme Robertson; Bryn Rosenfeld, Cornell University

• Electronic Voting in Autocracies - Alexei V Zakharov, Higher School of Economics

• Authoritarian Crisis Narratives: Learning from COVID-19 Coverage on Russian TV - Quintin H. Beazer, Florida State University; Holger Lutz Kern, Florida State University

• COVID-19 Scepticism in Russia and Its Potential Political Effects - Boris Sokolov, Higher School of Economics; Margarita Zavadskaya, European University Institute

Discussant

• Paul Chaisty University of Oxford