Natalia Forrat, 2017–18 Kellogg Visiting Fellow from Northwestern University, uses the case of the 2012 presidential election in Russia to reveal a new “infrastructural” mechanism of authoritarian resilience. This mechanism complements the currently dominant explanation of authoritarian resilience focused on material redistribution. She argues that public sector organizations may significantly increase the ability of an autocrat to implement political decisions on the ground. This mechanism can partially explain Vladimir Putin’s strong performance in the 2012 election, during which schoolteachers—who frequently served as members of precinct-level electoral commissions—engaged in agitation and electoral fraud. Forrat finds that if the factors contributing to the pressure on teachers were eliminated, Vladimir Putin might not have won the election in the first round.
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Sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies with the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.
Originally published at nanovic.nd.edu.