Extra votes to signal loyalty: regional political cycles and national elections in Russia

Kód výsledku v IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985998%3A_____%2F20%3A00540208" target="_blank" >RIV/67985998:_____/20:00540208 - isvavai.cz</a>

Nalezeny alternativní kódy

RIV/00216208:11640/20:00532769

Výsledek na webu

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-019-00747-8" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-019-00747-8</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11127-019-00747-8" target="_blank" >10.1007/s11127-019-00747-8</a>

Jazyk výsledku

angličtina

Název v původním jazyce

Extra votes to signal loyalty: regional political cycles and national elections in Russia

Popis výsledku v původním jazyce

Under the system of presidential appointments of regional governors, which existed in Russia from 2005 to 2012, gubernatorial loyalty to the central government and particularly governors’ ability to deliver satisfactory results to the ruling party in national-level elections were crucial to their likelihood of being reappointed to the next term. In this paper, we argue that governors, anticipating the relationship between loyalty and reappointments, attempted to deliver additional votes to the ruling party, and show that those attempts were subject to regional political cycles. Exploiting variation in the starting and expiry dates of Russian regional governors’ terms of office, we find that the winning margins for a pro-government party across Russian regions in national-level elections held between 2007 and 2012 were substantially higher when elections were closer to the beginning or to the expiration of a regional governor’s term. The effect is driven almost exclusively by the governors serving their first terms. However, for elections held between 1999 and 2004, when governors were subject to direct votes by regional constituencies, no similar effect is found. The results can be explained by, e.g., first impression and recency biases in appointment decisions. We then implement several exercises to identify the sources of the additional votes for the ruling party and demonstrate that governors, while unlikely committing electoral fraud, likely exerted effort to stimulate turnout among ruling party supporters.

Název v anglickém jazyce

Extra votes to signal loyalty: regional political cycles and national elections in Russia

Popis výsledku anglicky

Under the system of presidential appointments of regional governors, which existed in Russia from 2005 to 2012, gubernatorial loyalty to the central government and particularly governors’ ability to deliver satisfactory results to the ruling party in national-level elections were crucial to their likelihood of being reappointed to the next term. In this paper, we argue that governors, anticipating the relationship between loyalty and reappointments, attempted to deliver additional votes to the ruling party, and show that those attempts were subject to regional political cycles. Exploiting variation in the starting and expiry dates of Russian regional governors’ terms of office, we find that the winning margins for a pro-government party across Russian regions in national-level elections held between 2007 and 2012 were substantially higher when elections were closer to the beginning or to the expiration of a regional governor’s term. The effect is driven almost exclusively by the governors serving their first terms. However, for elections held between 1999 and 2004, when governors were subject to direct votes by regional constituencies, no similar effect is found. The results can be explained by, e.g., first impression and recency biases in appointment decisions. We then implement several exercises to identify the sources of the additional votes for the ruling party and demonstrate that governors, while unlikely committing electoral fraud, likely exerted effort to stimulate turnout among ruling party supporters.

Druh

J_imp - Článek v periodiku v databázi Web of Science

CEP obor

—

OECD FORD obor

50202 - Applied Economics, Econometrics

Projekt

—

Návaznosti

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Rok uplatnění

2020

Kód důvěrnosti údajů

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Název periodika

Public Choice

ISSN

0048-5829

e-ISSN

—

Svazek periodika

185

Číslo periodika v rámci svazku

1-2

Stát vydavatele periodika

US - Spojené státy americké

Počet stran výsledku

31

Strana od-do

183-213

Kód UT WoS článku

000493693400001

EID výsledku v databázi Scopus

2-s2.0-85074865952