Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Elections, Information, and Political Stability in Autocratic Regimes

为什么专制政府会操纵选举，而选举几乎没有可信度？这样的选举如何影响政治稳定和专制领导人的生存？尽管学术界对专制选举的关注一直在稳步增加，但现有文献并没有提供足够的理论杠杆来解释为什么会举行这样的选举，也没有解释它们之间的差异。拟议研究项目的核心理论论点是，举行专制选举是为了塑造人们对政权支持的信念，从而减少反对派反抗的可能性。在我们的理论中，我们确定了独裁者愿意称选举为欺诈性选举的条件，并得出了一些关于选举竞争力变化和选举后抗议可能性的假设。本研究的目的是通过对人类受试者的受控实验室实验、对跨国数据集的统计分析以及对1995-2001年期间俄罗斯地区行政选举的深入分析，来验证这些预测。这项研究将有助于我们理解普遍存在的不自由和不公平选举现象。首先，该研究通过展示这种选举如何影响公众对专制政权合法性的信念并延长（或缩短）其生存时间，为专制选举的理论文献做出了贡献。其次，据我们所知，这项研究是对操纵选举的信息影响进行实验研究的首次尝试。这项研究使得将专制政权的进一步理论建立在更坚实的微观基础上成为可能。第三，该研究通过展示独裁者如何通过操纵选举而不是诉诸完全民主的统治来使自己免受革命压力的影响，从而推进了我们对民主化的理解。第四，关于俄罗斯地区行政选举公平性的数据集将有助于未来关于这一主题的学术研究。选举经常被视为解决发展中国家政治不稳定、治理不善和缺乏问责制等问题的灵丹妙药。仅美国国际开发署（USAID）每年就花费7亿多美元用于促进民主和选举，这一事实说明了政策制定者对选举的积极影响的期望。这项研究有助于确定这种观点在多大程度上是有根据的。在理论层面上，拟议的研究提出了一种机制，通过这种机制，被操纵的选举实际上可能延长治理不善、不负责任的专制政府的生存时间。此外，该研究更好地确定了选举后冲突和抗议可能发生的条件。了解被操纵的选举如何影响公众信仰和选举后的冲突，不仅对政治学家很重要，对关注非民主政权政治发展的政策制定者也很重要。

Why do autocratic governments hold rigged elections that carry little or no credibility? How do such elections affect political stability and the survival of autocratic leaders? Although scholarly attention to autocratic elections has been steadily increasing, the existing literature does not provide sufficient theoretical leverage to explain why such elections are held nor to account for variations among them. The central theoretical contention of the proposed research project is that autocratic elections are held to shape beliefs about regime support and thereby reduce the likelihood of opposition revolt. In our theory, we identify the conditions under which autocrats are willing to call fraudulent elections and derive a number of hypotheses regarding variations in the competitiveness of elections and likelihood of post-election protest. This research is designed to test these predictions with data generated in a controlled laboratory experiment with human subjects, statistical analysis of a cross-national dataset, and in-depth analysis of regional executive elections in Russia during the 1995-2001 period.This research will contribute to our understanding of the widespread phenomenon of unfree and unfair elections. First, the research contributes to the still nascent theoretical literature on autocratic elections by showing how such elections may affect public beliefs about the legitimacy of autocratic regimes and prolong (or shorten) their survival. Second, the research constitutes, to our knowledge, the first attempt to conduct experimental research on the informational effects of rigged elections. This research makes it possible to place further theorizing about autocratic regimes on firmer micro-foundations. Third, the research advances our understanding of democratization by showing how autocrats may insulate themselves from revolutionary pressures by instituting rigged elections instead of resorting to fully democratic rule. Fourth, the dataset on fairness of executive elections in Russia's regions will be instrumental for future scholarship on this topic.Elections are frequently seen as a panacea for problems of political instability, bad governance, and lack of accountability in the developing world. The fact that U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) alone spends more than $700 million a year to promote democracy and elections speaks to the positive impact policy-makers expect of elections. The research helps to identify to what extent this view is warranted. At the theoretical level, the proposed research suggests a mechanism whereby rigged elections may in fact prolong the survival of badly governed and unaccountable autocratic governments. In addition, the research better identifies the conditions under which post-election conflicts and protests are likely to occur. Learning how rigged elections affect public beliefs and post-election conflicts is important not only for political scientists but also for policy-makers concerned with the political development of non- democratic regimes.