Nonviolent Repression in Electoral Autocracies

当代的独裁者，如俄罗斯的弗拉基米尔普京和土耳其的塔伊普埃尔多安，据说是用“天鹅绒拳头”统治的。他们没有依靠斯大林主义的残酷镇压手段，而是利用法律来管理抗议活动。了解非暴力镇压策略如何影响威权稳定和民主紧缩构成了当今政治学面临的最紧迫和政策相关的挑战之一。然而，比较政治学研究仍然集中在几十年前的威权主义变体上。虽然对威权政治的研究依赖于对镇压的分析，这些分析考察了野蛮的武力和胁迫，但对非暴力镇压策略的理解仍然很少。例如，到目前为止，研究人员（和政策制定者）对非民主政权中严厉的抗议法律对反对派和选民协调的影响知之甚少。本项目研究了一种常用但知之甚少的非暴力镇压策略--抗议通知的使用--如何影响选举专制中不同类型反对党和选民之间的协调。选举专制是指联合收割机独裁与多党选举相结合的制度，是当今非民主的主要形式。这是第一项研究，以经验解决的影响，非暴力镇压反对党和选民在这些政权。我建议，虽然反对派和选民的协调是成功的集体行动的一个重要组成部分，在选举专制形成联盟的能力是由执政政权强烈塑造。抗议通知是一种强大而阴险的工具，可以让独裁者分裂他们的对手。我认为，在某些情况下，抗议通知可以阻止“极端”和“温和”反对派团体之间的协调，抑制民众对未经授权的抗议活动组织者的支持，这些抗议活动在没有许可的情况下进行。这一论点有助于我们更好地理解镇压在当代专制政体中是如何运作的，以及为什么为了防止反对和选民协调，有能力阻止抗议的政府往往会采取镇压战略，而这些战略只会产生微弱的威慑激励。该项目的理论重点使我能够讨论在威权政治的关键群体的偏好和限制-当局，“极端”和“温和”的反对派团体，和选民。为了检验抗议通知对反对派和选民协调的影响，我将利用当代俄罗斯的经验证据。俄罗斯是英国和欧盟外交政策的重要国家，也是世界上最大和最有影响力的选举独裁国家。在两个成功的试点研究的基础上，我将制作两个新的数据集。第一个数据集将收集提交给市政当局的抗议通知信息，并将这些信息与2019年1月至2024年3月期间在俄罗斯发生的授权和未经授权的抗议活动的新闻进行匹配。使用这个数据集，我将测试两个或两个以上的“温和”和“极端主义”的反对派团体（i）共同签署抗议通知，（ii）参与同一抗议活动的概率是否会随着先前的非暴力镇压水平而变化。我还将收集原始调查数据，以便研究选民对“极端”和“温和”反对党和活动家的看法，以及他们参与被视为“极端”或“温和”的团体和活动家的抗议活动的倾向。该项目是跨学科的性质。它建立在比较政治学和社会学研究的基础上，并对这些研究产生影响;社会心理学和政治行为;以及调查方法。在学术界之外，调查结果将对世界各地监测人权侵犯和公民空间变化的机构和组织感兴趣，如Civicus和人权观察。

Contemporary autocrats, such as Russia's Vladimir Putin, and Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan are said to rule by 'velvet fist'. Instead of relying on Stalinist methods of brutal repression, they use the law to manage protests. Understanding how nonviolent strategies of repression influence authoritarian stability and democratic retrenchment constitutes one of the most pressing and policy relevant challenges facing political science today. Yet, comparative politics research remains focused on authoritarianism's variants from several decades ago. While studies of authoritarian politics are beholden to analyses of repression that examine brutal force and coercion, nonviolent repression strategies remain poorly understood. To date, for example, researchers (and policy makers) know little about the effect of draconian protest laws on opposition and voter coordination in nondemocratic regimes.This project studies how one commonly used, yet poorly understood strategy of nonviolent repression - the use of protest notifications - influences coordination between different types of opposition parties and voters in electoral autocracies. Electoral autocracies are regimes that combine authoritarian practices with multiparty elections and the dominant form of nondemocracy today. This is the first study to empirically tackle the effect of nonviolent repression on opposition parties and voters in these regimes. I propose that while opposition and voter coordination is an important component of successful collective action, the ability to form coalitions in electoral autocracies is strongly shaped by the ruling regime. Protest notifications are a powerful and insidious tool that allows autocrats to divide their opponents. Under certain conditions, I argue, protest notifications can prevent coordination between 'extremist' and 'moderate' opposition groups, dampening popular support for the organisers of unauthorised protests, those that go ahead without a permit. The argument helps us better understand how repression operates in contemporary autocracies, and why, in order to prevent opposition and voter coordination, governments with the capacity to prevent protests often commit to repression strategies that create weak deterrence incentives. The project's theoretical focus allows me to discuss the preferences and constraints of key groups in authoritarian politics - those of the authorities, 'extremist' and 'moderate' opposition groups, and voters. To test the effect of protest notifications on opposition and voter coordination, I will leverage empirical evidence from contemporary Russia. Russia is a country of great importance for British and EU foreign policy, and of the world's largest and most influential electoral autocracies. Building on two successful pilot studies, I will produce two new datasets. The first dataset will collect information on protest notifications submitted to city authorities, and match this information to news about authorised and unauthorised protests taking place in Russia from January 2019 to March 2024. Using this dataset, I will test whether the probability of two or more 'moderate' and 'extremist' opposition groups (i) co-signing a protest notification, and (ii) participating in the same protest changes as a function of prior levels of nonviolent repression. I will also collect original survey data that allow me to study voters' views of 'extremist' and 'moderate' opposition parties and activists, and their propensity to participate in protests with groups and activists perceived as either 'extremists' or 'moderates'. The project is interdisciplinary in nature. It builds on, and impacts research on comparative politics and sociology; social psychology and political behaviour; and survey methodology. Beyond academia, findings will be of interest to institutions and organisations that monitory human rights' violations and changes in civic spaces around the world - such as Civicus and Human Rights Watch.