Electoral Integrity and Support for Democracy in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine

Abstract

The expansion of democracy following the collapse of communism in 1989–1990 led many to believe that democratic institutions would rapidly take root. However, over the past decade, electoral malpractice has become widespread, casting doubt on democratic consolidation. This paper examines the causes and consequences of weak electoral integrity in Belarus, Russia, and the Ukraine. Using a series of opinion surveys conducted since 2000, we show that public perceptions of electoral unfairness have their roots in seeing widespread corruption among public officials. By contrast, viewing elections as fair correlates with support for the incumbent government, and in watching television, the latter showing the importance to the regimes of control of the mass media. In turn, views about electoral integrity have a significant impact on satisfaction with democracy, especially in Belarus. The results suggest that only root and branch reform in the post-communist societies will substantially improve public perceptions of electoral integrity.

Acknowledgements

An earlier version was delivered at the “Hybrid Regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and East and Southeast Asia” conference, Center for European Studies, The Australian National University, 16–17 August 2012. Our thanks go to workshop participants, Juliet Pietsch, and two anonymous reviewers from this journal for their constructive and valuable suggestions.

Notes

1. The quotations come from article 15 of the Russian Constitution.

2. The rankings from 1999 until 2013 are available at www.freedomhouse.org, last accessed 4 March 2013.

3. This assumes, of course, that respondents could differentiate between such a detailed list.

4. A fourth item, ‘representing people with different views’, was included in most of the surveys, but because it was not consistently asked it has been excluded. In any event, preliminary analysis showed that the addition of this fourth item did not add significantly to the overall reliability of the multiple-item scale.

5. The mean inter-item correlation in Belarus is 0.69, in Russia 0.62, and in Ukraine 0.60. The correlations for each year are given in the appendix.

6. The choice of countries that the respondents reported travelling to was governed by what was available consistently in all three countries.

7. Measuring television consumption is, of course, difficult since within each country a variety of television channels from other countries can be accessed by cable, a pattern of behaviour which may be associated with ethno-linguistic identification. We are grateful to a reviewer for pointing out this possibility.

8. We assume that the causality operates from electoral integrity to satisfaction with democracy. An alternative possibility is that satisfaction with democracy shapes views of electoral integrity. The causality cannot be definitively identified from the type of cross-sectional data used here, but our interpretation is supported by other research in this area (see, for example, Linde, 2012).