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Abstract
Recent work on competitive authoritarianism has not explored the full consequences of electoral participation for opposition movements. While prominent work argues that the government must employ a mix of side-payments and repression to fragment opposition to its rule, Belarus’ history since the ascension of President Alexander Lukashenko in 1994 shows that the opposition has been repressed after most parliamentary and presidential elections without any substantial co-optation. I argue that electoral contestation and subsequent post-electoral repression have led to the Belarusian opposition's fragmented state. This state is grounded in competition for foreign aid, which creates a need among Belarusian opposition leaders to demonstrate their ability to mobilize support through campaigns. Invariably, successful opposition leaders emerge as the principal challengers to the regime, leading to their arrest or exile. Repression then fosters division within anti-government movements and restarts the cycle for new aid-seeking parties and leaders. A quantitative test establishes that repression concentrates in post-electoral periods and a qualitative assessment shows that opposition fragmentation stems from the arrest or exile of opposition leaders. The empirical findings provide contrasting evidence to work on co-optation in autocracies while suggesting an adverse effect of foreign democracy assistance around the world.
Supplemental data
The underlying research materials for this article can be accessed at http://polisci2.ucsd.edu/kash/
Notes on contributor
Konstantin Ash is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science at the University of California – San Diego.
Notes
1. Halpin, “Thousands in Belarus Revolt.”
2. Charter-97, “Former Presidential Candidates Charged.”
3. Freedom House, Nations in Transit.
4. Gandhi, Political Institutions under Dictatorship, 41.
5. See Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition; Wintrobe, Political Economy of Dictatorship; or Geddes, “Know About Democratization.”
6. See Bueno de Mesquita et al., Logic of Political Survival.
7. Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy, 64–8.
8. Blaydes, Elections and Distributive Politics, 2–3.
9. Lust-Okar, Structuring Conflict, 37–8.
10. Weingast, “Political Foundations of Democracy,” 247–50.
11. Gelman, “Party Politics in Russia,” 922–4.
12. Schedler, “Nested Game of Democratization,” 180–1.
13. Magaloni, “Game of Electoral Fraud,” 757.
14. Eke and Kuzio, “Sultanism in Eastern Europe,” 527.
15. Marples, “Colour Revolutions: Belarus,” 353–5.
16. Leshchenko, “National Ideology,” 1420–1.
17. Wilson, Europe's Last Dictatorship, 245.
18. Praneviciute-Neliupsiene and Maksimiuk, “Authoritarian Bargain in Belarus,” 119–25.
19. Lenzi, “Lost Civilization,” 414.
20. Way, “Authoritarian State Building.”
21. Levitsky and Way, “Dynamics of Autocratic Coercion.”
22. Staff of the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Report on the Belarusian Presidential Election.
23. McMahon, “Lukashenka, President.”
24. Korosteleva, “Emergence of a Party System.”
25. White, “Presidential Election in Belarus, 2001,” 176.
26. Marples, “Prospects of Democracy in Belarus,” 36. The remaining votes (which weren't “against all”) went to perennial candidate and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus, Sergei Gaidukevich. The party largely supports Lukashenko's policies. See Norris, Radical Right, 75.
27. Charter-97, “Goncharik Quits.”
28. White and Korosteleva-Polglase, “Election in Belarus, 2004,” 155.
29. Silitski, “Preempting Democracy: Belarus,” 93.
30. Marples, “Colour Revolutions: Belarus,” 357.
31. Korosteleva, “Belarus after 2006.”
32. Wilson, Europe's Last Dictatorship, 212.
33. Marples, “Outpost of Tyranny,” 762.
34. Liakhovich, “Parliamentary Election.”
35. Padhol and Marples, “2010 Presidential Election in Belarus,” 11–12. The detained candidates were Neklaev, Mikhailevich, Kostusyev, Rumashevskiy, Sannikov, Statkevich and Us
36. BBC, “Sannikov Jailed.”
37. Voice of America, “Belarus Sentences Lukashenko Opponents.”
38. RIA Novosti, “Jailed Candidate Released.”
39. International Business Times, “Hundreds Arrested in Silent Protest.”
40. RIA Novosti, “No Seats for Belarus Opposition.”
41. Individual politicians in functioning representative democracies are assumed, to some extent, to draw their motivation for candidacy out of a desire to reap the rewards afforded by an elected position (Mueller and Strom, “Political Parties and Hard Choices”).
42. European Exchange, “Local Elections in Belarus.”
43. Interfax, “Candidates get airtime.”
44. Interfax, “Lukashenko orders help.”
45. Rabagliati, “Belarus Opposition in Survival Mode.”
46. Sibierski, “Donors Pledge Aid for Belarus Opposition.” Money often flows to NGOs that are set up by political movements to get around restrictions on supporting foreign political parties in either the EU or the US.
47. For instance, after the 2006 presidential elections, Alexander Milinkevich made frequent trips to the West and was awarded the Sakharov Prize from the EU.
48. “Гастарбайтеры из Беларуси $1 млрд.”
49. Francisco, “Coercion and Protest,” 5.
50. Participants in observed protests range from political parties (that is, the Belarusian Popular Front), labor unions, youth movements (that is, Zubr) or spontaneous gatherings of individuals not clearly affiliated with any organization.
51. The articles used as sources for the project were found using the following search in LexisNexis Academic Search (for all news articles): “Belarus AND protest OR repression OR arrest OR demonstration OR gathering.” A full accounting of the participants, topics, and sources for each protest is available at this anonymous file hosting site: https://anonfiles.com/file/0bbb758ed8ec6dbccdf9b919fd3f3449
52. Summary statistics, coding details, and data for replication, including citations for articles used to obtain information about each protest will be made available on the author's website.
53. A total of nine elections (some with multiple rounds) took place between July 1994 and December 2011: the 1994 presidential election (two rounds), the 1995 parliamentary election/referendum (four rounds), the 1996 referendum, the 2000/2001 parliamentary election (four rounds), the 2001, 2006, and 2010 presidential elections and the 2004 and 2008 parliamentary elections. Local elections are excluded as they are unlikely to lead to either large protests by national leaders (who do not participate) or their arrests and are not highly visible to the donor community.
54. Cameron and Trivedi, Microeconomics: Theory and Methods, 665.
55. Hilbe, Negative Binomial Regression, 185.
56. Tucker, “Enough!,” 539.
57. Kuran, “Now Out of Never,” 17–25.
58. Heckman, “Sample Selection Bias.”
59. Greene, “FIML Estimator for Count Data.”
60. Terza, “Count Models with Endogenous Switching.”
61. All estimations of sample selection models were conducted in LIMDEP 8.0.
62. Annual inflation rate is log transformed to reduce the impact of extreme values during periods of hyperinflation.
63. IMF, International Financial Statistics.
64. Exposure variables are derived by adding the natural log of the maximum incidence count to the model. The variable is then held constant in the regression. See Hilbe, Negative Binomial Regression, 240.
65. Carter and Signorino, “Modelling Time Dependency,” 282.
66. Using Beck, Katz, and Tucker's, “Taking Time Seriously,” method with three cubic splines produced no substantive difference in results.
67. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, “Split in Belarus Opposition.”
68. Korosteleva, “Emergence of a Party System.”
69. Assembly.
70. Markus, “Belarus.”
71. European Forum for Democracy and Solidarity, “Social Democratic Landscape in Belarus.”
72. Marples, “Colour Revolutions: Belarus,” 357.
73. BelGazeta, “Belarus Opposition Split.”
74. Racz, “Self-Dividing Opposition.”
75. Padhol and Marples, “2010 Belarus Election,” 4.
76. Liakhovich, “The Parliamentary Election.”
77. Padhol and Marples, “2010 Belarus Election,” 5.
78. Budkevich, “Romanchuk Resigns.”