Do spoilers make a difference? Instrumental manipulation of political parties in an electoral authoritarian regime, the case of Russia

Abstract

Political parties or candidates that participate in elections with the primary aim of splitting the vote for other parties or candidates are conventionally referred to as “spoilers”. In electoral authoritarian regimes, this strategy can be used for maintaining political monopoly. This study identifies institutional and political preconditions for instrumental manipulation of political parties under electoral authoritarianism and empirically examines the efficacy of this strategy during regional legislative elections in Russia from 2012 to 2014. The analysis demonstrates that the use of spoiler parties in Russia brings only modest results due to the lack of strong ideological identifications in the electorate.

Keywords:

• political parties
• elections
• authoritarianism
• Russian Federation
• electoral manipulation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Grigorii V. Golosov is the University Professor of Comparative Politics at the European University at St. Petersburg, Russia. He is the author of Political parties in the regions of Russia: democracy unclaimed (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004) and many articles, including, most recently, in East European Politics, International Political Science Review, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, Party Politics, and Post-Soviet Affairs.

ORCID

Grigorii V. Golosov http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9769-9230

Notes

1 Aleksei Naval'nyi. “O vyborakh. Nasha taktika” [On the Elections. Our Tactics]. http://navalny.com/p/3803/

2 The source of the numerical data on Russia's party system, electoral systems, and electoral results reported and/or analysed in this article is the Central Electoral Commission of Russia, http://www.izbirkom.ru.

3 Assotsiatsiya Golos. “Vyvody i predlozheniya po itogam vyborov 8 sentyabrya 2013 g” [Conclusions and Recommendations of the election results of 8 September 2013] http://www.golosinfo.org/ru/articles/205

4 Natal'ya Galimova, Denis Ermakov. “Volodin i pokritikoval, i porugal nas” [Volodin Criticised Us and Scolded as Well]. Gazeta.ru, 4 October 2013. http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2013/10/04_a_5693013.shtml

5 Arkadii Lyubarev. “40 +” [40 +]. Nezavisimaya gazeta, 16 October 2014. http://www.ng.ru/ng_politics/2012-10-16/14_forty.html

6 Aleksandr Kynev. “Spoilerizatsiya ‘Yabloka’” [The Spoilerisation of ‘Yabloko’]. Published in Gazeta.ru, 24 October 2011, currently retrievable from http://www.ryzkov.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27428&catid=2:2011-12-26-10-24-39&Itemid=26.

7 In the case of the LDPR, the number of observations is 61 because it did not run candidates in the plurality section of one of the elections.

8 It is defined as 9.21 (i.e. 99.99 percent upon logit transformation) for all parties in the proportional sections of elections.

9 The positive association with the Yabloko Difference variable is a statistical artefact generated by one outlier case, Moscow.

10 Maksim Ivanov, Yulia Klusova. “Ot malykh partii trebuyut bol'shego” [More is Required from Smaller Parties]. Kommersant, 31 July 2014. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2535813