INTERNET VOTING IN AUTHORITARIAN CONTEXTS: TESTING ITS IMPACT ON DOMINANT PARTY SUPPORT IN RUSSIA.

This study examines the effects of internet voting on regional support for Russia's dominant party, United Russia, in the 2021 State Duma elections. Grounded in the theoretical framework of digital authoritarianism, we hypothesize that internet voting (through its technical opacity, centralized infr...

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Publicado en:Demokratizatsiya Vol. 33; no. 3; pp. 275 - 299
Autor principal: MUKHAEV, ROMAN
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Elliott School of International Affairs Summer2025
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      aug:
        au: MUKHAEV, ROMAN
      su:
        Russia
        Authoritarianism
        Political parties
        Activism
        Internet voting
        Voter turnout
      sug:
        subj:
          Authoritarianism
          Political parties
          Activism
          Russia
          Political Organizations
          Internet voting
          Voter turnout
      ab: This study examines the effects of internet voting on regional support for Russia's dominant party, United Russia, in the 2021 State Duma elections. Grounded in the theoretical framework of digital authoritarianism, we hypothesize that internet voting (through its technical opacity, centralized infrastructure, and capacity for voter monitoring) benefits the ruling party by altering participation patterns and reducing electoral transparency. Using a difference-in-differences design that exploits regional variation in internet voting adoption, we find no statistically significant increase in the ruling party's vote share. Instead, internet voting functions as a mobilization tool, reducing the costs of electoral participation for existing supporters rather than redistributing votes. These findings suggest that digital electoral technologies in authoritarian contexts reinforce established patterns of political control not through vote manipulation, but by asymmetrically facilitating turnout. The study contributes to scholarship on dominant-party regimes and digital authoritarianism by empirically distinguishing between mobilization and vote redistribution mechanisms.
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      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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