Political Machines at Work Voter Mobilization and Electoral Subversion in the Workplace

Abstract

IntroductIon a utocrats conduct semicompetitive elections in order to coopt opponents, garner legitimacy, gather information on society, and gauge the performance of subordinates. 1 Most contemporary electoral authoritarian regimes limit their use of ballot-box stuffing and widespread repression precisely so that they can obtain these benefits. 2 how, then, do autocrats win those elections?to be sure, autocrats increase government spending before elections in an effort to buy public support, but sharing rents with the public is costly and efficiently targeting spoils to the right constituencies is difficult. 3 Divide and conquer tactics can pit regime opponents against each other, but in many instances the opposition remains united. 4 Moreover, whatever tactic authoritarian leaders use to generate support and divide the opposition, they still face daunting collective action problems in getting voters to the polls. Just as in democracies, some authoritarian leaders rely on party organizations to mobilize voters, but many of the world's electoral authoritarian regimes lack strong ruling party organizations at the grassroots level. *We thank noah Buckley, scott Gehlbach, Graeme robertson, sarah khan, Daniel treisman, israel Marques, andrei yakovlev, and participants in seminars at the international center for the study of institutions and Development, higher school of economics, and columbia university. support from the Basic research Program of the national research university higher school of economics in Moscow is gratefully acknowledged. We are also grateful for research support from the national council for east european and eurasian studies and the national science Foundation.

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