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.