Grievances and political action in Russia during Putin’s rise to power

Abstract

Under conditions of electoral authoritarianism, in what ways do individuals’ dissatisfaction with democracy influence their probability of political action? In the early 2000s, President Vladimir Putin consolidated his power and Russia descended into electoral authoritarianism. In this closed political opportunity structure, through which the government worked to silence political opposition and the global financial crisis caused an economic decline, the conditions for political and economic grievances to arise were plentiful. At the same time, political action by ordinary citizens was possible, though not prevalent. To examine the association between political and economic grievances and ordinary Russians’ political action, I use the five available waves of the European Social Survey 2006 to 2016. Results suggest that political grievance was a driving force of political action in Russia. Dissatisfaction with democracy in Russia motivates non-electoral participation (NEP) but alienates citizens from voting. Models with the interaction between political grievances and the conditions of economic grievance were insightful: when economically advantaged citizens are satisfied with the current regime, they tend to support it through the ballot box. The disconnect between NEP and voting with regard to political grievance suggests the need to better understand how ordinary Russians define and appreciate democracy.