Authors

Jody Laporte²; Ben Noble¹;  ¹ University College London, UK;  ² University of Oxford, UK

Discussion

Why do non-democratic regimes hold referendums? Scholars have only recently turned their attention to this particular nominally democratic institution, adding to the broader research on elections, parties, and legislatures in authoritarian political systems. However, the nascent work on plebiscites is set at a high level of abstraction, glossing over important variation. Existing explanations provided in this work have focussed on the repressive quality of these popular votes – as attempts to discourage and hinder the opposition. But, consistent with explanations for other institutions, there are likely multiple reasons why autocrats call referendums, including for non-repressive reasons. We develop this insight in this paper, showing how referendums can be used by autocrats to perpetuate their rule, not through repression, but by securing nominal support. We illustrate this theoretical contribution through an in-depth case study of the 2020 nationwide vote in Russia.