Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-05T02:31:30.614Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Electoral Responsiveness in Closed Autocracies: Evidence from Petitions in the former German Democratic Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2021

HANS LUEDERS Open the ORCID record for HANS LUEDERS [Opens in a new window]
HANS LUEDERS*
Affiliation:
Stanford University, United States
*
Hans Lueders, Postdoctoral Scholar, Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Stanford University, United States, [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Contested elections are usually seen as precondition for constituent responsiveness. By contrast, I show that even uncontested elections can create incentives for autocratic regimes to address citizen demands. I propose that closed autocracies engage in cycles of responsiveness before uncontested elections to assure citizens of their competence and raise popular support. They do so to mitigate the short-term destabilizing effects of elections. Analyzing a unique dataset of petitions to the government of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), I calculate that response times to petitions were up to 31% shorter before the GDR’s uncontested elections. Moreover, I introduce the concept of “substantive responsiveness,” which focuses on the material consequences of responsiveness for petitioners, and show that petitions were 64% more likely to be successful. The paper advances our understanding of electoral mobilization in closed regimes and contributes to an emerging research agenda on responsiveness and accountability in autocracies.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 116 , Issue 3 , August 2022 , pp. 827 - 842
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Akhmedov, Akhmed, and Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina. 2004. “Opportunistic Political Cycles: Test in a Young Democracy Setting.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119 (4): 1301–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ansorg, Leonore. 1993. ‘Für Frieden und Sozialismus—seid bereit!’ Zur politischen Instrumentalisierung der Jungen Pioniere von Beginn ihrer Gründung bis Ende der 1950er Jahre. In Historische DDR-Forschung: Aufsätze und Studien, ed. Kocka, Jürgen, 169–190. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.Google Scholar
Bahry, Donna, and Silver, Brian D.. 1990. “Soviet Citizen Participation on the Eve of Democratization.” American Political Science Review 84 (3): 821–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, Kate, and Mvukiyehe, Eric. 2015. “Elections and Collective Action: Evidence from Changes in Traditional Institutions in Liberia.” World Politics 67 (4): 690–725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blaydes, Lisa. 2011. Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Block, Steven A., Ferree, Karen E., and Singh, Smita. 2003. “Multiparty Competition, Founding Elections and Political Business Cycles in Africa.” Journal of African Economies 12 (3): 444–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
bpb. 2019. “Wahlbetrug 1989—als die DDR-Regierung ihre Glaubwürdigkeit verlor.” Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. May 7, 2019. https://www.bpb.de/politik/hintergrund-aktuell/290562/1989-wahlbetrug-in-der-ddr.Google Scholar
Brender, Adi, and Drazen, Allan. 2005. “Political Budget Cycles in New versus Established Democracies.” Journal of Monetary Economics 52 (7): 1271–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunce, Valerie J. 1980. “The Succession Connection: Policy Cycles and Political Change in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.” American Political Science Review 74 (4): 966–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnett, Craig M., and Kogan, Vladimir. 2016. “The Politics of Potholes: Service Quality and Retrospective Voting in Local Elections.” Journal of Politics 79 (1): 302–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, Hannah S. 2021. “Shoring Up Autocracy: Participatory Technologies and Regime Support in Putin’s Russia.” Comparative Political Studies 54 (8): 1459–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheibub, Jose Antonio, and Hays, Jude C.. 2015. “Elections and Civil War in Africa.” Political Science Research and Methods 5 (1): 81–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Jidong, Pan, Jennifer, and Xu, Yiqing. 2016. “Sources of Authoritarian Responsiveness: A Field Experiment in China.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (2): 383–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cho, Joan E., Lee, Jae Seung, and Song, B. K.. 2019. “Mind the Electoral Gap: The Effect of Investment in Public Infrastructure on Authoritarian Support in South Korea.” Studies in Comparative International Development 54 (2): 473–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, Darin, and Ejdemyr, Simon. 2020. “Do Elections Improve Constituency Responsiveness? Evidence from US Cities.” Political Science Research and Methods 8 (3): 459–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Class, Fabian, Kohler, Ulrich, and Krawietz, Martin. 2018. “The Potsdam Grievance Statistics File. New Data on Quality of Life and Political Participation for the German Democratic Republic 1970-1989.” Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 51 (2): 92–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Linda J., and Dimitrov, Martin K.. 2017. “The Social Contract Revisited: Evidence from Communist and State Capitalist Economies.” Europe-Asia Studies 69 (1): 8–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1971. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dale, Gareth. 2005. Popular Protest in East Germany, 1945-1989. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Der Spiegel. 1990. “Fliegende Urnen: DDR-Staatsanwälte tun sich schwer, Schuldige für den Wahlbetrug im vorigen Jahr zu finden. Immerhin ist nun amtlich, wie getrickst wurde.” Der Spiegel. March 11. https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13497863.html.Google Scholar
Dickson, Bruce J., Landry, Pierre F., Shen, Mingming, and Yan, Jie. 2016. “Public Goods and Regime Support in Urban China.” The China Quarterly 228: 859–880.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimitrov, Martin K. 2014a. “Tracking Public Opinion under Authoritarianism: The Case of the Soviet Union during the Brezhnev Era.” Russian History 41 (3): 329–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimitrov, Martin K. 2014b. “What the Party Wanted to Know: Citizen Complaints as ‘Barometer of Public Opinion’ in Communist Bulgaria.” East European Politics and Societies and Cultures 28 (2): 271–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimitrov, Martin K. 2017. Anticipating Crises in Autocracies. In Crisis in Autocratic Regimes, eds. Gerschewski, Johannes and Stefes, Christoph H., 21–41. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ding, Iza. 2020. “Performative Governance.” World Politics 72 (4): 525–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dipoppa, Gemma, and Grossman, Guy. 2020. “The Effect of Election Proximity on Government Responsiveness and Citizens’ Participation: Evidence from English Local Elections.” Comparative Political Studies 53 (14): 2183–2212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Distelhorst, Greg, and Hou, Yue. 2014. “Ingroup Bias in Official Behavior: A National Field Experiment in China.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 9 (2): 203–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Distelhorst, Greg, and Hou, Yue. 2017. “Constituency Service under Nondemocratic Rule: Evidence from China.” Journal of Politics 79 (3): 1024–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esberg, Jane. 2021. “Anticipating Dissent: The Repression of Politicians in Pinochet’s Chile.” Journal of Politics 83 (2): 689–705.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearon, James D., Humphreys, Macartan, and Weinstein, Jeremy M.. 2015. “How Does Development Assistance Affect Collective Action Capacity? Results from a Field Experiment in Post-Conflict Liberia.” American Political Science Review 109 (3): 450–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. 2005. Tear Off the Mask! Identity and Imposture in Twentieth-Century Russia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fonseca Galvis, Ángela, and Superti, Chiara. 2019. “Who Wins the Most When Everybody Wins? Predicting Candidate Performance in an Authoritarian Election.” Democratization 26 (7): 1278–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gandhi, Jennifer. 2008. Political Institutions under Dictatorship. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gandhi, Jennifer, and Lust-Okar, Ellen. 2009. “Elections under Authoritarianism.” Annual Review of Political Science 12 (1): 403–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geddes, Barbara, Wright, Joseph, and Frantz, Erica. 2014. “Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions: A New Data Set.” Perspectives on Politics 12 (2): 313–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geddes, Barbara, Wright, Joseph, and Frantz, Erica. 2018. How Dictatorships Work: Power, Personalization, and Collapse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gonzalez, Maria de los Angeles. 2002. “Do Changes in Democracy Affect the Political Budget Cycle? Evidence from Mexico.” Review of Development Economics 6 (2): 204–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gorgulu, Nisan, Sharafutdinova, Gulnaz, and Steinbuks, Jevgenijs. 2020. “Political Dividends of Digital Participatory Governance: Evidence from Moscow Pothole Management.” Policy Research Working Paper 9445.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guo, Gang. 2009. “China’s Local Political Budget Cycles.” American Journal of Political Science 53 (3): 621–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guriev, Sergei, and Treisman, Daniel. 2020. “The Popularity of Authoritarian Leaders: A Cross-National Investigation.” World Politics 72 (4): 601–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., Hyde, Susan D., and Jablonski, Ryan S.. 2016. “Surviving Elections: Election Violence, Incumbent Victory, and Post-Election Repercussions.” British Journal of Political Science 48 (2): 459–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Adam S., and Hern, Erin. 2019. “Taking to the Streets: Protest as an Expression of Political Preference in Africa.” Comparative Political Studies 52 (8): 1169–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Inter-Parliamentary Union. 2020. PARLINE Database on National Parliaments [computer file]. http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/parlinesearch.asp.Google Scholar
Jee, Haemin. 2021. “Local Level Incentives and Government Responsiveness in China.” Unpublished manuscript. Stanford University.Google Scholar
Karklings, Rasma. 1986. “Soviet Elections Revisited: Voter Abstention in Noncompetitive Voting.” American Political Science Review 80 (2): 449–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knutsen, Carl Henrik, Nygård, Håvard Mokleiv, and Wig, Tore. 2017. “Autocratic Elections: Stabilizing Tool or Force for Change?” World Politics 69 (1): 98–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuntz, Philipp, and Thompson, Mark R.. 2009. “More Than Just the Final Straw: Stolen Elections as Revolutionary Triggers.” Comparative Political Studies 41 (3): 253–72.Google Scholar
Kuran, Timur. 1991. “Now out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989.” World Politics 44 (1): 7–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lueders, Hans. 2021. “Replication Data for: Electoral Responsiveness in Closed Autocracies: Evidence from Petitions in the former German Democratic Republic.” Harvard Dataverse. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/YLCN5E.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luehrmann, Laura M. 2003. “Facing Citizen Complaints in China, 1951-1996.” Asian Survey 43 (5): 845–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lust-Okar, Ellen. 2006. “Elections under Authoritarianism: Preliminary Lessons from Jordan.” Democratization 13 (3): 456–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lust-Okar, Ellen. 2008. Competitive Clientelism in Jordanian Elections. In Political Participation in the Middle East, eds. Lust-Okar, Ellen and Zerhouni, Saloua, 75–94. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz. 2006. Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz, and Kricheli, Ruth. 2010. “Political Order and One-Party Rule.” Annual Review of Political Science 13:123–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malesky, Edmund, and Schuler, Paul. 2010. “Nodding or Needling: Analyzing Delegate Responsiveness in an Authoritarian Parliament.” American Political Science Review 104 (3): 482–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malesky, Edmund, and Schuler, Paul. 2011. “The Single-Party Dictator’s Dilemma: Information in Elections without Opposition.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 36 (4): 491–531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malesky, Edmund, and Schuler, Paul. 2013. “Star Search: Do Elections Help Nondemocratic Regimes Identify New Leaders?” Journal of East Asian Studies 13 (1): 35–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manion, Melanie. 2015. Information for Autocrats: Representation in Chinese Local Congresses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martinez-Bravo, Monica, Miquel, Gerard Padró i, Qian, Nancy, and Yao, Yang. 2020. “The Rise and Fall of Local Elections in China.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Mayhew, David R. 1987. The Electoral Connection and the Congress. In Congress: Structure and Policy, eds. Cubbins, Matthew D., Calvert, Randall, and Sullivan, Terry, 18–29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mühlberg, Felix. 2004. Bürger, Bitten und Behörden: Geschichte der Eingaben in der DDR. Berlin: Karl Dietz Verlag.Google Scholar
Pan, Jennifer. 2020. Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pepinsky, Thomas. 2007. “Autocracy, Elections, and Fiscal Policy: Evidence from Malaysia.” Studies in Comparative International Development 42 (1): 136–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pfaff, Steven. 2001. “The Limits of Coercive Surveillance: Social and Penal Control in the German Democratic Republic.” Punishment & Society 3 (3): 381–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pingel-Schliemann, Sandra. 2009. Zerstörung von Biografien: Zersetzung als Phänomen der Honecker-Ära. In Die demokratische Revolution 1989 in der DDR, eds. Conze, Eckart, Gajdukowa, Katharina, and Koch-Baumgarten, Sigrid, 78–91. Cologne: Böhlau.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popplewell, Richard. 1992. “The Stasi and the East German Revolution of 1989.” Contemporary European History 1 (1): 37–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, G. Bingham. 2004. “Political Representation in Comparative Politics.” Annual Review of Political Science 7: 273–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, Stokes, Susan C., and Manin, Bernard, eds. 1999. Elections and Representation. In Democracy, Accountability, and Representation, 29–54.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schedler, Andreas. 2006. The Logic of Electoral Authoritarianism. In Electoral Authoritarianism: The Logic of Unfree Competition, ed. Schedler, Andreas, 1–26. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1950. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Shi, Tianjian. 1999. “Voting and Nonvoting in China: Voting Behavior in Plebiscitary and Limited-Choice Elections.” Journal of Politics 61 (4): 1115–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shmuel, Assaf. 2020. “The Political Budget Cycle across Varying Degrees of Democracy.” Electoral Studies 68:e102218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpser, Alberto. 2013. Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections: Theory, Practice, and Implications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sjoberg, Fredrik M., Mellon, Jonathan, and Peixoto, Tiago. 2017. “The Effect of Bureaucratic Responsiveness on Citizen Participation.” Public Administration Review 77 (3): 340–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staadt, Jochen. 1996. “Eingaben: Die institutionalisierte Meckerkultur in der DDR.” Arbeitspapiere des Forschungsverbundes SED-Staat 24/1996.Google Scholar
Staatliche Zentralverwaltung für Statistik. 1989. Statistisches Jahrbuch 1989 der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Berlin, Germany: Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik.Google Scholar
Tao, Yi-Feng. 2006. “The Evolution of ‘Political Business Cycle’ in Post-Mao China.” Issues & Studies 42 (1): 163–94.Google Scholar
Truex, Rory. 2014. “The Returns to Office in a ‘Rubber Stamp’ Parliament.” American Political Science Review 108 (2): 235–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truex, Rory. 2016. Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truex, Rory. 2017. “Consultative Authoritarianism and Its Limits.” Comparative Political Studies 50 (3): 329–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsai, Lily L. 2007. Accountability without Democracy: Solidary Groups and Public Goods Provision in Rural China. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsai, Lily L., and Xu, Yiqing. 2018. “Outspoken Insiders: Political Connections and Citizen Participation in Authoritarian China.” Political Behavior 40 (3): 629–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsai, Pi-Han. 2016. “Fiscal Incentives and Political Budget Cycles in China.” International Tax and Public Finance 23 (6): 1030–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tucker, Joshua A. 2007. “Enough! Electoral Fraud, Collective Action Problems, and Post-Communist Colored Revolutions.” Perspectives on Politics 5 (3):535–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veiga, Francisco Jose, Veiga, Linda Gonçalves, and Morozumi, Atsuyoshi. 2017. “Political Budget Cycles and Media Freedom.” Electoral Studies 45 (1): 88–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walter, Alissa. 2018. Petitioning Saddam: Voices from the Iraqi Archives. In Truth, Silence and Violence in Emerging States, ed. Russell, Aidan, 127–146. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Gudrun, and Florath, Bernd. 2019. “ Nun falten Sie den Zettel …”: Wahlen in der DDR in der Überlieferung der Staatssicherheit (1949-1961). Berlin: BStU.Google Scholar
Williamson, Scott, and Magaloni, Beatriz. 2020. “Legislatures and Policy Making in Authoritarian Regimes.” Comparative Political Studies 53 (9): 1525–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wintrobe, Ronald. 1998. The Political Economy of Dictatorship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wittenburg, Siegfried. 2018. “Zettel falten, Schnauze halten: Wählen in der DDR.” Der Spiegel, October 21. https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/wahlsonntag-in-der-ddr-zettel-falten-schnauze-halten-a-1232354.html.Google Scholar
Wolle, Stefan. 1998. Die heile Welt der Diktatur: Alltag und Herrschaft in der DDR 1971–1989. Berlin: Ch. Links.Google Scholar
Zaslavsky, Victor, and Brym, Robert J.. 1978. “The Functions of Elections in the USSR.” Soviet Studies 30 (3): 362–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Lueders Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/YLCN5E
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Lueders supplementary material

Lueders supplementary material

Download Lueders supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 3.1 MB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.