Staying Out of Trouble: Criminal Cases Against Russian Mayors

Abstract

Although repression against elites is a common occurrence in authoritarian regimes,
we know little about which elites are targeted. This paper uses an original dataset
on the prosecution of mayors in large Russian cities to examine the factors that make
elites more likely to be arrested. We argue that in electoral authoritarian regimes like
Russia, regime leaders are reluctant to arrest popular ocials. Such ocials command
political capital that is useful to the regime, and arrests of prominent ocials can
produce popular backlash. We examine this argument using an original dataset on all
arrests of municipal leaders in Russia's 221 largest cities between 2002 and 2018. We
nd that mayors who won their elections by large margins are less likely to be arrested.
In addition, we document several other substantively important patterns: 1) a mayor's
professional background is not related to the likelihood of arrest, 2) opposition mayors
are four times more likely to be arrested, and 3) mobilization of votes for the regime
is not protective against arrest.

Keywords: Russia, autocracy, mayors, local elections, authoritarianism, repression