Staying Out of Trouble: Criminal Cases Against Russian Mayors

42 Pages Posted: 2 Sep 2021

See all articles by Noah Buckley

Noah Buckley

Trinity College (Dublin); National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow)

Ora John Reuter

University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee - Department of Political Science; National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow)

Michael Rochlitz

University of Bremen - Faculty of Business Studies and Economics

Anton Aisin

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Date Written: September 1, 2021

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

Suggested Citation

Buckley, Noah and Reuter, Ora John and Rochlitz, Michael and Aisin, Anton, Staying Out of Trouble: Criminal Cases Against Russian Mayors (September 1, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3915209 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3915209

Noah Buckley

Trinity College (Dublin) ( email )

D2
Ireland

National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow) ( email )

Myasnitskaya street, 20
Moscow, Moscow 119017
Russia

Ora John Reuter (Contact Author)

University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee - Department of Political Science ( email )

PO Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53211
United States

National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow) ( email )

Myasnitskaya street, 20
Moscow, Moscow 119017
Russia

Michael Rochlitz

University of Bremen - Faculty of Business Studies and Economics ( email )

Bremen, D-28359
Germany

Anton Aisin

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
34
Abstract Views
375
PlumX Metrics