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Do Russia and the European Union have any substantial influence over the political trajectories of post-Soviet states? Shedding new light on the interplay between domestic and external drivers of regime change, Jakob Tolstrup analyzes the impact of Russia and the EU on the democratization and autocratization processes in Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine

AbstractIn the last decade, studies have documented how autocrats use elections as a way of legitimising and stabilising their regimes. Simultaneously, a literature on negative external actors (also known as 'black knights') has developed, emphasising how various international actors use anti‐democracy promotion strategies to undergird authoritarian regimes. In this article, these two literatures are fused in an attempt to shed light on the external dimension of authoritarian elections and what is termed 'black knight election bolstering'. First, five mechanisms are elucidated, through which external assistance increases the chances of 'winning' elections in authoritarian settings (signaling invincibility, deterring elite defection, undermining opposition activities, dealing with popular protests, and countervailing pressure from foreign democracy promoters). Second, it is argued that external actors are most likely to offer election bolstering when they face a particularly acquiescent partner or when electoral defeat is perceived to lead to radical and undesired regime change. The relevance of both factors is augmented when uncertainty of the electoral outcome is high. Finally, four cases of Russian intervention during elections in three authoritarian neighbour countries (Ukraine in 2004, Belarus in 2006, and Moldova in 2005 and 2009) are analysed. The case studies corroborate the theoretical arguments: not only does Russia engage in all five types of black knight election bolstering, but it does so only when one or more of the three explanatory factors are present.

Abstract: Recently, scholarly interest for the external dimension of regime change has risen considerably. However, we still poorly understand what makes external actors able (or unable) to push a country toward democracy or autocracy. I argue that the prevalent theory on external influences, Levitsky and Way's leverage-linkage theory, is insufficient as it does not capture how domestic elites ("gatekeeper elites") can increase or decrease ties with this or that external actor. Through an empirical analysis of Russian and European influences in Ukraine and Belarus I show that gatekeepers can explain why politically consequential ties wax or wane in a given country and I argue that this has important implications for democracy promotion.

Jakob Tolstrup skriver om hvordan Vesten kan være med til at styrke demokratiske bevægelser i Østeuropa istedet for at påtvinge dem demokrarti.

The expansion of power by incumbent political leaders has become the subject of increased scholarly attention. In democracies, this is known as 'subversions by the ruling executive', 'executive aggrandizement', or 'autogolpe'; in autocracies, researchers study 'personalization', 'transition to personal rulership', or 'power-grabbing'. While the terminological landscape is rich, there is little conceptual agreement of what leader-driven power expansion is (and is not). Furthermore, we still lack broad data that allow us to investigate the phenomenon systematically across democracy and autocracy. The contribution of this article is twofold. First, it offers a unified approach to study leader-driven power expansion – incumbent takeovers – across the political regime spectrum. Second, drawing from 11 datasets and original data collection and coding, we introduce a new, comprehensive dataset on 495 individual takeover events carried out by 279 political leaders in 132 countries in the period 1918–2019. We provide estimates of the takeover onset years, the time to takeover, the length of the takeover spells, and discuss the differences between distinct indicators, inter alia. Future research may leverage these data for a better understanding of the drivers of incumbent takeovers as well as the role of takeovers in regime change, civil wars, coups, and uprisings.

The expansion of power by incumbent political leaders has become the subject of increased scholarly attention. In democracies, this is known as 'subversions by the ruling executive', 'executive aggrandizement', or 'autogolpe'; in autocracies, researchers study 'personalization', 'transition to personal rulership', or 'power-grabbing'. While the terminological landscape is rich, there is little conceptual agreement of what leader-driven power expansion is (and is not). Furthermore, we still lack broad data that allow us to investigate the phenomenon systematically across democracy and autocracy. The contribution of this article is twofold. First, it offers a unified approach to study leader-driven power expansion – incumbent takeovers – across the political regime spectrum. Second, drawing from 11 datasets and original data collection and coding, we introduce a new, comprehensive dataset on 495 individual takeover events carried out by 279 political leaders in 132 countries in the period 1918–2019. We provide estimates of the takeover onset years, the time to takeover, the length of the takeover spells, and discuss the differences between distinct indicators, inter alia. Future research may leverage these data for a better understanding of the drivers of incumbent takeovers as well as the role of takeovers in regime change, civil wars, coups, and uprisings.