Can Authoritarian Electoral Propaganda Compete with the Opposition? Experimental Evidence from Russia

Abstract

We examine the effectiveness of electoral propaganda in an autocracy, using Russia as a unique setting. Exploiting the unexpected release of a pro-regime propaganda video about Vladimir Putin shortly before the presidential election, we conducted a field experiment by randomly promoting the video to voters via a telephone survey and measuring self-reported voting behaviour after the election. Our results show that the pro-regime treatment successfully mobilized offline media consumers to vote for Putin, but failed to persuade online media users, and even backfired among respondents dissatisfied with the regime. Using electoral statistics for all major Russian cities and instrumenting public interest in the propaganda video with rainfall, we find a positive, albeit moderate, causal effect of the video on Putin’s vote share. As an alternative treatment, we used a viral anti-corruption video by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which consistently undermined regime support among both offline and online media consumers.