The Instrumentalisation of Mass Media in Electoral Authoritarian Regimes

Evidence from Russia's Presidential Election Campaigns of 2000 and 2008

Nozima Akhrarkhodjaeva

• Publisher: Ibidem Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9783838270135
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Propaganda política

Focusing on the case of Russia during Putin's first two presidential terms, this book examines media manipulation strategies in electoral authoritarian regimes. Which instruments and approaches do incumbent elites employ to skew media coverage in favor of their preferred candidate in a presidential election? What effects do these strategies have on news content? Based on two case studies of the presidential election campaigns in Russia in 2000 and in 2008, this investigation identifies the critical internal mechanisms according to which these regimes work.

Looking at the same country while it transformed from a competitive into a hegemonic authoritarian regime, allows a diachronic comparison of these two regime types. The book explicates the subtle differences between competitive and hegemonic regimes, different types of media manipulation strategies, the diverging extent of media instrumentalization, various interactions among state actors, large business owners, the media, and journalists, the respective effects that all these factors and interactions have on media content, and the peculiar types of bias prevalent in each type of regime. This deep exploration of post-Soviet politics is based on extensive review of documents, interviews with media professionals, and quantitative as well as qualitative content analyses of news media during two Russian presidential election campaigns.

1. Hybrid regimes: types and measurements

1.1. Introduction

Although the third wave of democratisation[3] led to the emergence of new democracies, not all autocracies democratised; instead, they followed distinct trajectories. Some of them transitioned to democracies, while many others either remained stable or became increasingly authoritarian, paving the way for research on hybrid regimes and new forms of authoritarianism. The proliferation of anocracies not only posed a challenge to existing dichotomous regime typologies (e.g., Przeworski et al. 2000) but also encouraged research on prospects of the democratisation of these regimes (e.g., Lindberg 2006; Brownlee 2007; Bunce and Wolchik 2011; Levitsky and Way 2010) and even triggered a debate among scholars studying conflicts (e.g., Sean Fox and Kristian Hoelscher 2011; Mansfield and Snyder 2002; 2005; for a critical review of Mansfield and Snyder’s work, see Bogaards 2009). This chapter aims to give an overview of the emergent debate on hybrid regimes, and pursues several goals arranged and elaborated in the following six sections.

In the first section, following the recent scholarship on hybrid regimes, I argue that hybrid regimes have to be studied separately as distinct types of regimes. To support this argument, I present regime data from different sources that show that these regimes are present in approximately one-third of the world. In addition, for the case of post-Soviet states, I demonstrate that hybrids are not as unstable as claimed. Finally, I give some examples from the recent literature on hybrid regimes, demonstrating that internal dynamics and prospects of democratisation in these regimes are distinct from other regime types, whether democracies or closed autocracies. These examples all support the claim that hybrids should not be neglected or considered as temporary forms, but rather should be studied separately. Research should move beyond attempting to conceptualise and measure these new species; it should put more emphasis on studying the internal mechanism of these regimes in detail.

Second, an overview of different types of hybrid regimes and the strategies used to conceptualise these regimes are detailed. For the purpose of presenting conceptual debate, hybrids are divided into two groups, autocracies and democracies, “with adjectives.” Further, classical subtypes and diminished subtypes of regimes are discussed; in addition, some conceptually confusing terms that have been used previously by scholars are critically assessed.

The third section is devoted to a discussion of different types of typologies. Here, three distinct types are detailed: dichotomous, continuous, and trichotomous typologies. The section argues that the latter, the trichotomous typology, is the most useful in studying regimes, as it is able to cover more cases.

In the next section, the operationalisation of concepts is discussed. Using post-Soviet cases, I show the existing disagreement in the literature as to which category cases are to be assigned. Disagreement is present not only in scholarly publications but also in regime data sets. I argue that concepts such as “competitive” and “hegemonic” authoritarian regimes are useful; however, confusion arises when scholars try to come up with measurements. This section critically evaluates the measurements and operationalisation of hybrid regimes. It outlines the imp...