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Stolen Elections vs Stolen Votes: Politicization through Elections in Russia

2011-12

Natalya Savelyeva, Margarita Zavadskaya

Department of Political Science, Higher School of Economics, Saint Petersburg, Russia &

Department of Social and Political Sciences, European University Institute, Fiesole, Italy

Laboratory for Public Sociology (PS Lab), Saint Petersburg, Russia

European University Institute (Badia Fiesolana), via dei Roccettini 9, 50014 San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy Margarita.Zavadskaya@EUI.EU Acknowledgements

Authors express deep gratitude to the colleagues from PS Lab for shared data as well as numerous

comments and criticism, Mikhail Gabowitsch for sharing his data, Alexey Gilev for his professional

assistance and advice, and Oleg Zhuravlev, Hanspeter Kriesi, Olessia Lobanova, Richard Sakwa, Andrey

Semenov, Irina Soboleva and Alexander Trechsel for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. All

mistakes are ours.

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Stolen Elections vs Stolen Votes: Politicization through Elections in Russia 2011-12

The ambiguous conduct of the State Duma elections of the 4th of December 2011 and

voters’ outrage provoked many scholarly debates over the prospects of civic movement and

regime change in Russia. However recent developments coupled with an overall

enfeeblement of the opposition and civic organizations seem to contradict the optimistic

forecasts of civic protest and liberalization in Russia In this study we return to the post-

electoral protests of 2011-12 and look into the specific mechanism and dynamics of

elections as 'a transformative event' and one of the causes of the Movement For Fair

Elections by using two types of empirical evidence: semi-structural interviews, collected

during the protest campaigns of 2011-12 and quantitative analysis of protest frames

drawing on PEPS dataset. We argue that regime’s liberalization prepared the ground for

increase in political participation, while perceived electoral malpractice by thousands of

voters served as a sufficient condition for further protests.

Keywords: protest; elections; Russia; electoral integrity; For Fair Elections

Introduction

The ambiguous conduct and outcomes of the State Duma elections of the 4th of December 2011

and voters’ outrage afterwards provoked many scholarly debates over the reasons, mechanisms

and prospects of civic movement and regime change in Russia. However the recent patriotic turn

coupled with an overall enfeeblement of the opposition and civic organizations seem to

contradict the optimistic forecasts of civic protest and liberalization in Russia (Gel’man 2013).

Where are those who took into the streets in 2011-12, observed elections and put white ribbons

as a symbol of the Movement for Free and Fair Elections on their vehicles and suits? Did they

change their minds? Are most of the protesters the same (or partly the same) people who support

the current political developments in Russia? In order to understand the roots of civic

mobilization and political regime support as well as the regime’s response to the threat the streets

it is fruitful to go back to the mass uprisings in Russian industrial cities and especially Moscow

in 2011-12 and movement For Free and Fair elections and explore the mechanisms of

politicization through elections. The latter could provide a key to understanding the logic of

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politicization through pivotal political events in highly depoliticized context (Politika

apolitichnykh 2014).

The For Free and Fair elections unfolded right after the State Duma elections in

December of 2011 and turned out to be the most massive and persistent since 1993. Why

elections trigger the mass upheaval? If it was the lack of electoral integrity that brought about the

mass discontent, why now and not in 2008, when the spread of electoral malpractice was about

the same or even worse (Gudkov 2011, Kalinin 2012)? Students of social movements and

experts on Russian politics advanced several answers to why- and why now-questions. Usually

the answer resembles the ending of famous “Murder in Orient express” where every single

suspect contributed to the victim’s death. This research seeks rather a parsimonious explanation,

than exhaustive through defining necessary and sufficient conditions for protests to emerge.

We suppose that during the mass mobilization of 2011-12 elections to the State Duma

were not merely a pretext for expressing the accumulated grievances of 'the angry citizens',

rather an event that mobilized those who would not have taken part in any street protest

otherwise. 'The eventfullness' of elections lies in their ability to drive mass mobilization that

would not have occurred and would have had diverse outcomes (Bunce and Wolchik 2010). On

the other hand, the ad hoc mobilization through an individual act of casting the ballot and

potential witnessing of electoral fraud may outrage and thereby push a voter toward joining the

protest. When the numbers of protesters are high, the probability for a random person to turn out

exponentially increases (Kuran 1991). The presence of ordinary people not related with political

activists plays a decisive role in collective action’s success (Lohmann 1994). Opposition

strengthening and spread of electronic media resulted in the growing significance of elections,

that four years prior were hardly associated with the regime legitimacy and an institution

affecting the internal politics (Rose and Mishler 2009; on mass media effects see Enikolopov et

al. 2013), turned from 'nobody's business' into ' a private matter'. On the other hand, ad hoc

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mobilization leads to a superfluous or ‘thin’ politicization and rather spurs further interest in

politics, than necessarily defines person’s political colors.

How does the ‘thin’ politicization through elections work? The feeling of deepest insult

forced people into the streets. In these sense elections as a transformative event followed the

logic that triggers political mobilization in a depoliticized environment (Zhuravlev 2014). The

incapacity of the power to secure 'the procedural legitimacy' prepared the ground for an acute

perception of electoral fraud (Case 2006, 95-112, Gel’man 2011). These two factors constitute

the mechanism that mobilized large numbers of previously indifferent people.

We argue that regime’s liberalization and decreased level of repression prepared the

ground for increase in political participation, while perceived electoral malpractice by thousands

of voters served as a sufficient condition for further protests. At the same time the simultaneous

experience and perception of fraud constitutes a phenomenon of a ‘thin’ politicizisation that

revives interest in politics and re-establishes the connections between an average voter and the

public sphere, but does not define future trajectories of a voter’s political stances.

We look into the mechanism and dynamics of elections as 'a transformative event' and

one of the causes of the Movement For Fair Elections by using two types of empirical evidence:

the semi-structural interviews, collected during the protest campaigns of 2011-12 the Public

Sociology Lab (PS Lab) and PEPS (Protest Events, Photos, and Slogans) dataset. We start with

the literature overview and introduce the context of Russian post-electoral protests. Secondly, we

proceed with a mechanism that unpacks the process how elections have become 'a personal

matter' and why electoral frauds lead to unusually powerful mobilizing effect. Third section

offers a statistical analysis of slogan type frequency over time, unveiling the dynamics and

dominant frames.

Electoral Integrity and Protests: Russian Context

Previous scholarship on post-electoral protests emphasizes the importance of electoral fraud as a

trigger for protests and elections as a focal point that solves the collective action problem and

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facilitates coordination (Kuntz and Thompson 2009; Bunce and Wolchik 2011; Norris 2014).

Kuntz and Thompson note that even rigged elections in authoritarian regimes provide the regime

with formal legitimacy, as citizens still believe in their abilities to affect the political process.

Outright fraud and vote stealing demolish one of the main pillars of the regime (2009, 51).

Procedural violations engender resentment, which would not have occurred in situations where

these expectations are unjustified. A study by Tucker shows the importance of major electoral

fraud for electoral revolutions (‘stolen’ election) (2007). Those living under authoritarian

regimes, share discontent with existing power because of corruption and civil rights

discrimination. However, expression of this discontent in everyday circumstances usually incurs

high costs and has few prospects of success. Although in the situations of fraudulent elections

the cost-benefit calculus alters. Tucker distinguishes between two types of fraud: minor

violations, which are perceived by potential protesters as having little impact on electoral

outcomes, and major violations, which, vice versa, are believed to be outcome changing. It is the

evidence of major electoral fraud heightens the odds of success and simultaneously decreases the

costs of individual participation. The latter makes protests more likely (2007). Thus, the unique

feature of elections is that the whole country experiences the same grievance at the same time.

Elections represent one of this kind of events: “Stolen elections do: stealing the results creates

an “imagined community” of millions of robbed voters” and encourages an overall mobilization

(Tucker 2007, 260).

However it still remains puzzling why not every rigged elections bring about the protests.

As some studies suggest, it is not the absolute level of malpractice that affects the probability of

mass outcry, rather a noticeable change in electoral malpractice/integrity from previous elections

that makes a real difference (Polese and Beacháin 2011). However, there is no agreement on

weather it should be a relative deterioration or improvement in electoral integrity that creates

more opportunity for mobilization. Beissinger also links voters' indignation with the absence of

previous practice of falsifications, which results in voters' surprise and frustration (2007).

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Incumbent' deposition becomes more difficult after his oath and receipt of a legitimate right to

run the country; this is why regimes are more vulnerable during electoral campaigns, when the

threat of repression is unlikely (Beissinger 2007, Bhasin and Gandhi 2013). On the other hand,

changes in electoral integrity may have opposite effects depending on type of authoritarianism:

in closed regime the increase in electoral integrity unleashes the probability of protest, while in

more contested autocracies a relative decrease in electoral integrity drives voters’ protests

(Goldsmith 2014).

From this perspective Russian elections constitute a puzzle that somewhat contradicts

these theoretical expectations: by many expert accounts elections of 2007-8 were by no means

cleaner in terms of electoral integrity (Kalinin 2012, Bader and van Ham 2014), what implies

that the relative increase in electoral integrity seems to ease mass unrest in big cities. On the

other hand, Russian political regime in 2008-2011 was still an example of contested autocracy,

rather than of a hegemonic one (Freedom House 2012). Given this, we address more context-

specific factors apart from systemic correlates of protests like repression and electoral

malpractice that could also lead to the mass resentment.

Some analysts mention the crisis of power legitimacy and recent financial crisis among

the main drivers of the protests: on the eve of elections there was a sustainable decrease of the

United Russia ratings and the ruling “tandem” of Putin and Medvedev linking this tendency with

the consequences of the financial crisis and the public demand for “changes” (Rogov 2011),

including elite groups (Belanovskiy and Dmitriyev 2011). Others draw attention to the crucial

role of 'the castling' or ‘job swap’ when president Putin at the XII party congress of 'the United

Russia' announced his intention to come into presidential office again (Gudkov et al. 2012). A

third group of scholars bridge the protest waves with Medvedev's 'liberalization' that, on the one

hand, brought about popular movements that became the basis for further protest mobilization,

and, on the other hand, gave a handle to the steep demands from both voters and elites (Gel’man

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2013). In this study we make use of the literature on electoral integrity and malpractice

combining with internal political regime dynamics to disentangle the puzzle of mass protests.

As long as the real level of electoral fraud is hidden from observers, one should take into

account perceptions of procedural justice and substantive fairness (see Sedziaka and Rose 2015).

It is the public unveiling of the electoral fraud incidents that triggered the outrage and pushed to

the streets even those who had not had any previous political experience. Despite the fact that

this fraud had been anticipated and after all did not considerably differ from violations in

previous elections, as Volkov argues, 'it is not the fraud per se that have become a news and

revelation, rather an aggravated attention to this issue and the very actions undertaken by an

active part of the society, the minority' (2012). The latter serves as a critical addition to current

literature on the consequences of electoral malpractice.

Stolen Elections vs Stolen Votes: How Procedural Fairness Transform into Protest

Rigged elections can be transformed into an independent protest agenda per se due to two

reasons. Firstly, the time of elections decreases the costs of participation - less repression, more

international attention etc. Secondly, elections facilitate mobilization because of the

simultaneous involvement of large number of people. However there is a caveat that requires

clarification: most of the literature on post-electoral protests links elections with the character of

fraud. Decrease in participation costs holds when one observes 'stolen elections' and 'major' fraud

(Tucker 2007). While the paradox of the Russian elections is that they were not, strictly

speaking, “stolen” in a sense of close race and miniscule margin of victory that could have been

potentially stolen.

Despite the fact that previous liberalization allowed the opposition to gain some strength

and promote new leaders – city movements’ activists – who entered the political arena, the

opposition before and after the protests remained weakly consolidated and offered neither a

candidate, nor action plan. The revision of voting records – the first claim of post-electoral

protest – would not have considerably affected the electoral outcomes. As mentioned earlier,

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electoral fraud of 2011 was not unexpected for the voters. As some experts argue the level of

fraud does not dramatically differ from “the norm” (5-8%) (Gudkov 2011). There are noticeable

gaps between the survey results by Levada Center and official data in big cities: “According to

our estimates the UR could hardly get more than 30% of votes. There is a quite similar picture in

Saint Petersburg” (Gudkov 2011). In Moscow according to the exit poll carried out by FOM

reported 27.5% of respondents voted for the UR, which is considerably lower than the official

voting returns (46.6%) (Il’ichev 2011). Another survey conducted in November 2011 by the

Levada-center reports that 42% of respondents were certain that upcoming elections would be

'dirty' against 37% who believed in 'clean' elections, 51% of respondents agreed with the

statement that elections 'will be just an imitation of political competition, when the seats in the

State Duma will be distributed by power discretion'.

We contend that the very mechanism of mobilization differs from that one of “classical”

electoral revolutions. In the case of Russian protests, a whole bunch of necessary mobilizing

factors according to “color revolutions” literature (e.g. Tucker 2007) is absent, but elections

become the trigger of protests. We argue that this is a depoliticized context that creates favorable

conditions for the elections to trigger mass mobilization. Elections constitutes an ideal form that

provides an opportunity for the mass mobilization especially in a depoliticized context, as the

participation in protest actions gives a feeling of unity with others, but not through collective

action, rather through an individualized and private action of casting the ballot1. Thus, the fraud,

despite its “insignificance”, nonetheless creates an imagined community of robbed voters by

providing mass nature of participation. Besides, the individualized nature of the voting act makes

the perception of fraud, regardless of their expectedness, as “a moral shock” or perception of

procedural unfairness (Jasper 2011, Sedziaka and Rose 2015) and, therefore, not 'the stolen

elections', but rather 'the stolen votes' become the protest trigger.

1 Overcoming depoliticization [Преодолевая деполитизацию: диалог участников Коллектива

исследователей политизации] // Polititicheskaya kritika. 2013. № 1. Pp. 212--227.

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Data

In order to back up our argument we use two types of evidence: semi-structured interviews

collected during and after the protests of 2011-12 by researchers from Public Sociology

Laboratory (PS Lab) and a unique collection of protest slogans by Mikhail Gabowitsch PEPS

(Protest Events, Photos, and Slogans). The semi-structured interviews help explain the subjective

mechanism of mobilizing power of elections. PS Lab collected 178 interviews in Saratov (1),

Volgograd (1), Saint-Petersburg (9) and Moscow (11) during 23 protest events including rallies,

marches and elections to the opposition representative organs from December 24, 2011 to

January 13, 2013. Duration of interviews varied from 5 to 50 minutes, but most of them took

from 10 to 20 minutes. The sample includes respondents with different age, education,

occupation, income and political views.

The second dataset includes the data on the frequency of protests 2011-2012, types of

slogans and dynamics of the repressive moves by the regime for each day. The data come from

the collection of slogans PEPS2 (Protest Events, Photos, and Slogans) gathered for the period of

November 2011-October 2012, as well as the data on global events GDELT (Global Data on

Event, Location, and Tone)3. A large-N analysis has always been a blind spot in virtually every

study of protests as it is hard to capture valid data on the frequency and number of protest actions

as well as to account for the protest repertoire. This issue becomes particularly strained when it

comes to analyzing authoritarian regimes. Very often the data registered by the police and local

authorities who are the initiators of legal protests are supposed to inform in advance are heavily

accessible and reliable. An alternative would be to employ the self-reported participation in the

protests from the mass surveys gathered on spot in the protest days (see Levada Center surveys).

However, these data are rarely available for each protest event that took place even within a

2 The data have been kindly furnished by Mikhail Gabowitsch For more detail, please, see

http://gabowitsch.net/peps/ 3 More detailed analysis of this data source see: http://gdeltproject.org/data.html

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relatively short time-span – 4-5 months in our case – and for very region. Protests in Moscow

and Saint Petersburg attracted much more media attention compared to the province.

The PEPS dataset contains the slogans registered at the protest actions devoted to fair

elections from November 2011 to October 2012. The highest frequency has been registered for

the period of December 2011-May 2012. The particular attention will be paid to this time-span

including the legislative electoral campaign in the State Duma of the Russian Federation

(December 4th, 2011) and the presidential elections (March 4th, 2012). The dataset has the

slogans collected from the actions all over the territory of Russia and beyond, i.e. the protests

organized by the Russian-speaking population living abroad. This dataset differs from the most

of its analogues as the main source are the photo or visual materials provided by the witnesses of

protests and protesters themselves – blog entries, photo reports, news and analytical articles, the

dataset counted each documented slogan as a separate entry even if it repeats and fixes the date

and place of event. This allows studying claims and forms of protesters’ self-expressing relying

upon the unprecedented level of detail as PEPS contains photos and links to their initial sources

that makes it trustworthy source and available for replication.

Despite the fact that the PEPS may not encompass every single protest documented

within the time-span of interest and we do believe that for the moment it is the most reliable data

source on slogans that taps into the protests in the capitals and regions in the fullest way

possible. The latter provides us with a unique opportunity to trace how the protesters were

articulating their motivation. Based on the analysis of more than 6000 slogans, for each protest

action – meeting, demonstration, rally etc. – we documented the frequency and share of slogans

that have been coded in two ways: types of protest frame and subject of a statement4.

4 In order to assure the reliability of the coding procedure we carried out the intercoder check by three

independent coders of 1000 slogans. The overlap is 79-80%.

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The data are aggregated on daily level. The daily dynamics depicts the oscillation in protests as

detailed as possible and close to the reality, while the aggregation on monthly basis allows us to

catch smoother trends, cleared up of “noise” and observe more general patterns.

Methods

Empirical analysis has two steps: statistical analysis of protest slogans and discourse analysis of

interviews with protest movement participants. The quantitative analysis allows for more

rigorous overview of the dominant frames’ dynamic over time, while the interviews provide us

with deeper insight into participants’ motivations and understanding of electoral process.

We split the argument into two claims:

Claim 1: Procedural Unfairness: There is a link between the scale of protests and

dissatisfaction with the procedural fairness of the elections.

In order to test this hypothesis we resort to the toolkit of the frame analysis (Snow et al.

1986). We define frames as interpretation schemes that help understand the situation and events

and allow individuals to establish the link between their own discontent and collective agenda,

which were producing a mobilizing effect at different stages of protests from December 2011 to

April 2012.

Claim 2: “Thin” Politicization: The perception of elections as “a private matter”

constitutes a strong motivational factor.

In order to find any underpinnings for this claim we differentiate between several types of

slogans that are coded according to the claimant or actor on whose behalf a message is

articulated:

• pronouns of the first person singular (“I”),

• pronouns of the second person plural (“We”)

• and impersonal statements.

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Then we analyze their contribution in the scale of protest as the statements from the first

person perspective reflect the personal attitude towards the elections. The operationalization of

the frames and identifying the subjects of statements will be described later.

Frame is in the social movement studies are the schemes of interpretation that allow the

individuals to locate, realize, identify and label various events and situations (Snow et al. 1986,

464). This is why independently on movement’ features a necessary condition of participation

becomes the process of the frame alignment. Frame alignment is the process that provides the

link between individual interpretations and interpretations suggested by the social movement or

its key actors. The latter results in these individual interests, values and attitudes get the

reference with the activities, goals and ideology of a social movement. As Lindekilde remarks,

the frame analysis, paying special attention to the causes of participation and mobilization,

focuses primarily on how previously defined ideological constructs are strategically used to

frame a specific theme (2014).

Taking into account the fact that neither before the beginning of the mass protests, nor

after the social movement For Fair Elections did not have any identifiable leaders or

organizations who could have taken the responsibility for creating any mobilizing frames, we use

the term frame implying that the emergence of particular frames has not been only a result of the

political leaders’ interactions, but its ordinary participants. Thus, we have identified seven basic

mobilizing frames that have been articulated in the slogans5:

(1) frame of the fair elections

(2) frame of the anti-regime or anti-Putin opposition

5 In order to interpret the slogans and attach a particular frame label to them, we were also referring to the

interviews collected during the meetings, using them as another source for interpretation which

allowed us to catch the motivation and ideas behind each slogan. We were looking at the interviews

and slogans as different parts of the same “text” generated by the movement. For more detail on the

combining frame analysis with discourse analysis see Lindekilde (2014).

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(3) frame of the violated human rights

(4) frame of the solidarity

(5) frame of the social policy claims

(6) frame of the self-values of emotion and their expression

(7) residual category.

The latter category includes all those slogans that deliberately cannot be put in any basket. For

instance, such unclear statements that contains appeals like “The huge country is rising!”

(Vstavai, strana ogromnaya!), which is the literal citation of the first line of the famous song

from the period of the World War II. Such instances can hardly be assigned to any of

aforementioned frames6.

The first frame is the frame of fair elections. At the core is the dissatisfaction with the

procedural side of elections, discontent with fraud expressed through the claims of fair elections,

calling for the re-elections, vote recount, Vladimir Churov’s (the head of the Central Electoral

Commission) resignation through the shaming and blaming of the fraud organizers,

demonstrating the evidence of rigging and doctoring, refusal of the procedural fairness of

elections and legitimacy of newly re-elected power that obtained its power in the unfair play (We

did not choose you!). Besides, this category captures the slogans indicating at the fact of the vote

stealing (My vote has been stolen! Give me back my vote, magician!7) and emotions brought

6 Perhaps, this example serves as a building block for the so-called ‘abstract collective identity’ praising

the self-value of solidarity. 7 The nickname “magician” was given to the head of the Central Electoral Commission Vladimir Churov

who on December 6th declared that his electoral forecast turned out to be the most precise. “You are

almost a magician as some party leaders call you”, - the president Dmitry Medvedev praised him.

“I’m just learning”, - replied Churov, having quoted a famous Soviet movie Cinderella

(Zolushka)(1947). These words as well as the screenshot of the news report on one of the central

channels Russia 24 showing that in the region of Rostov 146,47% of voters cast their ballot,

immediately became a subject of several jokes and mock installations during the protest (The

Alphabet of Protest, Azbuka protesta, Moscow 2012)

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about by fraud and power holders cynicism (They cheated on us! We are deceived! We are no

scum!).

The second frame we coined as “opposition” frame as it brings together the slogans that

express the discontent with the political regime and its key representatives: Vladimir Putin,

Dmitri Medvedev and the party of power United Russia. This box contains the statements

shaming the power holders and indicating a strong negative attitude towards them: Putin, go

away!, For the third term … in jail!, I’m for my darling, not for the United Russia!, United

Russia – the party of swindlers and thieves!, “EdRo (from Yedinaya Rossiya – United Russia-

N.S., M.Z.) to the trash can!, IS IT MY president?!.

The third frame is connected with the claims for the law compliance and respect of the

human rights and the Constitution: freedom of speech and mass media, release of political

prisoners, fight against the corruption, control over judges, police etc. These claims are united by

the appeal to the rules and procedure, this is why they are distinct from the social and economic

claims that refer to legal arguments, rather than social fairness and equity, and from the claim for

free and fair elections (e.g. registration of the opposition candidates and parties, re-introducing of

the “none of the above” option or lowering of the electoral threshold), that, judging by the

interviews, also refer to the legal grounds, however, constitute a separate category.

The fourth frame reflects the value of support and solidarity between protesters from

different cities and countries, which is captured in such slogans as: We are with you! Ufa,

Hamburg is with you!

The fifth frame is the frame that is linked with the claims for specific social policies and

drawing attention to the social problems of the particular people or social groups. I include into

this category such slogans as: Where is the accessible accommodation, damn it?, The city for the

pedestrians and cyclists! Give my 1991 bank savings back! How to survive on pension?! Gas

prices are too low! (ironic-M.Z.), Greetings from the humor show “Accessible accommodation

to the young families!”

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Finally, the sixth frame taps into the expression of emotions towards actual and potential

protesters. As opposed to other frames that unite the slogans that target at the power holders as

the principal litigant, these statements address their fellow citizens. Through this framing an

imagined community was created through assertion that “they are just like us”. These statements

are associated with the creation of the communicative space from the inside of the meeting. The

examples are: Nice to meet you!, Policeman, remember: you son is in this crowd!, Thanks for

coming!, Tomorrow we’ll be genuinely smiling! OMON8, remember, you’re not a pinion gear,

you’re the human!, Hey you, on the stage! Happy birthday, the civil society! Together we can!

The next important parameter is the distinction of the subject of statement. During the

analysis of each slogan, it has been fixed who the claimant is by putting them into three

categories: from the first person (singular) (My vote has been stolen! Putin is not my president!),

from the first person (plural) (We’re not an opposition, we’re your employers!), and impersonal

statements (Putin, go away! Russia, rise up!). The use of “I” in this case may indicate at the level

of “privatization” of the event or situation. It must be noted that we excluded all the quotations

from popular movies, songs, public speeches, literature or anecdotes. These slogans have been

coded as impersonal together with other slogans on behalf of the people, citizenry etc.

Analysis

Overview of Protest Slogans

On the Figure 1 it is clear that the heydays of protests were in December 2011 and March 2012

with minor peaks in February and April 20129. The spread of the protest moods remains quite

high between the legislative and presidential elections, while the protest wave withers away after

the presidential elections.

8OMON is Russian specialized police forces 9 It must be reminded that these data do not mirror the reality; they are jus approximations of the

frequencies of media messages. This is why they tend to ignore less salient and large-scale protest

actions (conservative bias),so there might be a risk of underestimating of some events.

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[Figure 1 near here]

Addressing the frame combinations (configurations), ways of definition, explication of

the events, it is noticeable that in daily perspective (see Figure 2) in December there is an

outright domination of the motives connected with unfair elections and stolen votes. The

opposition frame seems to be playing a secondary role. Then the number of slogans referring to

the electoral integrity drops as if they are superseded by more opposition and socially oriented

claims. Perhaps it is linked with the fact that in most of the regions the protest agenda in the end

of January and February the local and regional branches of the political parties (e.g. CPRF)

recaptured the initiative (Lobanova and Semenov 2013, 5-19). The frame of fair elections and

stolen elections somewhat belatedly emerges only in April 2012, which echoes the aftermath of

presidential elections on the 4th of March 2012. The most pronounced pattern is seen on the

Figure 3, where the frame of ‘fair elections’ swap with the anti-regime opposition frame, which

often justifies the slogans not via laws and facts, but via moral norms, emotions and political

preferences.

[Figures 2, 3 near here]

An overwhelming majority of the slogans do not contain any information on the subject

of statement (see Figure 4). Nevertheless, speaking of the link between various frames, it is the

statements from the first person (I-identification) that are the most closely connected and

significantly related with the frame of “fair elections” and “personal insult”. We-identification –

a statement on behalf of the collectivity – is more frequent than the statements on behalf of the

individuals. On the other hand, these slogans do not demonstrate any strong association with the

frequency off any of the frames as opposed to the “I”-identification.

[Figures 4, 5 near here]

According to the first claim mentioned above, the frame of “unfair elections” may be considered

as a self-sustained mobilizing agenda, not just a final straw or pretext to voice the grievances. An

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assumption underlying this claim is that the December protests could have been triggered by

substantively distinct combination of factors, than the previous protest waves. In other words, the

way people frame the protest and their role in them is specific for each protest and various

frames possess different mobilizing mechanisms.

Figure 5 demonstrates the share of slogans reflecting the mass dissatisfaction with the

existing political regime (opposition frame) and slogans reflecting the quality of electoral

processes (fair elections). What is remarkable is that in December predominantly anti-regime

slogans constituted only 13-14%, when the slogans compromising the fairness and legitimacy of

elections made up approximately 35% of all registered slogans10. Anyways, this fact confirms

the claim that part of the slogans belongs not only to the committed anti-regime fighters, rather

to the disgruntled (razgnevannye) voters and observers. It is the frame of fair elections that

spontaneously emerged and gathered under the common “semantic umbrella” all those who had

never been with sympathies with any oppositional ideas or located themselves beyond the

politics, or simply did not believe that everything is insomuch bad (Razgnevannye nablyudateli

2012, 12). Then the share of these slogans shrinks what indicate the decrease in salience of

electoral agenda from the procedural point of view as the mobilizing frame. At the same time,

the share of “purely” oppositional slogans increases and during the second protest wave in

March 2012 it exceeds 20%. As before the quality of electoral processes alarms the protesters,

but this frame became a minor one making up less that 16%.

Evidence from interviews

What made protesters perceived the act of voting as a ‘private matter’? Gladarev (2011) and

Clément (2010), describing Russian social movements of recent decade, underline the role of

10  Obviously, most of the slogans heavily overlap because anti-regime moods and procedural legitimacy

are closely intertwined. Oppositional orientations do not exclude the accusations of the Central

Electoral Commission and other authorities. However, we tried to define the prime and dominant

frame.

18

immediate threat to people's well-being and intrusion into their private sphere as a major

mobilizing force. Intrusion into the private sphere may drive further mobilization. For instance,

the citizens of Saint Petersburg join the city preservation initiatives not because they owe the

buildings or city land, but because perceive Saint Petersburg as something private, their space

and any transformation of the city equals to the intrusion into their home place (Gladarev 2011).

Extending these insights, we argue that elections have become a mobilizing agenda because they

turned from nobody's business into private matter. Evidence from collected interviews suggests

that a casted vote – 'my vote', 'stolen vote' – bridged individual act of voting with power

decisions. McAllister and White underline that as opposed to external observers, the voters cast a

ballot on their own and, therefore, in a certain sense they cast their own vote, which they owe.

Thus, the voters extend their 'property rights' to electoral outcomes (2011). Obviously, these

'property rights' do not always form the ground for discontent with fraud. Thus, we are dealing

with a response to the power intrusion into the privacy by those who do not qualify for

opposition activists.

In our case, the private property right extends to a given vote, which is perceived as a

personal belonging. This is why the phrase 'my vote has been stolen' worth considering in a

literal sense, not just as a metaphor. For instance, one of the participants of 'Observers'

movement', explaining the reasons why he decided to engage in the electoral campaign,

emphasized his wish to track the votes. Thereby, he had made sure that everything with his vote

seems all right, he decided to withdraw himself from the protests:

I didn't go to the meetings, because my vote hadn't been stolen, because I had been

observing, watching my votes and counting (male, worker, September 15th, 2012, Saint

Petersburg).

On the other hand, the vote was not just a stolen belonging. Due to the debates over the voting

strategies (abstention or Nikh-Nikh, spoiling the ballot or Nakh-Nakh) by the tenacious attention

of the mass media to anticipated violations as well as growing dissatisfaction with the existing

19

regime. Consequently, the formal act of voting is endowed with additional moral weight, as one

of the observers posits:

Many voters were coming [at the polling station] with a sincere belief that their decision is

important…it was obvious that for the most of people it is important, that it is not a tribute to

the tradition, rather they were trying to make a decision about their future (Razgnevannye

nablyudateli 2012, 224).

Both strategies of the protest voting – 'For any party, but the UR' and 'Spoil the ballot' (NaKh-

Nakh) – assumed the 'voice' option, rather 'exit' (Hirshman 1970). The choice of party remained

less significant, than the fact of voting and an opportunity not to cast the ballot for the party of

power. To take this opportunity away stands for not to simply violate the Constitution, but “to

trample the last”:

…the last thing, remained at people' disposal – the freedom of speech – is being trampled by

the power (female, age 50, secondary professional education, retiree, October 20th 2012,

Moscow).

This is why the slogan 'I did not vote for these rascals, I voted for the others! Give me back my

vote!' during the winter and spring protests had been sounding much more often than the slogans

supporting any particular party or candidate. Thus, in this case the expression of personal

opinion carved in the act of voting – is initially incorporated into the system of political

representation which becomes a specific form of self-representation (see Zhuravlev et al. 2014).

The immediate cause that pushed the participants to the street boils down to the short

phrase: 'My vote has been stolen, unbashfully and cynically'. Indication at the theft gets us back

to the violations and fraud at specific polling stations and, simultaneously, at the perception that

these elections were marred by blatant fraud. If in the first case we are talking about a specific

vote, in the second case the vote count procedure becomes problematic and results in votes'

depreciation:

20

… Well then, I didn't like falsifications, dishonesty, and impudence. I can't stand such

cynicism. That's why on the rebound of this mayhem I joined [the meeting] (female, middle

age, teacher, 4th of February 2012, Saint Petersburg).

What turned me on is that during the parliamentary elections they even didn't esteem as a

favor to disguise how they were stealing votes. We got in the site of the Butovskaya uprava

(the city administrative board – M.Z., N.S.) or something like this where I reside. We

examined the precinct electoral commission tallies: the UR – 32%, 40%, and …ta-dah!...out

of a clear blue sky – 89%! Everything was in open access. I realized I live on the spot where

the stuffing of sham ballots had occurred. It is that barefaced lie that drove me mad (male,

age 42, higher education, mid-level manager in the sphere of corporate PR, 12th of June

2012, Moscow).

When fraud is insensible, small…well, it happens in every election. But when it happens in

such a massive, undisguised and blatant way, when for some reason bureaucrats decide who

will be the president, but not by the people’s wish, it is really odd (female, age 25, 25th of

February 2012, Saint Petersburg).

The undisguised and shameless way the fraud has been carried out is deeply associated

with the concept of “procedural fairness” (Sedziaka and Rose 2015), which compensates for the

lack of democracy. This “procedural legitimacy” affects the persistence of electoral authoritarian

regimes highly dependent upon the skills to recalibrate the controls by the ruling elites (Case

2006). According to experts, overseeing the current of electoral campaign of 2011, measures

taken by the power looked to such an extent clumsy and crude that it could not remained

unnoticed. In other words, the elites gave a signal that they do not fully control the situation

(Gel’man 2011).

The response to fraud is a consequence of the two phenomena: vote as a private

belonging and perceived procedural fairness and, consequently, fraud. The greater attention to

the elections, personal experience of participation in observation and documented evidence of

fraud nurtured the effect of a bombshell when the expected fraud had transformed into a real

fraud. Many observers, who witnessed violations, put an emphasis on the gap between

“expected” and “actual” falsification, to be more precise – expectations and voters’ personal

experience:

21

Before the Duma elections, I expected some minor violations, but I didn't anticipate such a

dishonor. Now when I have been observing the presidential elections, I saw human meanness

at its best (male, age 22, student, employed in the PR, February 15th 2012, Saint Petersburg).

Thus, the controversy between the “expected” and “actual” fraud resulted in the moral shock and

outrage. The latter pushed previously apolitical people towards the mass actions. Coupled with

the personally witnessed fraud and ballot stuffing and strong moral meaning of the voting act

made the regime crimes tangible and visible.

The coincidence of these factors allowed future protesters to live through the elections as

personal experience, even when they did not spot fraudulent actions. As Prozorov (2012) put it,

for the situation of overall politicization, an autonomous existence of the power and society

without adjoining each other, elections for a time create the public sphere, which transformed the

state and society into political actors from the same field. However, protesters' perception of this

interaction remained largely depoliticized. The personification of the interaction proves this fact.

The fraud was perceived as personal insult, while the actions of power – as expression of

disrespect. This interaction within a newly created public sphere had been re-coded by the

protesters into the format of interpersonal relations, what lead to an unusual rhetoric of personal

communication at the meetings: 'I don't like the way I was treated', 'I was offended by such a

treatment', 'they take us for idiots’, I was taken down', 'Stop ignoring us!' and the most

quintessential – 'You hurt me!'.

Many respondents' statements indicate at the personification within the public sphere and

perception of fraud as 'private matter' who were recalling how they had decided to attend their

first meeting; all of them mention the feelings of indignity and humiliation:

…the biggest push, perhaps, was my almost personal humiliation by Mr. Putin, when he

labeled me with some filthy and disgusting words. After the first meeting which I missed, he

called all the people the Bandar-logs, wearing condoms, and it was about me…At that

moment he humiliated me. I counted as a matter of honor to take part in all forthcoming

protests (male, age 30, higher education, manager, February 4th 2012, Moscow).

22

Yes, I think it is important [for elections to be fair. – M.Z., N.S.], because I'm convinced that

be it any elections, but they must be fair and it shouldn't be forgotten, that we are not fools,

that people has eyes and brains, that we perfectly understand and [they shouldn't] take us for

fools. I'm not sure that we can displace this Putin, because he's backed up by the serious

financial structures. Head of the state, what can be said. But indeed at least to show them,

damn it, that we're not stupid scum, that we see these violations, that we know that you're

cheating. Why are you doing all this? (male, age 30, higher education, March 5th 2012, Saint

Petersburg).

There is another example of a respondent, who managed to prevent electoral fraud at her polling

station:

At 5 a.m. I came back home and burst into tears. I had been given a deep personal offence

(Razgnevvanye nabyudateli 2012, 106).

A lion's share of slogans expresses these emotions even more eloquently: 'We've been

screwed», «You offended me», «We're not scum», «We're not herd», «Stop playing us for fools',

«You should respect me» etc. Thus, the perception of elections as 'a private matter' made the fact

of voting a bridge between the individual and the regime. Because of this bridge, fraud,

regardless its expectedness became the mobilizing agenda. The bureaucrats could not properly

organize the electoral campaign and control the electoral results, and the observers allowed at the

polling stations put the evidence of clumsy and unskillful fraud into the public domain. Thereby

the prospective protesters, having got the true evidence of violations, learnt that their vote had

not just been stolen, but stolen blatantly, outrageously and unashamedly. The regime not simply

ignored the citizens, but also humiliated them. This is why the protest has been a logical

continuation of electoral participation. What makes these protests distinct from Serbian,

Ukrainian and Georgian protests is that voters were striving not only to demonstrate their

outrage, but to declare their existence.

23

Conclusion

Returning to the role of elections as a causal variable, factor of mobilization, it is clear that in

Russian legislative and presidential elections of 2011-2012 are the transformative events that did

not just serve as a pretext for the mass upheaval (Kuntz and Thompson 2009) that unleashed the

accumulated discontent, but rather a self-sustained mobilizing agenda. Mass perception of low

electoral integrity opened a leeway for the previously apolitical citizens to transform into the

active participants of the street politics. Although the mobilization has been anticipated by other

factors – from the liberalization of the regime, disoriented political elite and opportunity window

for the bottom-up movements and strengthening of the opposition leaders to the consequences of

the economic downturn - none of them, even the unfortunate “job swap” between Putin and

Medvedev, resulted in the mass disapproval of the large part of the population, did not trigger the

mass mobilization.

It is the elections that have become an ideal agenda for the depoliticized citizens thanks to

the nurtured susceptibility to the elections as an important event. This individualized experience

of casting the vote shared by the millions has led to the mass protest of the atomized voters. It is

not the case that all the protesters unhappy with the regime were waiting until elections to finally

express their discontent, rather individual voting procedure allowed for the inclusion of

depoliticized participants in the political struggle. Mistakes in the electoral management gave the

pretext to many to make sure in the unfair nature of the elections, the mass media, opposition

leaders and politicized blogosphere created an opportunity for prospective protesters reframe

their participation in elections as “a private matter” by having granted the very act of voting with

moral weight. This is why even mostly expected falsifications have created a moral shock, which

was primarily linked not with the gap between expectations and reality, but the fact of personal

experience of living through this reality.

Despite the fact that the studies of the “color revolutions” often highlight the triggering

role of elections, it is necessary that particular conditions to be present (strong opposition,

“considerable fraud”). Their absence as in the Russian case did not prevent from the emergence

24

of the mass protests. Similar to the movements of the hoodwinked investors or other instances of

the caused activism (Norris 2002), the participants of the movement “For Fair Elections” were

unified by the common grievance that they had lived through. Nevertheless, this specific way of

being involved with politics did not define substantial political preferences and further studies

will show whether some of these protesters disengage or remain in public life under different

political flags.

25

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29

Figure 1. The frequency of the registered mass protests (2011-2012) per day.

Source: GDELT

Figure 2. The frame composition during the protests 2011-12.

 

Source: PEPS

0  

10  

20  

30  

40  

50  

60  Fr

eque

ncy

of p

rote

sts

protest  

0%  10%  20%  30%  40%  50%  60%  70%  80%  90%  100%  

fair  elec8ons   opposi8on   human  rights  (legal  frame)  

solidarity   abstract  claims   social  claims  

emo8ons  

30

Figure 3. The frame dynamics: fair elections vs opposition per month (share in the overall number of slogans)

 

0,00  

0,05  

0,10  

0,15  

0,20  

0,25  

0,30  

0,35  

0,40  

Jan/11   Apr/11   Jul/11   Oct/11   Jan/12   Apr/12   Jul/12   Oct/12  

% fr

om th

e ov

eral

l num

ber o

f slo

gans

pe

r mon

th

fair  elec8ons  opposi8on  

31

Figure 4. Subjects of statements (share from the overall slogans, per day)

 

Source: PEPS

Figure 5. Subject of statements (share from the slogans with I-identification, per month)

Source: PEPS

0%  10%  20%  30%  40%  50%  60%  70%  80%  90%  

100%  

impersonal  We  I  

0,000  

0,020  

0,040  

0,060  

0,080  

0,100  

0,120  

0,140  

Nov/11   Jan/12   Mar/12   May/12   Jul/12   Sept/12   Nov/12  

I   We