Autocratic Elections: Stabilizing Tool or Force for Change?

The research argues that autocratic elections create a temporal trade-off: they increase the immediate risk of regime failure by serving as focal points for opposition collective action, but enhance long-term stability by improving the regime's capacity for co-optation, repression, and legitimacy. Using data from 115 countries, the authors find that this pattern is most pronounced in multi-party contested elections. The study employs Instrumental Variables Probit models to suggest that the short-term destabilizing effect is causal and not merely a result of strategic timing by autocrats.

• Autocratic elections increase the probability of regime failure in the short term, particularly immediately following the election event.
• In the medium-to-long term, the institution of elections serves to stabilize autocratic regimes, increasing their survival probability after the initial turbulent period.
• The destabilizing and stabilizing effects are significantly more pronounced in multi-party contested elections than in uncontested ones.
• Elections act as short-term destabilizers by providing 'focal points' that help opposition actors overcome collective action problems and coordinate protests or coups.
• Long-term stability is achieved through mechanisms such as gathering information on opposition strongholds, building organizational capacity, and increasing domestic and international legitimacy.
• Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) estimate that the long-term stabilizing effects typically begin to dominate the short-term risks after approximately six years.
• Using Instrumental Variables (IV) to account for endogeneity, the study finds a causal link between holding an election and an increased risk of regime failure in that same year.
• The research indicates that both executive and legislative elections exhibit similar patterns of short-term instability and long-term stability.

APA

Knutsen, C. H., Nyg˚ard, H. M., & Wig, T. (2015). Autocratic Elections: Stabilizing Tool or Force for Change? Peace Research Institute Oslo. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/4929100f-0801-4a88-9ee1-e8fdcd3e65e2/Autocratic Elections Stabilizing Tool or Force for Change.pdf?inline=true

Chicago

Knutsen, Carl Henrik, H˚avard Mokleiv Nyg˚ard, and Tore Wig. Autocratic Elections: Stabilizing Tool or Force for Change? Peace Research Institute Oslo, 2015. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/4929100f-0801-4a88-9ee1-e8fdcd3e65e2/Autocratic Elections Stabilizing Tool or Force for Change.pdf?inline=true.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Knutsen |first1=Carl Henrik |last2=Nyg˚ard |first2=H˚avard Mokleiv |last3=Wig |first3=Tore |title=Autocratic Elections: Stabilizing Tool or Force for Change? |publisher=Peace Research Institute Oslo |date=9 December 2015 |url=https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/4929100f-0801-4a88-9ee1-e8fdcd3e65e2/Autocratic Elections Stabilizing Tool or Force for Change.pdf?inline=true |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{knutsen2015autocratic, author = {Knutsen, Carl Henrik and Nyg˚ard, H˚avard Mokleiv and Wig, Tore}, title = {{Autocratic Elections: Stabilizing Tool or Force for Change?}}, institution = {Peace Research Institute Oslo}, year = {2015}, month = dec, url = {https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/4929100f-0801-4a88-9ee1-e8fdcd3e65e2/Autocratic Elections Stabilizing Tool or Force for Change.pdf?inline=true}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }