Authoritarian elections present a dilemma for opposition political parties. Should the opposition participate in elections that are largely unfair? Should the opposition boycott the elections or resort to extra-electoral means? What explains the choice of strategy among key opponents of a regime? The goal of this project is to further our understanding of the opposition's strategic choices in authoritarian elections. Focusing on a strategy - boycotting - that occurs more often under authoritarian regimes, this dissertation builds a framework for understanding the set of strategies adopted by opposition parties in authoritarian elections. In particular, I develop an incomplete information model of opposition strategies to explain when opposition forces willingly participate in elections, when they engage in an electoral boycott. The predictions of the model are evaluated with both qualitative and quantitative methods. I first examine the predictions of the model using case studies of Jordan and Algeria, constructing narratives of elections and opposition strategies in each country. Second, I test the propositions derived from the model cross-nationally using a unique dataset of every national-level election (both parliamentary and presidential) held between 1990 and 2008. A central argument of the dissertation is that the opposition's perceptions of regime legitimacy are an important determinant of its strategic decisions. Specifically, this dissertation demonstrates how changes in the opposition's beliefs concerning the legitimacy of the regime drive changes in the strategies adopted.

The role of unfair elections in breakdown or maintenance of electoral authoritarian regimes has been subject to debate in recent research. On the one hand, the conduct of elections may serve to enhance popular legitimacy and deter challenges to the regime. On the other hand, electoral manipulation may contribute to grievances that fuel mass protest. However, empirical research on the consequences of electoral manipulation for popular support has been limited by the availability of appropriate survey data and has mostly focused on summary or process-based assessments of electoral unfairness. The premise of this study is that electoral manipulation is difficult to assess due to its inherent complexity and ambiguity. As a result, citizens are likely to use cognitive shortcuts to interpret electoral manipulation. Applying psychological theories of justice and motivated political reasoning in this context, this project aims to investigate how both process- and outcome-based assessments of election unfairness influence summary judgments of election quality, regime support, and support for electoral protest. It further seeks to determine how voters' political preferences bias, or condition, the impact of election unfairness evaluations. These propositions are tested using novel data from the XIX New Russia Barometer survey, conducted shortly after the controversial 2011 Russian State Duma election that triggered mass electoral protests. This study finds that perceived election outcome unfairness affects reactions to elections alongside assessments of the electoral process; it also shows evidence of partisan reasoning in evaluations of election unfairness. Ultimately, this project points to some factors that may explain the diverging consequences of electoral manipulation for popular support.

The aim of this thesis is to study how electoral authoritarian regimes remain resilient over time, by observing how they handle challenges to their rule. More specifically, the thesis will focus on the strategies used to legitimize further rule. This will be achieved by conducting a case study on Rwanda and investigating how the Rwandan government uses insecurity and threat perception to legitimize further rule during the period 2010-2019. The theoretical framework consists of both Andreas Schedler’s definition of an electoral authoritarian regime as well as securitization theory. The material used is speech acts by important actors from the time period in question as well as law changes and information on how existing laws are used. With the use of critical discourse analysis, the thesis concludes that the Rwandan government has developed a discourse of traitor/patriot by securitizing traitors, strategically varying in intensity throughout the time period. Political opposition is effectively repressed by referring to the threats mentioned in the speech acts. To successfully circumvent the main flaw of electoral authoritarian regimes according to Schedler’s theory (uncertainty), the Rwandan government creates uncertainties themselves and then refers to the very same uncertainties to legitimize continuous rule.