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Because of a perceived (and real) risk of repressive action, some survey questions are sensitive in more autocratic countries while less so in more democratic countries. Yet, survey data on potentially sensitive topics are frequently used in comparative research despite concerns about comparability. To examine the comparability of politically sensi...
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Context 1
... the level of democracy works as a proxy for whether or not failing to provide the preferred response the social would entail costs to the respondent (4). This setup predicts all items probing for an evaluation of the state or state institutions to be sensitive whereas evaluations of private or non-state actors and institutions are not (see Table 1). Most items are clear cut, but a brief discussion is warranted on the potential sensitivity of questions regarding preference for democracy, army rule, and traditional leaders, where it may be more difficult for respondents to know the referent's preference. ...Context 2
... guiding premise is that questions evaluating the state or state institutions are potentially sensitive whereas evaluations of private or non-state actors and institutions are not. The DVs fall under four categories: Trust; Corruption; Approval; and Values and are listed in Table 1. ...Context 3
... is consistent with theories of preference falsification, which propose that fearful respondents will resort to the safest possible answer. 31 Saying that you do not know or refuse to answer whether you, for example, trust the president can raise suspicion and risk signalling dissent (see Appendix E, Table 21, 22 and 23 for details). ...Context 4
... we split the sample into autocratic and democratic countries using V-Dem's categorical Regimes of the World index, 32 and look at the covariate balance between the two groups of respondents, the pattern of differences is the same. For example, in the democratic sample, the mean level of poverty for those who suspect the government as survey sponsor is 0.14 higher than for those who believe in the survey's independence; in the autocratic sample, this difference is 0.11 (see Appendix D, Table 18). The differences in means between the two groups are similar in both samples, and in the same direction for all demographic variables. ...Context 5
... is not the case: the models are robust to controlling for the ethnic match between the enumerator and respondent, as well as for the enumerator being a coethnic with the key leader. Moreover, by replicating a number of Adida et al. models and adding an interaction between the variable on leader-interviewer coethnicity and level of democracy I show in Figure 5 that the induced biased appears to operate through the logic of the autocratic bias (for full regression tables see Appendix C, Tables 16 and 17): i.e. that the bias is primarily a concern in more autocratic countries and generally not in democratic countries. These interaction graphs display the marginal effect of being interviewed by a non-coethnic enumerator who is coethnic with the country's key leader (potential ethnic threat) for: trust in the president; the ruling party; opposition parties; vendors; corruption perceptions of the office of the president; approval of the president; evaluation of the government handling of the economy; and approval for strongman rule, conditioned on level democracy. ...Similar publications
The article analyzes the relationship between perceptions of corruption and democratic legitimacy in Latin America based on the multidimensional structure of legitimacy. The paper differentiates the perception of corruption into two independent variables: politicians and bureaucrats. We used a quantitative analysis of the Americas Barometer (AB) su...
Citations
... The suppression of critical voices serves the purposes of maintaining legitimacy, signaling political power, instilling fear among the public, and preventing collective actions (Deibert, 2015;King, Pan, & Roberts, 2013). The exercise of legal and political power thus becomes the root cause of self-censorship in such contexts (Tannenberg, 2022). In China, Chang and Manion (2021) found that citizens are especially cautious about discussing politics on Weibo during sensitive times. ...
People living in authoritarian or autocratizing societies may have to refrain from expressing their genuine political views to avoid troubles. Besides preference falsification, some may simply refrain from engaging in political expressions and discussions. This study aims at understanding avoidance of political discussions in an autocratizing society. It posits perceptions of legal and social risks, political frustration, political orientation, and secondary control as possible predictors of avoidance of political discussions. A survey of citizens in post-National Security Law Hong Kong shows that pro-democracy citizens in Hong Kong are more likely to perceive the presence of social and legal risks. They are also more likely to feel frustrated by the political environment. Perceived social risks significantly predict avoidance of political discussions, and the relationship is stronger among people with higher levels of secondary control. Implications of the findings are discussed.
... government, despite assurances that it was not (Tannenberg, 2021). The negligible benefits of faithfully responding to the survey may now be perceived as potentially dangerous. ...
... Finally, it should be noted that a high proportion of survey respondents in many contexts appear to believe that the surveys they are responding to are sponsored by the government and that there is evidence that fear of the state biases results on surveys (Zimbalist, 2018;Tannenberg, 2021). Of course, we cannot assume fear plays an important role in shaping response patterns to regime assessment questions in all authoritarian states [see Lei and Lu (2017); Stockmann et al. (2018)]. ...
... There is a strong and consistent negative correlation between freedom of expression and confidence in the government which is decreasing at a decreasing rate. This result is consistent with similar recent analyses that have been conducted (Nathan, 2020;Tannenberg, 2021), as well as the theoretical prediction that preference falsification is consistently increasing in the costs of expressing criticism of the regime. Of course, the correlation could be due to confounding variables associated with the set of highly repressive regimes where the survey was conducted or the potential for authoritarian propaganda to alter preferences and beliefs. ...
Among the greatest challenges facing scholars of public opinion are the potential biases associated with survey item nonresponse and preference falsification. This difficulty has led researchers to utilize nonre-sponse rates to gauge the degree of preference falsification across regimes. This article addresses the use of survey nonresponse rates to proxy for preference falsification. A simulation analysis exploring the expression of preferences under varying degrees of repression was conducted to examine the viability of using nonresponse rates to regime assessment questions. The simulation demonstrates that nonresponse rates to regime assessment questions and indices based on nonresponse rates are not viable proxies for preference falsification. An empirical examination of survey data supports the results of the simulation analysis.
... In the context of the de facto abolition of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and the criminalization of political activity, it is difficult to draw correct conclusions about the state of Russian society through the articulation of interests (Tannenberg, 2022;Neundorf and Pop-Eleches, 2020). ...
The digital landscape provides a dynamic platform for political discourse crucial for understanding shifts in public opinion and engagement especially under authoritarian governments This study examines YouTube user behavior during the Russian-Ukrainian war analyzing 2168 videos with over 36000 comments from January 2022 to February 2024 We observe distinct patterns of participation and gender dynamics that correlate with major political and military events Notably females were more active in antigovernment channels especially during peak conflict periods Contrary to assumptions about online engagement in authoritarian contexts our findings suggest a complex interplay where women emerge as pivotal digital communicators This highlights online platforms role in facilitating political expression under authoritarian regimes demonstrating its potential as a barometer for public sentiment.
... There are also several cases in which there is high confidence in elections despite low levels of electoral integrity. While measuring public opinion related to institutional trust in authoritarian regimes is notoriously difficult (e.g., Shen and Truex 2021;Tannenberg 2022), cases like Tajikistan, Vietnam, and Iran have relatively high levels of public confidence in -2022) who state that they have either "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in national elections. The right panel shows the relationship between the same V-Dem index and the share of voters in the 7 th round of the WVS who state that votes are counted fairly "very often" or "quite often." ...
This article introduces a special issue on trust in elections. While the number of electoral democracies has grown globally, we are currently experiencing a crisis of electoral trust. Political polarization, social divisions, and the rapid spread of misinformation have all been related to enhanced widespread skepticism about the quality of national elections. The special issue is focused on two central questions: How can we explain variations in trust in elections at the individual and country levels? How does trust in elections shape political behavior? In the introduction essay, we frame the contributions of the special issue, provide descriptive statistics about trust in elections globally, summarize the current state of the literature, and point to avenues for future research.
... In addition, respondents might feel pressured to participate but do not reveal their true views and simply rate government acceptance and performance highly to avoid any potential backlash from the authorities. This preference falsification (Crabtree, Kern, and Siegel 2020;Kuran 1995 ;Tannenberg 2022) leads to skewed samples, which in turn results in the overreporting of popular support for autocratic rule and rulers. Current insights from the case of Russia highlight this issue. ...
This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the site FAQs.
... If some of the movement away from the PF occurred prior to the 2019 survey, our ability to capture between-election trends will be limited. Second, as with all preelection surveys, particularly in less than democratic settings, a considerable share of respondents are unwilling or unable to reveal their vote intention (Tannenberg 2022). More than 30% of respondents chose not to provide an answer to the vote choice question, reporting instead that they, would not vote, did not know, or simply refused to provide an answer (see Table A5 in the appendix). ...
Zambia experienced its third electoral turnover in the 2021 election. While the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) lost votes across the territory, the electoral collapse in urban Zambia was particularly remarkable. This paper argues that economic performance voting can explain urban party switching in Zambia. The argument is supported by a unique panel survey of Zambian voters in the period 2019-2022. We show that urban voters were more likely to desert the PF, even when we control for ethnicity. We also show that they were more likely to evaluate the economy poorly and more likely to change their electoral preferences in view of such poor economic evaluation. Our results stress that African elections should not be understood as static expressions of stable political cleavages but may function as real opportunities for political accountability. However, the extent to which voters are willing to re-evaluate their vote choice varies across space.
... Firstly, individuals who are closer to the policy-making process may be more inclined to trust institutions. Secondly, in more authoritarian states, individuals may be constrained in revealing their true level of trust (Tannenberg, 2022). 7 To test our research question regarding determinants for acceptability of policy instruments for reducing fossil fuel consumption, we estimate multinomial logit 8 regression models and present the marginal effects in figures for East Africa as a whole as well as for each county separately. ...
... For example, Rwanda is considered less corrupt than Uganda. Second, questions on trust and government support in hybrid or authoritarian states can be sensitive topics (Robinson & Tannenberg, 2019;Tannenberg, 2022). Second, we did not ask whether a respondent has voted for or is a supporter of the current government, as being a supporter of an incumbent is a strong indicator of trust in government (Holmberg, 1999). ...
In recent decades, there has been increasing research interest in individuals’ support of and resistance to climate and environmental policy instruments. However, there is an empirical bias in the literature, as few studies have been conducted in low-income countries. Based on a survey with 4,766 respondents we identify the level of public acceptability for climate policy instruments and their determinants in East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda). While our sample is not fully representative of the East-African population, we capture highly educated individuals in urban areas, who are likely to have a large influence on policy processes. In line with previous studies in other contexts, we find that higher education and climate change concern are linked to the acceptability of policies aimed at reducing fossil fuel consumption. Specifying how the revenue from a climate tax or subsidy removal would be used, almost doubled the support for these policy instruments. In contrast to earlier studies, we find that investments in social programmes, not environmental programmes, was the revenue specification that increased the acceptability the most. One possible explanation would be that in a context where poverty is more prevalent, social issues are more salient to people. We also find weak associations between trust in government and the acceptability of climate policy instruments in East Africa and large heterogeneity across the five focal East African countries. Besides establishing an empirical foundation for future research on climate policy support in East Africa, the study provides essential policy insights: Investing in education and improved information, contributing to increased awareness and understanding of climate concerns, can potentially increase support for climate policy proposals also in the East African context. Earmarking revenues from climate policy instruments for social programmes may also significantly boost support. However, as our study is not fully representative of the population in the five countries and relies on stated preferences, which may be subject to different biases, the results should be interpreted with caution.
... However, we should take into account, first, that the representativeness of public opinion surveys in authoritarian countries has been questioned many times (e.g. Tannenberg, 2022). Second, Russian rectors are not proper representatives of Russian scholars (e.g. ...
... Since the onset of the war in Ukraine, it has become critical for scholars and analysts to obtain accurate assessments of the state of public opinion in Russia. Unfortunately, however, Russian polling data has been subject to a number of shortcomings (Kalinin, 2016), including potential response bias (Tannenberg, 2021;Hale, 2022;Yudin, 2022) and changes to survey methodology (Shirokanova, 2020). Sadly, as each of these defects may vary in intensity over time (Frye et al., 2017(Frye et al., , 2022, this renders the use of social trends data from the Russian Federation as inherently problematic (Rosenfeld, 2022). ...
In recent decades, public opinion researchers and policymakers have gained valuable insight into the attitudes and opinions of ordinary Russians thanks to regular tracking surveys conducted by polling organisations such as the Levada Center, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM), and FOM. However, since the onset of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, it has become increasingly difficult to attain reliable measures of public opinion in Russia due to growing problems of survey response bias, self-censorship, and doubts concerning the methodology of official state survey organisations. To overcome these difficulties, this paper presents a novel measure using online search data from Google and Yandex to proxy for cognitive mental states in the general population. Comparing such measures to historical and recent surveys, our findings suggest that in reality Russia’s public mood is near its lowest level for a decade, while the legitimacy of its regime has been undermined by failure in war. Our results illustrate how political scientists can use online data to shine light on public opinion in difficult-to-survey contexts, and help to assess the dynamics of regime support in non-democratic countries.
... 12 If indeed there was some degree of 'bias' in the surveys out of fear, it necessitates powerful research design e.g. (quasi)experimental studies or unobtrusive surveys (Robinson & Tannenberg, 2019;Stockmann et al., 2018;Tannenberg, 2022) that can effectively disentangle the alleged factor. However, no study so far has been done to prove the claim. ...
How does support for strong leadership affect institutional trust in post-authoritarian democracies? Studies suggest that fostering trust in public institutions is contingent upon citizens’ favourable evaluation of the government’s institutional performance, whereas individual’s cultural orientations and political values are seldom given much interest. However, the resurgence of leaders with ‘populist’ tendencies presents an empirical puzzle, which may reveal intriguing political patterns in the context of comparative democratization (and autocratization). This study theorizes that citizens’ need for economic deliverance and social stability develops agreeable attitudes towards prevailing public institutions even though political incumbents project authoritarian tendencies. Using public opinion data from the seventh wave of World Values Survey (WVS7), this study finds that citizens in Indonesia and the Philippines—two of the region’s post-authoritarian democracies i.e. fragile democracies with spells of authoritarian rule manifest high support for a political system with a strong leader unconstrained with electoral and congressional intervention. Consequently, this favourable attitude makes them more likely to express higher institutional confidence. Overall, the findings shed light on the paradoxes of contemporary politics confronted not only with authoritarian resilience, political illiberalism and personalist rule but also of the enduring nondemocratic psychological disposition among citizens in settings with troubled democratic transitions.
