Workplace Politics: How Politicians and Employers Subvert Elections

In many countries politicians rely on employers to influence the voting behavior of their employees, but this type of voter mobilization has received very little attention. Workplace Politics draws on unique surveys of firm managers and employees in eight countries, as well as a wealth of fine-grained observational data and qualitative interviews from Russia, to demonstrate that workplace mobilization is common, often coercive, and unpopular with many voters. It argues that when firm managers depend on the state, cannot easily move their assets, or can easily replace workers, politicians can induce employers to get their workers to the polls.

In these settings, politicians and employers can use workplace mobilization to diminish voter autonomy, undermine electoral integrity, and skew electoral outcomes in favor of entrenched political groups. But because workplace mobilization is unpopular in the broader electorate, politicians use this strategy less frequently in information-rich settings, where voters are likely to learn about it. This book helps explain why countries whose economies are dominated by state interventions in markets, immobile capital, and slack labor markets may be especially prone to clientelism and autocratic rule and contributes to core debates in comparative politics and political economy.

Timothy Frye is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy at Columbia University, editor of Post-Soviet Affairs, and a member of the Scholars Council at the US Library of Congress. He is the author of four books, most recently Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia. Frye received a BA in Russian language and literature from Middlebury College and a PhD in political science from Columbia University. A former Director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia, he has received fellowships from the Russell Sage Foundation and the Kluge Center at the US Library of Congress.

Ora John Reuter is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the author of The Origins of Dominant Parties: Building Authoritarian Institutions in Post-Soviet Russia. His recent academic articles on autocracy and Russian politics have appeared in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and Post-Soviet Affairs, among others. He is convenor of the Politics in Russia and Eurasia Seminar Series (PRESS) and co-principal investigator on the Russian Election Study (RES) surveys.

David Szakonyi is Associate Professor of Political Science at George Washington University and co-Director of PONARS Eurasia. He is the author of Politics for Profit: Business, Elections, and Policymaking in Russia, as well as articles published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and American Economic Review, among others. He received his PhD in political science from Columbia University and his BA from the University of Virginia. In addition to his academic work, he is co-founder of the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, a nonprofit investigating illicit financial flows and kleptocracy around the world.