The Relationship Between Understanding of Democracy and Political Participation in Russia Under Putin’s Non-democratic Regime

In theory, people hold views of democracy and evaluate its quality by observing how it works in their country; this “understanding” of democracy should influence citizens’ decisions to politically participate. In authoritarian regimes, understanding of democracy varies, and thus there is an uncertain relationship between understanding and participation. I empirically explore the “understanding-participation” relationship in Russia under Putin’s electoral authoritarian regime. I ask the following: How do Russian citizens understand democracy? and How does their understanding of democracy associate with electoral and non-electoral participation (NEP)? Analyses of the European Social Survey (2012), fielded at the height of Russia’s short-lived pro-democratic protest wave, suggest that the greater the pro-democratic views, the more negative the evaluation of Russia’s democratic performance. In turn, those with a strong negative evaluation of democracy in Russia tend to engage in NEP but do not vote. This paper suggests that in authoritarian regimes undergoing a temporary pro-democracy wave, a sizeable proportion of citizens understand what democracy means and can protest; moreover, by staying away from voting, they do not legitimise the regime, and thus their non-voting can be considered a kind of protest act.