Elite Cohesion and the Politics of Electoral Repression
On October 16, 2025, UC Davis political scientist Lauren Young delivered a talk on the politics of electoral repression in post–Cold War autocracies. Her talk examined why authoritarian incumbents use electoral repression in some elections and not others, why they often outsource it, and why it is often not targeted at the most strategically valuable districts. She argued that cohesion in the ruling coalition shapes its organization, targeting, and effectiveness. Electoral repression refers to the use of coercive violence by ruling elites to weaken opposition forces and tilt electoral competition in their favor while still holding elections. It is a common tool of authoritarian control, with opposition harassment present in roughly one in five elections since 1990. Yet incumbents do not always rely on repression, and when they do, they frequently delegate it to paramilitary groups rather than state security forces.
Young argued that repression is both valuable and politically risky, which explains why it is sometimes but not always used. Authoritarian elites face two key problems. First, there is a control problem: the effects of repression on political behavior are unpredictable. While violence may intimidate some citizens, it can also backfire, provoking outrage or mobilization. Second, there is a power-sharing problem: delegating repression to coercive actors — police, military, or militias — can empower these groups and threaten regime stability. These risks push rulers toward patronage, propaganda, and performance, turning to repression only when these strategies fail.
The problem of authoritarian control is shaped by the fact that citizen reactions to repression are driven by psychological factors that are hard for elites to observe. These include self-efficacy — the belief in one’s ability to overcome obstacles — and risk aversion, or preference for certainty. Individuals with high self-efficacy and lower risk aversion are less likely to be deterred, increasing the uncertainty of repression’s effects.
The talk’s focus was on elite cohesion and how it structures electoral repression. When ruling coalitions are cohesive, regimes rely on state security forces, making violence more organized and strategically targeted at competitive “swing” districts. When coalitions are fragmented, elites are more threatened by the risk that politicized state security forces will turn on them and instead outsource violence to militias, including violent interest groups, criminal organizations, and loosely organized bands of party supporters. This produces poorly targeted repression, often concentrated in strongholds, less lethal, and more prone to backfire. Internal power dynamics thus shape how electoral repression unfolds.
To illustrate this, Young drew on more than 5,000 incidents of electoral violence in Zimbabwe between 2000 and 2023. Periods of high elite cohesion, such as the 2002 presidential election, saw repression directed by state security forces in competitive districts. Periods of low cohesion, such as the 2000 legislative election and the 2008 runoff, saw militia-led violence concentrated in party strongholds, where it was less strategic and more likely to generate backlash.
By linking elite politics with these dynamics, Young’s work shows why electoral repression remains widespread but unevenly effective, and why even carefully planned repression can backfire.
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UC Davis Political Scientist Lauren Young examines why authoritarian incumbents use electoral repression selectively, why they often outsource it, and how elite cohesion shapes its organization, targeting, and effectiveness.
