In the APSA Public Scholarship Program, graduate students in political science produce summaries of new research in the American Political Science Review. This piece, written by Ewa Nizalowska, covers the new article by Turkuler Isiksel and Thomas B. Pepinsky, “Voting in Authoritarian Elections.”
Elections are often taken as a defining feature of democratic regimes.
Although voting is not the only form of democratic political engagement, we tend to presume that voting makes the regimes we live under fairer, more stable and peaceful, or simply better governed. Yet elections are also common under authoritarianism, and research suggests that they may in fact further entrench authoritarian regimes. Today, electoral authoritarian regimes —that is, authoritarian regimes that use elections to hold onto their power— are about as common as closed authoritarian regimes. By holding elections, authoritarian incumbents harness political legitimacy through the claim that they have secured majority support through political competition, and they keep the political forces of opposition in check through the promise of future electoral victory.
In their recent APSR article, Turkuler Isiksel and Thomas Pepinsky argue that voting in electoral authoritarian regimes produces what they call the “democrat’s dilemma”: citizens who value democracy know that elections give them an opportunity —however unlikely— to unseat authoritarian leaders, but the act of voting may also further legitimize the very regime they are trying to unseat. What, then, is the value of voting under authoritarianism? Should citizens who value democracy cast their vote for the opposition, or should they instead seek alternative means of unseating authoritarian regimes?
Whether or not to vote in authoritarian elections is not just an academic question —it is a practical one as well.
Voters in countries from Hungary to Argentina to Malaysia routinely confront the democrat’s dilemma, asking whether voting in an election that is unlikely to be free and fair will end up increasing the legitimacy of the incumbent authoritarian regime.
Democratic theorists have tended to affirm the value of voting under democratic regimes, but they have rarely applied their arguments to the question of voting under authoritarianism. To assess the value of voting under authoritarian regimes, Isiksel and Pepinsky evaluate how three key strands of democratic theory —justice-based, epistemic, and proceduralist— approach the importance of voting.
“The authors ultimately take the proceduralist approach to argue that, despite the possibility that they may further entrench autocratic regimes, participation in authoritarian elections nonetheless holds “residual democratic value.“Justice-based strands of democratic theory hold that we ought to vote because we share an obligation to create more just political institutions. However, under authoritarianism, voting does not necessarily guarantee more just outcomes. On the contrary, if elections can make authoritarian regimes more stable, then voters may in fact be complicit in perpetuating injustice. Thus, Isiksel and Pepinsky argue, justice-based accounts of the value of voting are better suited to democratic contexts.
According to epistemic strands of democratic theory, voting is valuable because it harnesses the diversity of perspectives among citizens to produce better policy responses to a given country’s problems. Under authoritarianism, however, the idea that voting produces better political outcomes becomes shaky. When authoritarian regimes limit citizens’ access to diverse information, a range of policy choices and party platforms, or robust political debate, they deprive citizens of the capacity to develop the collective wisdom that epistemic accounts of the value of voting rely on.
Finally, proceduralist strands of democratic theory focus on the value of the electoral process, rather than its outcomes.
The authors ultimately take the proceduralist approach to argue that, despite the possibility that they may further entrench autocratic regimes, participation in authoritarian elections nonetheless holds “residual democratic value.” Participation in authoritarian elections allows citizens to reassert their right to choose their leaders through voting, reaffirm the idea that candidates must compete for political power, and remind leaders that they must be accountable to the people they govern. Even under authoritarianism, Isiksel and Pepinsky argue, elections are important collective practices that embody the principles of fairness, equality, pluralism, individual autonomy, and popular sovereignty. Citizens who believe in the value of democracy should remain committed to affirming these principles through casting their vote.
- Ewa Nizalowska is a PhD candidate in political theory at Cornell University with research interests in American political thought, feminist theory, and theories of political economy and empire. Her dissertation examines how early to mid-twentieth-century radicals theorized the organization of economic power in the United States and strategized for its rearrangement. Her work has been supported by, among others, the American Political Science Association, the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University, and the Yan P. Lin Centre at McGill University
- ISIKSEL, TURKULER, and THOMAS B. PEPINSKY. 2025. “Voting in Authoritarian Elections.” , American Political Science Review, 1–16.
- About the APSA Public Scholarship Program.