Broke autocrats, broken elections: trade shocks and electoral fraud in autocracies

Antonis Adam and Sofia Tsarsitalidou

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We argue that when terms‐of‐trade (ToT) shocks reduce resource rents, autocrats lose the fiscal capacity to sustain loyalty through patronage and increasingly rely on electoral manipulation as a survival strategy. We present a simple model in which rents finance patronage in normal times, while adverse shocks reduce the effectiveness of loyalty‐buying and induce substitution toward electoral manipulation. We test these implications using a panel of 114 autocracies from 1980 to 2021. Shocks are defined as ToT declines larger than 10%, and their impact is estimated on V‐Dem's Clean Elections Index using a difference‐in‐differences design with country and year fixed effects. Results show that negative trade shocks are associated with worse electoral conditions, especially in resource‐rich regimes, consistent with a shift from patronage to manipulation. These findings highlight how volatility in global markets can shape electoral strategies and authoritarian control.

Keywords: autocracy; resource shocks; autocratic elections; electoral fraud (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D73 O13 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02-26
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Published in Economics and Politics, 26, February, 2026. ISSN: 0954-1985

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