(PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo) Authoritarian regimes frequently employ strategic coercion and repression to prevent or halt mobilization. Russia under Vladimir Putin is not an exception. As the regime became more repressive after the 2011-12 mobilization wave, Aleksei Navalny’s 2018 presidential campaign faced familiar obstacles: no authorization for public rallies, detentions, administrative fines, and criminal charges. How consistent was the reaction of the authorities to his campaign? I address this question by looking at data on interactions between protesters and authorities before, during, and after key events of the Navalny campaign: the “He is not Dimon to you!” rallies on March 26 and June 12 in 2017 and the “Electoral Strike” protest on January 28, 2018. These data uncover patterns in state responses to one of the most significant political challenges Putin’s regime has faced.
