A fascinating argument by Stephen Holmes and Ivan Krastev on the symbolic function of rigged elections in Russia:
Thus, by far the most important political role of sham elections during the past dozen years has been the way they have allowed Putin to display his capacity for manipulating them in an orderly and predictable way and thereby, paradoxically, to demonstrate his authoritarian credentials. Rigged elections, known to be rigged, are the cheapest and easiest way for the regime to mimic the authoritarian power it does not actually possess and thereby to bolster its faltering grip on the country, or at least give itself more breathing room. It takes only modest administrative capacity to rig an election; but a rigged election produces a disproportionate increase in the government’s reputation for power and control. Organizing a pseudo-election is like wearing sheep’s clothing to prove that you are a wolf. Non-competitive, Soviet-style elections simulate a centralized power that Putin’s Kremlin spectacularly lacks. In a sense, fixed elections serve the same function as Red Square parades after the collapse of Russia’s military strength: they allow the regime to thump its chest, even if many of the missiles turn out, on closer inspection, to be duds.
via The Browser