2025/01/30 by Hidekuni Washida · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Political Conflict and Governance #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
paper · doi:10.1080/13510347.2024.2448846
openalex publication_date 2025/01/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/09
Although existing literature reveals that autocrats underreported the death toll during the Covid-19 pandemic, few studies have explored how, why, and under what conditions autocrats faked the data. By analysing cross-national daily data (from 164 countries between January 2020 and March 2023), this article reveals that, unlike closed autocracies, which relied on strict restrictions of information and collective actions, electoral autocracies strategically fabricated the mortality statistics with electoral cycles, which coincided with protest cycles. In contrast, such cycles were not salient in democracies. This study argues that, in electoral autocracies, the limited accountability and looser political restrictions induced people and opposition parties to invest in collective actions during electoral seasons, whereas autocrats tried to discourage mass uprisings by well-timed, nuanced statistical tampering. The article also demonstrates that electoral statistical cycles become salient when autocrats can command the co-operation of local politico-bureaucratic agents. Moreover, it provides preliminary evidence that underreporting of casualties helped discourage protests and opposition mobilization in electoral autocracies.