Replication Data for: Who Defects? Unpacking a Defection Cascade from Russia’s Dominant Party 2008–12

Under what conditions do individuals withdraw support from dominant parties in nondemocratic regimes? Employing an original panel survey, we measure the same individuals’ support for Russia’s dominant party first at the peak of its dominance in 2008 and again shortly after it suffered a cascading defection of regime supporters in 2011–2. This allows us uniquely to explore the microfoundations of theories of regime defection cascades, generally supporting the argument that they involve complex “informational” as well as “reputational” processes. Accordingly, we find that early and eager movers in such a cascade tend to come from less socially vulnerable segments of the population, to have less need to rely on other people for interpreting events, to believe the regime has lower levels of popular support, and to come from more heterogeneous communities. We find little role for mass media (including social media) or democratizing zeal in driving Russia’s 2011–2 regime defection cascade.The u variables are from the 2007-2008 survey and the v variables from the 2001-2012 survey. The file I’m sending you is an additive merger, i.e., it includes all cases and all variables from the two variables, merged by case (respondent). The panel is embedded in the larger data set, i.e., respondents who were interviewed both times. Other respondents were either interviewed in the first survey and not re-interviewed in the second, or alternatively not interviewed the first time but interviewed in the second survey.