Personalization and Elite Rhetoric: How the Autocrat's Popularity and Political Repression Influence Policy Speech of Regime Officials

ABSTRACT We study the implications of regime personalization on the incentives of political elites to politicize their policy agenda and express loyalty to the ruler. Because revering the autocrat is one of the observable manifestations of personalization, while the process of personalization may be, in turn, influenced by an increased prevalence of leader‐centered rhetoric, isolating the effects of personalization on policy and political rhetoric is difficult. We distinguish between the negative, fear‐driven motivation to politicize speech by regime officials and the positive motivation linked to their expectations of regime durability. The former is influenced by political repression, whereas the latter is moored to the ruler's poll standing—of importance for electoral autocracies in particular. Drawing from over 1000 annual legislative addresses of Russian governors in 2007–2023, we show that elites politicize their rhetoric following arrests of their peers, and they also closely track the autocrat's popularity. We contribute to the literature on personalization and authoritarian speech.