["Economics &Politics, EarlyView. ", "\nABSTRACT\nWe argue that when terms‐of‐trade (ToT) shocks reduce resource rents, autocrats lose the fiscal capacity to sustain loyalty through patronage and increasingly rely on electoral manipulation as a survival strategy. We present a simple model in which rents finance patronage in normal times, while adverse shocks reduce the effectiveness of loyalty‐buying and induce substitution toward electoral manipulation. We test these implications using a panel of 114 autocracies from 1980 to 2021. Shocks are defined as ToT declines larger than 10%, and their impact is estimated on V‐Dem's Clean Elections Index using a difference‐in‐differences design with country and year fixed effects. Results show that negative trade shocks are associated with worse electoral conditions, especially in resource‐rich regimes, consistent with a shift from patronage to manipulation. These findings highlight how volatility in global markets can shape electoral strategies and authoritarian control.\n"]