The range and limitation of sub-national regime variations under electoral authoritarianism: The case of Russia

ABSTRACT

As has been demonstrated by scholars, different levels of a polity may encompass different political regimes. In this study we examine variations in regional political regimes which have developed under Russia's system of electoral authoritarianism. Comparing the results of two cycles of regional assembly elections (2008–12 and 2013–17) we analyse and compare elections results and levels of electoral contestation in both the party list (PL) and single member district (SMD) contests. This allows us to identify the range of sub-national regime variations: ‘hegemonic authoritarian’, ‘inter-elite bargain authoritarian’, ‘clearly-competitive authoritarian’, and ‘moderately-competitive authoritarian’ regions. Approximately half of the regions demonstrate stable electoral patterns across both cycles. At the same time, none of the regions go beyond the authoritarian limitations imposed by the Russian regime. The variation is explained by a combination of structural and agency factors with a prevalence of the latter.

KEYWORDS:

• Regional elections
• Russia
• single mandate districts
• electoral authoritarianism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The ‘power vertical’ is a concept used by Russian scholars which refers to the attempts by the Putin regime to create a hierarchical and centralized system of executive authority and direct control over the work of the regional governors and policy making in the regions.

2. In those assemblies where there are an odd number of seats, the number of deputies elected by PLPR is 50%+1. The only exception here is Volgograd Oblast’ where 22 deputies are elected by PLPR and 16 by pluralist rule.

3. We exclude Crimea and Sevastopol’ as they became de-facto parts of the Russian Federation only in 2014 and were therefore absent in the first cycle. In the first cycle 2008–2012, due to the fact, that some regional legislatures had four-year terms of office, in some regions elections were held twice; and we take the latest elections. In Buryatiya and Smolensk oblast’ there were no elections over the period of 2008–2012, as the terms of office of these regional assemblies were extended to 2013, therefore for these regions we include the elections which took place in December 2007.

4. In calculating the ENPgol, we take into account the results (shares of votes) of United Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and Just Russia. The results of minor parties are taken into account only in those cases where they overcome the electoral threshold.

5. For North Ossetiya, which was the only region to employ a two-round majority system in the SMDs (in the first cycle), we rely on the results of the first round.

6. Calculated from information provided on the Russian Central Electoral Commission Website (http://www.cikf.ru).

7. It has to be noted, that we had to omit those regions which used only PLPR system, Moscow where there were only SMDs in the second cycle, and Chukotka that used MMDs.

8. This is the reason of high values correlation coefficients between ENPgol and Share of Non-Competitive SMDs (they are statistically significant and take the values of ‘−0.803’ and ‘−0.788’).