Levels of Centralisation and Autonomy in Russia’s ‘Party of Power’: Cross-Regional Variations

Abstract

The institutionalisation and nationalisation of Russia’s party system, which is dominated by United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya—UR), has played a major role in the building of Putin’s ‘power vertical’. Nevertheless, despite the fact that formal relations within UR are highly centralised, informal practices allow for far greater degrees of regional autonomy. Focusing on UR’s candidate selection for the 2011 Duma election this article provides an examination of cross-regional variations in the relations between UR’s Party Centre and its regional branches. As electoral legislation requires the segmentation of party lists into ‘regional groups’, the composition of the regional lists, specifically the share of ‘native candidates’, is considered as an indicator of the level of autonomy of regional branches. Ordinal regression analysis confirms our main theoretical hypotheses. In the more financially autonomous regions, UR’s regional branches will have more leverage and bargaining power in their relations with the Party Centre. A second important factor is heterogeneity: the more a region’s socio-economic indices deviate from the national average (either up or down), the less its UR branch is subordinate to the Party Centre.

Notes

¹ Federal Law, 11 July 2001, No. 95, ‘O politicheskikh partiyakh’, Sobranie Zakanodatel’stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii, No. 29, 16 July 2001, Article 2950.

² See, for example, studies by Fabre (2011), Katz (2001), Thorlakson (2013).

³ Our study does not include the two new federal subjects which became part of the Russian Federation with the accession of Crimea in March 2014 and which raised the number of federal subjects from 83 to 85.

⁴ UR’s Charter, available at: http://er.ru/party/rules/#13, accessed 8 May 2014.

⁵ Federal Law, No. 262, ‘O Vyborakh Deputatov Gosudarstvennoi Dumy Federal’nogo Sobraniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, 25 July 2011, p. 40, available at: http://cikrf.ru/eng/law/FL-51-FZ.html, accessed 8 May 2014.

⁶ See, ‘Spisok Kandidatov ot Edinoi Rossii v Arkhangel’skoi Oblasti Vozglavit ne Mestnyi Politik’, Regnum, 15 August 2011, available at: http://www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1435419.html#ixzz3RyYSMuki, accessed 15 February 2015.

⁷ One more special feature of UR’s election campaign has to be mentioned. On the eve of the 2011 Duma elections the ‘All-Russian People’s Front’ (Obshcherossiiskii Narodnyi Front) was founded by the Kremlin. The Front was created to help bolster the flagging electoral support of the ‘party of power’. As the Front does not have the official status of a political party, it is not permitted to stand in elections. However, it was decided that UR would include representatives of the Front in its party lists. In total, the Front was given 185 places. The inclusion of members of the Front did not change the fundamentals of the bargaining process between the Party Centre and regional branches which is the focus of this study.

⁸ ‘Blizhe k Telu, Damy i Gospoda: Spetsifichnye Praimeriz “Edinoi Rossii”: Popast’ v Gosdumu Proshche Vsego Blagodarya Lichnomu Znakomstvu s Putinym’, Moskovskii Komsomolets, 28 September 2011, p. 1, available at: http://www.mk.ru/politics/article/2011/09/28/627919-blizhe-k-telu-damyi-i-gospoda.html, accessed 8 May 2014.

⁹ The Magadan regional list should not have been given a mandate, but Putin transferred his mandate to this group.

¹⁰ Kamchatka also initially failed to receive a mandate, but Medvedev transferred his mandate to this group.

¹¹ The data are from the federal party list of UR which is officially registered by the Central Election Commission, available at: http://www.cikrf.ru/law/decree_of_cec/2011/10/18/Zp11392.html, accessed 8 May 2014.

¹² Special rules have to be applied for incumbents, that is, those candidates who were deputies of the Duma in 2011 and were included in UR’s party list. It is interesting to note that there were 171 such individuals among the 597 members of UR’s party list. UR had 315 Duma deputies in 2011, which means that 144 incumbents were not reselected. Since most incumbents currently live and work in Moscow, their current posts cannot be taken as a sign of their identification as ‘natives’ or ‘Vikings’, therefore, we focus on their posts at the point when they were first elected to the Duma. An incumbent is defined as a ‘native candidate’ if she/he lived in the region or at least had strong connections (for example, business links) with the region at the time of their elections. Otherwise, we consider them as ‘Vikings’, even if they were elected from their region many times.

¹³ In two regions (Voronezh and Volgograd oblasti), where there was more than one regional list in 2007, we have summed the results of these lists.

¹⁴ This assumption is confirmed indirectly by the actual distribution of seats between regional lists in 2011. As is well known, the elections results for UR in 2011 were significantly worse than in 2007. While in 2007 UR won 315 seats, in 2011 this fell to 238. In general, the losses of the party were distributed fairly evenly between regions: 48 regional lists lost one or two seats in comparison to 2007; 23 regions received the same number of seats as in 2007. Only four regions (Dagestan, North Ossetiya, Tambov and Tula oblasti) received more seats than in 2007.

¹⁵ Magadan’s regional list received no mandates. However, Putin who was number 1 on UR’s party list, transferred his mandate to the Magadan regional group. Therefore we count the Magadan list as having one winning position.

¹⁶ Article 83 of the Law on State Duma Elections states that in the case of a refusal, the mandate is passed on to the next person in the regional group. Article 89 further states that in the case of early termination of office, the mandate is passed on to a person from the same regional group, not necessarily the next person down on the list (Federal Law, No. 262, ‘O Vyborakh Deputatov Gosudarstvennoi Dumy Federal’nogo Sobraniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, 25 July 2011, available at: http://cikrf.ru/eng/law/FL-51-FZ.html, accessed 8 May 2014).

¹⁷ The inclusion of governors at the top of regional lists was the most common practice in the Duma elections (54 cases in 2011). Governors were usually granted the first position in regional lists although there were some exceptions to the rule (for example, in Kaliningrad and Tula). The only high regional official who did not refuse his mandate was the Governor of Vologda Oblast’, Pozgalev.

¹⁸ Three of these officials (Volodin, Kozak and Trutnev) were nominated in those regions where they began their careers, Saratov, Perm and St Petersburg, respectively. Therefore they were considered as ‘native candidates’.

¹⁹ The only exception is Novgorod Oblast’. Here, the regional list consisted of only three candidates and included the Governor and Chair of the regional legislature, but there were two winning positions. This is why we consider the Chair of the regional legislature as a winning position.

²⁰ As noted above, this study does not include the two new federal subjects that became part of the Russian Federation with the accession of Crimea in March 2014.

²¹ Konstitutsiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii, December 1993, available at: http://www.constitution.ru/index.htm, accessed 23 November 2015.

²² We used the data for 2011 which can be found in Regiony Rossii (2013).

²³ Calculated on the basis of GRP per capita in 2010 (Regiony Rossii 2013, Table 11.2). It is necessary to note that the Russian State Statistic Service does not record the GRP of autonomous Okrugi (AO). Therefore, Khanty-Mansiisk AO and Yamalo-Nenets AO are not included in the analysis.

²⁴ Calculated on the basis of the share of urban population in 2010 (Regiony Rossii 2012).

²⁵ Calculated on the basis of the share of ethnic Russians in the population, Vserossiiskaya Perepis’ Naseleniya 2010, Table: ‘National composition of the RF population’, available at: http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/perepis2010/perepis_itogi1612.htm, accessed 8 May 2014.

²⁶ ‘Partiinye S’ezdy Proshli: Itogi Dlya Tambovskoi Oblasti Neuteshitel’ny’, Taminfo.Ru, 30 September 2011, p. 1, available at: http://www.taminfo.ru/expert/titarenko/14151-partijnye-sezdy-proshli-itogi-dlya-tambovskoj.html, accessed, 15 February 2015.

²⁷ ‘Ne Orel, No Kirovets: Roman Antonov Vozvrashchaetsya v Gosdumu po Skheme Mezhregional’noi Peredachi Mandata’, Kommersant’.Ru (N. Novgorod), No. 187, 15 October 2014, p. 12, available at: http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2589871, accessed 15 February 2015.

²⁸ ‘Kto Proidet v Gosdumu ot Chel’yabinskoi Oblasti’, Ura.ru, 14 September 2011, p. 1, available at: http://ura.ru/content/chel/14-09-2011/articles/1036257037.html, accessed 15 February 2015.

²⁹ ‘Novye Deputaty Gosdumy ot Sverdlovskoi Oblasti: kto Uezhaet v Moskvu’, UralPolit.Ru, 7 December 2011, p. 1, available at: http://uralpolit.ru/news/elections/elections_parties/novye-deputaty-gosdumy-ot-sverdlovskoi-oblasti-kto-uezzhaet-v-moskvu, accessed 15 February 2015.