“Conservative” voting in Russia: the religiosity and the political choice of orthodox believers

ABSTRACT

Existing studies leave open many questions about the link between religiosity and the conservative political attitudes of Orthodox believers in Russia. This article employs qualitative research to highlight the role of religiosity in individual political choice. The empirical material was collected during interviews with believers in Lipetsk Oblast in 2019–2020. The results of the study revealed three types of conservative choice, depending on an individual’s level of religiosity. Although religious beliefs and practices play different roles at different levels of religiosity, they are not crucial to believers’ political choices.

KEYWORDS:

• Orthodox believers
• religiosity
• conservatism
• political preferences
• electoral behaviour
• religion and politics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 54% of Russians support the traditional division of gender roles, 56% have a negative attitude towards sexual minorities, 41% consider abortion to be unacceptable, 51% support the idea of “Russia for Russians,” 73% want to limit the influx of migrants, and 75% agree that power should be concentrated in the hands of a leader. For more details, see Levada-Center reports and WVS Wave 7 data: https://www.levada.ru/sbornik-obshhestvennoe-mnenie/: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV7.jsp

2 Chesnokovа focuses on five basic indicators: frequency of church attendance, Frequency of communion, Frequency of reading sacred texts, Type of prayer (church prayer or prayer in one’s own words), and Observance of fasting. Other researchers further developed this approach and adjusted the set of indicators. However, frequency of church attendance is recognised as the most stable variable (Lebedev and Suhorukov 2013; Bogachev 2016).

3 The concept in normative political theory and Orthodox theology which suggests that the state and the church are to complement each other, maintain harmony and cooperation. For more details, see Anderson (2007).

4 Otherwise, the region’s profile is quite typical for its geographical location. The region is relatively small; Lipetsk is an administrative centre with a population of about 500.000 in 2020. The region has a higher proportion of rural residents (35.4%) and small towns (the population of only two cities exceeds 50.000 people). The agricultural sector occupies a large share in GRP (11%). Since the 1990s, Oblast belongs to the group of regions that consistently support the Communist Party and other leftist parties (the so-called Red Belt). The turnout in the 2016 parliamentary elections was 52.6% (average – 47.9%), 56.2% voted for United Russia, The Communist Party won 13.7%, LDPR – 6%, Rodina and Communists of Russia obtained around 2% each. Rosstat and Central Electoral Committee data: https://rosstat.gov.ru/folder/210/document/13204; http://www.izbirkom.ru/region/izbirkom.

5 The respondent is referring to the well-known conspiracy theory linking the terrorist acts of 1999 with the authorities and Putin personally. See, for example: https://www.gq.com/story/moscow-bombings-mikhail-trepashkin-and-putin; or https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-russia-president-1999-chechnya-apartment-bombings/30097551.html.

6 Ksenia Sobchak was a candidate in the presidential election in 2018.

7 Kupala Night is a traditional holiday; the celebration relates to the summer solstice. The Russian Orthodox Church criticises this tradition and does not recognise it as religious; the Church celebrates the Nativity of John the Baptist (the Forerunner) on this day.

Additional information

Funding

This work is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University).

Notes on contributors

Yulia Karpich

Yulia Karpich is a Research Assistant at the International Laboratory “Russia’s Regions in Historical Perspective” at the HSE University (Moscow, Russia).