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| 1 |
ID:
144190
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| Summary/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.
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| 2 |
ID:
164515
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| Summary/Abstract |
Grounded in the main theoretical approaches to the study of electoral volatility, this article examines cross-regional variations in the levels of volatility for United Russia (UR) in Duma elections over the period 2003–2016, which are juxtaposed with the level of volatility for the Kremlin’s candidates in presidential elections. The main finding is that ‘regime type’ or, more precisely, ‘authoritarianism’ is the key explanatory variable. Stronger authoritarian rulers are able to control regional elites and ensure the best results for UR by exerting administrative pressure on voters. This reduces the level of volatility in support for UR. At the same time, economic and institutional explanations have a partial significance. Here, Duma elections differ from presidential elections, which demonstrate a much lower degree of volatility; in addition, economic factors appear insignificant.
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