Academic Seminar "Elections to the Russian State Duma of 2021: Results and Political Consequences" Took Place on January 28, 2022

Although the main passions for discussing the results of the latest State Duma elections have already subsided, the time has come for a more thoughtful analysis of its results. Within the framework of the seminar, researchers prepared reports that presented an academic view of the past elections based on scientific theories and a rigorous analysis of empirical data.

Session I. 11.30-13.30

Mobilization and Electoral Support of the Dominant Party in an Autocracy

Eleonora Minaeva, Andrey Semenov (ССHP, PSU, Perm)

Collective action is one of the fundamental challenges to authoritarian regimes, as it demonstrates the dysfunctional nature of state policy, raises topics that are undesirable for the dominant party, and contributes to the consolidation of the dissatisfied. However, can public protests become an impetus for redefining the political preferences of the broad electorate? In this project, we conduct empirical testing of two opposing theories. The first theory associated with the economic voting model is that intense collective action on the eve of elections reduces support for the dominant party by communicating policy failures to the general public. The opposite model suggests that intense protests polarize the electorate and mobilize loyalists, which increases support for the incumbent party. We test these assumptions on data from the State Duma elections using both the traditional regression model and the difference-of-differences and synthetic control models.

"Orthodox Belt" on the Electoral Map of Russia: Elections to the State Duma in 2021

Andrey Shcherbak (HSE, Saint-Petersburg)

The elections to the State Duma in 2021 show that the maximum support for United Russia came not only from the usual ethnic republics (“electoral sultanates”), but also from some ordinary Russian regions located mainly in Central Russia (as well as the Volga region and South Russia). This work shows that this is not an accident, but a new trend in the electoral geography of Russia. The identified new cluster - the "Orthodox belt" - consists of regions characterized by increased Orthodox religiosity, social conservatism and loyalty to the "party of power". This trend is confirmed both by the voting data in the State Duma in 2021 and in the previous federal elections.

Strategic Voting of Russians During the 2021 Elections

Mikhail Turchenko (EUSP, Saint-Petersburg)

The research is devoted to the strategic voting during the Duma and subnational election campaigns that took place on September 17–19, 2021 in the Russian Federation. The purpose of the study is to quantify the effect of strategic voting in 2021 and compare it with estimates made for past subnational elections. The study is based on electoral data related to the level of majoritarian constituencies. The data includes both information on individual candidates and competition at the county level.

Session II. 14.00-15.20.

Party of People's Distrust: The Origins of the Communists' Electoral Success in 2021

Margarita Zavadskaya, Alexandra Rumyantseva (EUSP, Saint-Petersburg)

After the 2021 State Duma elections, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) reappeared on the Russian political landscape as a new political force with new faces and creative local election campaigns. How and why were the communists, perceived by the majority of analysts and voters as a systemic and rather passive opposition, able to successfully accumulate political discontent among voters in the Russian State Duma elections in September 2021? We argue that the mobilization against pension reform in 2018 proved to be the main factor determining the results of the elections three years later. We rely on the original dataset on protests in 381 large cities in Russia (with a population of more than 20,000 inhabitants) that took place in the summer - autumn of 2018, combined with electoral data from the 2016 and 2021 Duma elections.

Elections in Difficult Times: Factors that Defeat the "Party of Power" at the Subnational Level

Stanislav Shkel (HSE, Saint-Petersburg)

Unlike the previous elections in 2016, the results of the 2021 election campaign demonstrated the defeat of United Russia in four regions: the republics of Sakha (Yakutia) and Mari El, the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and the Khabarovsk Territory. Among the regions in which the "party of power" lost, there are quite a few ethnic republics. Why, even in the face of increasing centralization and consolidation of authoritarianism, are such “tipping elections” taking place at the subnational level? Can we say that the ethnic factor influenced the reduction of electoral support for the authorities? Is the electoral result of 2021 a continuation of the crisis caused by the language reform? And if so, why is there no similar effect in other ethnic republics? This study attempts to shed light on these issues by contributing to the discussion about the sources of stability and vulnerability of modern autocracies in times of crisis.