Резюме на английском_Турченко Михаил (1136366), страница 2
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The method ofdata analysis employed in this study is ordered logistic regression.The units of analysis and the chronological framework of research. The unit of the analysis presented in the empirical part of this thesis is the region. The lower timeframe of the research is December 2003,when the first regional elections under the new rules imposed by the 2002electoral reform were held. The upper timeframe is September 2016. Starting from December 2003 all Russian regions held no less than two roundsof legislative elections4. By the end of 2016 the third post-reform electionswere held in 72 regions5. The period between December 2003 and October2008 is the first round of regional elections after the 2002 electoral reform,according to which no less than half of a regional parliament had to beelected using PR system.
The period from March 20086 to September 2013is the second round; and the period from December 20117 to September2016 is defined here as to be the third round.Hypotheses. The main hypothesis of the study is that electoral engineering was more evident in regions with relatively open political systems,where “tough”8 manipulations could cause the open discontent of ordinarycitizens or the active protest of political opposition.Along with this hypothesis, the study tests the following hypothesestowards the factors of electoral engineering in the Russian regions as well:4Except Crimea and Sevastopol which are excluded from the analysis.On September 10, 2017, and September 9, 2018 the third post-reform elections were held in 11 regions.6On October 8, 2006, March 11, 2007, and December 2, 2007 the second post-reform parliamentary elections in Sverdlovsk and Volgograd oblasti, and the Republic of Mordovia, respectively, were held.
Despite the fact that these elections belonged to the second round, it seems to be more precisely to speakabout the second round of regional elections under the new rules since March 2008 when the second elections starting from 2003 were held in seven regions.7On March 2, 2008 the third elections in Sverdlovsk oblast’ were held.8By tough manipulations electoral fraud or voter intimidation are meant (Birch 2011, p.41–51).57– electoral engineering during the first and the second rounds of regional legislative elections after the 2002 electoral reform depended on thefederal center’s9 activity;– electoral engineering was less evident in regions headed by governors10 who had resources allowing them to mobilize for United Russia awide network of loyal agents of electoral manipulations at the local level;– evident electoral engineering could be a strategy for those governors whose length of tenure in office was short;– electoral engineering could have been evident in those regionswhere United Russia faced a solid representation of other parties during theprevious regional parliamentary elections held under the new rules.Data selection.
In order to construct the independent variables thatserved as the empirical referents of the research hypotheses, informationextracted from expert ratings, national censuses, and electronic databaseswas used. The Carnegie Moscow Center’s rating of regional democraticdevelopment, created by Russian scholars Petrov and Titkov (2013), aswell as the information from “The Social Atlas of Russian Regions”, prepared by the same authors according to the same principles, were chosen tooperationalize the openness of regional political regimes.
Data on the percentages of ethnic non-Russians and country population in a given regionwere taken from 2002 and 2010 Russian national censuses. Data for theconstructing of the effective number of parliamentary parties (ENPS) wereobtained from the official webpage of the Central Electoral Commission ofRussia and the publications of A. Kynev (2009, 2014).To construct the dependent variable of the analysis reflecting the degree of electoral engineering intensity in a given region, an index was developed by summing up values representing the main dimensions of a giv9The term federal center is used to denote the Russian president and his administration in a general way.The term governor is used here to refer to regional chief executives.108en regional electoral system, i.e., assembly size, the share of PR deputies,legal electoral threshold, and method for allocating list seats.
Informationon the size of regional assemblies was obtained from the texts of the regional constitutions and statutes published by Garant-Servis. Texts of regional electoral laws and abovementioned Garant-Servis database wereused for collecting information on the peculiarities of regional electorallaws, namely, the share of PR deputies, legal electoral thresholds, andmethods for allocating list seats.Statements to be defended:1. The federal center was the main actor that influenced electoral engineering at the regional level during the first and the second rounds of regional legislative elections after the 2002 electoral reform.
Its main goalconsisted in creating electoral rules favorable to United Russia. NeitherUnited Russia, nor regional governors influenced the regional electoral systems’ transformations during that period. The federal center ceased to influence electoral engineering during the third round of post-reform regionalelections after having reduced the maximum possible legal electoralthreshold from 7 to 5 per cent.2.
During the third round of regional legislative elections when thefederal center stepped back from active electoral system engineering at theregional level, regional executives stepped forward. The governors’ influence on electoral engineering was particularly visible in regions with relatively open political systems, where civil society institutions are alive, political pluralism exists, and the level of protest activity is high. Using inthese regions “tough” electoral manipulations at the expense of electoralengineering for the sake of United Russia could cause the open discontentof ordinary citizens or the active protest of opposition what would indicatea governor’s inability to keep regional political process under control.93. During the third round of regional legislative elections, the level ofelectoral engineering was significantly lower in those regions headed bygovernors who had resources for mobilizing local actors to engage in“tough” manipulations in favor of United Russia (who possessed the resources of ethnic political machines), and, therefore, did not need any“supplementary” activity, such as electoral engineering, to aid United Russia in gaining the seats necessary to ensure its parliamentary majority.4.
The link between electoral engineering and United Russia’s supposed activity aimed at the consolidation of its representation in regionalassemblies was not supported in the study. This result, along with the finding that electoral engineering did not depend on the strategy of those governors who have not been ruling by a given region for a long time, makesthe consideration of the “structural” factors facilitating the governors to rely on one type of electoral manipulation at the expense of another, to beprincipal in explaining electoral engineering at the level of Russian regions.Contribution to the subject field:1.
This study examined electoral engineering in the Russian regionsin general instead of particular dimensions of electoral systems. To do thisthe index reflecting the degree of electoral engineering was elaborated.2. This study employed statistical strategy to examine the phenomenon of electoral engineering instead of case-oriented approach which isprevalent in the literature. To perform the analysis the conclusions of threeclose but almost non-overlapping strands of the literature devoted to electoral engineering in democracies, electoral manipulations in authoritarianregimes, and electoral engineering in particular autocracies were combined.3. Based on obtained results it was demonstrated that electoral engineering in authoritarian settings may have a different logic than that in democracies; namely, the influence of political parties on electoral systems’changes was not found (United Russia was in the core of the analysis).104.
The obtained results indicate that electoral engineering may be ofimportance in undemocratic political regimes under certain conditions;namely, when incumbents lack the resources to implement “tough” formsof electoral manipulations for securing their political power.5. It was found that the factors of electoral engineering at the regional level could be outweighed by the federal center’s activity if it takes stepsto transform regional electoral systems into being less inclusive.Works published in journals approved by HSE (including journals both from WoS and Scopus lists):Turchenko M. S.
Ot smeshannykh k mazhoritarnym? (O logike izmeneniia regional’nyh izbiratel’nyh sistem v sovremennoi Rossii) [FromMixed to Majoritarian? On the Logic of Regional Electoral System Changes in Modern Russia]. Politiia.2014. I. 2. P. 84–96.Turchenko M. S. Zagraditel’nye bar’ery na vyborakh v parlamenty vrossiiskikh regionakh: ob’iasnenie variatsii [Electoral Thresholds at theRegional Parliamentary Elections in Russia: Explaining the Variations].Vestnik Permskogo Universiteta. Seriia: Politologiia. 2015. I.
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