The specificity of capital cities in the electoral landscape of Russian regions: variability in the framework of the «center-periphery» disposition

The special position of capital cities in the regional space is also reflected in the electoral sphere. As a rule, in the administrative centers of the subjects of the Russian Federation, the ruling party and its candidates receive less support than in the rest of the region («periphery»). At the same time, the degree of specificity of regional capitals in the electoral landscape of the regions turns out to be very different. In this paper, an attempt is made to explain this variability from the view of the concept of «center – periphery». The empirical data for the study was the federal elections of 2016–2018, namely the difference in voting for «United Russia» party and the incumbent between the capital cities and the periphery in the cross-regional dimension. To identify the structure of the centers in the region, the author used various socioeconomic indicators characterizing the ratio of the capital and the periphery. The analysis employed the method of linear regression and showed that the degree of ruralization of the periphery and the status of the capital city as such exert a key influence on the specifics of voting in the capitals. The presence of large cities on the periphery turned out to be insignificant. The regional regime has a more significant influence on the degree of specificity of regional capitals in the electoral landscape of the regions. Voting in the presidential elections in Russia is much more even than in the parliamentary ones, and not only in the cross-regional dimension, but also within the same region, even between the capital and the periphery. As a result, the trends revealed are much weaker in the presidential elections than in the parliamentary ones.

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