Public contestation in the parliaments of the Central Black Earth region: topics, technologies, results

Public contestation is a form of individual or collective political activity aimed at criticizing, refuting or opposing a project or goal being implemented, through introducing additions or alternative projects. The variety of public discussions, practices of public contestation can be divided into five platforms (spheres): discursive, protest, electoral, party-parliamentary and expert. The contestation on the party-parliamentary platform has the greatest impact on the final version of the political project. The object of the study is the public contesting by the opposition parties in the regional parliaments of the Central Black Earth Region.
The empirical base of the research includes public statements (discourse) and political actions of the deputies of regional parliaments, members of the parliamentary groups of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, LDPR, «Fair Russia», which are usually viewed as opposition system parties. Only these three parties enjoy federal parliamentary status and have recognizable national leaders. In this study, we have examined the websites of the regional branches of these parties and messages containing elements of protest and contestation.
During the period under review, the parliamentary opposition parties in the regional parliaments of the Central Black Earth Region have neither institutional capacity, nor sufficient electoral potential to participate fully in the negotiations on draft laws at the regional level. For this reason, the main form of public contestation has become the organization of public protest actions in order to demonstrate the principled position and the seriousness of their struggle to the voters of the party. 

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