Electoral systems and the representation of ethnic minorities: Evidence from Russia

Comparative Politics

Volumn 40, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 273-292

  Moser, Robert G ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 44649148003     PISSN: 00104159     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5129/001041508X12911362382995     Document Type: Review

References (50)

1. See, for example, Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth A. Shepsle, Politics in Plural Societies: A Theory of Democratic Instability (Columbus: Charles E. Merrill, 1972);
2. Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Eastern Europe (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996);
3. Jack Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (New York: Norton, 2000).
4. See, for example, Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977);
5. Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985);
6. Donald Horowitz, A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991);
7. Ben Reilly and Andrew Reynolds, Electoral Systems and Conflict in Divided Societies (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1999).
8. Arend Lijphart, "Constitutional Design for Divided Societies," Journal of Democracy, 15 (April 2004), 97.
9. Andrew Reynolds, "The Case for Proportionality," Journal of Democracy, 6 (October 1995), 86-99.
10. Lijphart, "Constitutional Design for Divided Societies," p. 100.
11. Ibid., pp. 99-100.
12. On the dearth of empirical studies of electoral system effects on ethnic representation, see Pippa Norris, "Ballots Not Bullets: Testing Consociational Theories of Ethnic Conflict, Electoral Systems, and Democratization," in Andrew Reynolds, ed., The Architecture of Democracy: Constitutional Design, Conflict Management, and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 211-13.
13. Robert G. Moser, Unexpected Outcomes: Electoral Systems, Political Parties, and Representation in Russia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001).
14. For a critique of this approach, see Erik S. Herron and Misa Nishikawa, "Contamination Effects and the Number of Parties in Mixed Superposition Electoral Systems," Electoral Studies, 20 (January 2001), 63-86.
15. The 2001 federal law On Political Parties explicitly prohibits the formation of political parties on a racial, national, or religious basis (Art. 9, 3) and prohibits parties from using names and symbols that may offend racial, national, or religious feelings (Art. 6, 5 and Art. 7, 3). Moreover, the law requires that political parties have regional branches in over half of Russia's federal regions (Art. 3, 2), which undermines parties with concentrated geographic support. The 2002 federal law On the Election of Deputies of the State Duma prohibits electoral campaigning and the production of any type of electoral propaganda by charity and religious organizations and organizations founded by them (Art. 57, 5). This same law prohibits electoral campaigning that would violate the integrity of the Russian Federation or excite racial, national, or religious hatred or enmity (Art. 64, 1). Full English-language texts of these laws are available at www.democracy.ru.
16. Reilly and Reynolds, pp. 48-51.
17. Pippa Norris, Electoral Engineering: Voting Rules and Political Behavior (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 208-13.
18. Determination of the Israeli parties considered to be ethnic or religious parties was based on descriptions of parties found in Europe World online, www.europaworld.com.
19. Andrew Reynolds, "The Case for Proportionality," p. 91.
20. See, for example, David Lublin, The Paradox of Representation: Racial Gerrymandering and Minority Interests in Congress (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997);
21. David T. Canon, Race, Redistricting, and Representation: The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
22. Joel D. Barkan, "Elections in Agrarian Societies," Journal of Democracy, 6 (October 1995), 106-16.
23. See Kanchan Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004);
24. Norris, Electoral Engineering, ch. 9.
25. Moser, Unexpected Outcomes, ch. 2.
26. See, for example, Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983);
27. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 1991);
28. Snyder, From Voting to Violence.
29. Democracies in Developed and Developing Countries," Legislative Studies Quarterly, 28 (February 1998), 109-25;
30. Andrew Reynolds, "Women in the Legislatures and Executives of the World," World Politics, 51 (July 1999), 547-72.
31. Norris, "Ballots Not Bullets," pp. 211-13.
32. For examples of studies using political parties as the unit of analysis, see Barkan, "Elections in Agrarian Societies," pp. 108-9;
33. Reynolds, "Constitutional Engineering in South Africa"; Tatiana Kastadinova, "Ethnic and Women's Representation under Mixed Election Systems," Electoral Studies, 26 (2007).
34. The sources for this information were Pyataya Rossiiskaya Gosudarstvennaya Duma [Fifth Russian State Duma] (Moscow: Izdanniya Gosudarstvennaya Duma, 1994), for the 1993 election;
35. Gosudarstvennaya Duma Federal'naya Sobraniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii Vtorogo Sozyva [State Duma Federal Legislature of the Russian Federation Second Session] (Moscow: Izdanniya Gosudarstvennaya Duma, 1996), for the 1995 election;
36. Gosudarstvennaya Duma Federal'naya Sobraniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii Tretego Sozyva [State Duma Federal Legislature of the Russian Federation Third Session] (Moscow: Izdanniya Gosudarstvennaya Duma, 2000);
37. Galina Kozhevnikova, Lyudmila Mikheyesku, and Vladimir Pribylovskii, Deputaty Gosudarstvennoi Dumy RF Tretego Sozyva (1999-2003) [Deputies of the State Duma of the RF Third Session] (Moscow: Panorama, 2000). The database I assembled from these sources includes twenty-eight different ethnic categories. I was not able to collect data on the ethnic identity of legislators for the 2003 election.
38. Chauncy Harris, "The New Russian Minorities: A Statistical Overview," Post-Soviet Geography, 34 (1993), 571.
39. See Phillip Roeder, "Soviet Federalism and Ethnic Mobilization," World Politics, 43 (1991), 196-232;
40. Daniel Treisman, "Russia's Ethnic 'Revival': The Separatist Activism of Regional Leaders in a Postcommunist Order," World Politics, 49 (January 1997), 212-49.
41. Harris, pp. 553, 573.
42. Geographic concentration is measured as the largest share of a single region's population that is comprised by the group in question.
43. These observations are based on data for the 1995 election from Michael McFaul and Nikolai Petrov, eds., Political Almanac of Russia (Moscow: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1998), 668-71.
44. Russian regions are all oblasts and krai, and all have majority-Russian populations. Ethnic homelands are all republics, autonomous oblasts, and the Jewish Autonomous Okrug. Some nonfederal minorities such as Ukrainians gained election in single member districts located in the ethnic homelands of other (federal) minorities.
45. The proportion of the total minority population comprised by federal and nonfederal minorities was calculated by totaling the numbers of all groups within each category found in the dataset and then dividing by the total population of non-Russians. All figures came from the 2002 census.
46. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, pp. 21-36.
47. Due to space considerations, a full breakdown of the partisanship of minority deputies is not provided here but is available upon request from the author.
48. It is important to note that parties used dramatically different boundaries for their regional sublists, often combining several federal units into one regional list. Thus, this reform was not equivalent to the establishment of regional multimember districts.
49. On the role of registration rules on the emergence of ethnic parties, see Johanna Birnir, "Stabilizing Party Systems and Excluding Segments of Society? The Effects of Formation Costs on New Party Foundation in Latin America," Studies in Comparative International Development, 39 (Fall 2004), 3-27.
50. It is unclear whether ethnic parties would have flourished in Russia in the absence of legal limitations. A Muslim social movement called Nur (light in Arabic) was allowed to contest the 1995 election, and a party originally named the Islamic Party of Russia was allowed to register in 2001. The latter changed its name to True Patriots of Russia due to fears of losing its registration before contesting the 2003 election. Nevertheless, this party retained its leadership, organization, and profile, which originated in Dagestan and had definite Islamic roots. Each party won less than 1 percent of the PR vote. As Ware notes in the case of Dagestan, any attempt at a pan-Islamic electoral association would face serious obstacles of internal ethnic differences and competition. See Robert Bruce Ware, "Recent Russian Federal Elections in Dagestan: Implications for Proposed Electoral Reform," Europe-Asia Studies, 57 (June 2005), 583-600.