Geographic Factors of Voting in Russian Regions: Direct and Contextual Effects

Adopting a politico-geographical approach, we focus on both the direct and indirect effects of the geographic features of Russian regions on voting in the Duma elections of 2016 and 2021. We test the explanatory power of geographic variables on the levels of electoral support for the Kremlin’s party, United Russia (UR), and the three systemic opposition parties; the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and Just Russia (JR). In order to assess the contextual effects, we employ regression models with interactive variables. The study demonstrates that some special features of geographic location of a region impact on voting for parties in Russian regions, both directly and indirectly. The most important factors are remoteness of a region from the centre of the country and the border location of a region.