The Structure of Party Alternatives and Voter Choice in Russia

Persistently high levels of voter volatility in Russia can be explained with reference to the lack of stable party identifications in the electorate. Alternatively, and increasingly in correspondence with the available survey evidence, the principal source of volatility can be found in party system properties. This article contributes to the second theory by exploring the sources of volatility between the 2003 national legislative elections and regional legislative elections that were held concurrently or within one year after the national ones. The analysis demonstrated that the results of regional elections were strongly affected by the varying structures of party alternatives. Voter choice in regional elections is found to be strongly influenced by variations on such parameters as the number of parties and the presence or absence of electoral blocs as principal means of articulating local issue dimensions.