Ethnicity, Ethnoregionalism, and the Political Geography of Putin's Electoral Support

Abstract

Two U.S. political scientists analyze the electoral geography of the 2000 Russian presidential election with a focus on the ethnic dimension of support for Vladimir Putin. In exploring the impact of ethnicity on voting patterns, the authors focus on the ethno-territorial line of division between Russia's ethnic and non-ethnic regions, as well as Putin's policies toward the ethnic regions. In an effort to determine the extent to which patterns from previous elections persisted into the 2000 election, the authors examine a range of socio-economic correlates and compare support for Putin with support for Boris Yel'tsin in the 1996 presidential election. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O50, Z10. 2 figures, 1 table, 35 references. I ln the 26 March 2000 presidential election, Vladimir Putin won a decisive first-round victory with over 53.4 percent of the vote, thus securing for himself by democratic means the seat that Boris Yel'tsin passed on to him upon his resignation on the New Year's Eve of the millennium. With voter turnout just below 69 percent, moreover, this seemingly was also a decision most citizens were interested in and supportive of. While turnout was consistently high from region to region, with all but four regions having between a 60 and 80 percent turnout, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria had turnout rates that greatly exceeded the national average, with 92.8 and 88.5 percent, respectively. Incidentally, these two regions also were among the most supportive of Putin, giving him 86.1 and 75.5 percent of their votes. Is it a mere coincidence that these regions, with exceptionally high levels of electoral participation, were also some of the most supportive of Putin's bid for the presidency? Moreover, is there something to the fact that these two regions happen to be "ethnic" regions, i.e., subjects of the Russian Federation with special legal standing based on the ethnic status of their titular nationalities? Given the highly complex and multi-faceted nature of ethnic identity in the Russian Federation, the persisting specter of ethnic disintegration hanging over the country, and the emergence of Putin's centralizing policies toward the regions (particularly the ethnic regions)—any discernible patterns between voting behavior, ethnic identity, and support for the president warrant further investigation. We provide evidence below that such connections are indeed discernible from close regional analysis of the March 26, 2000 presidential election. 'Assistant Professor of Political Science, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798, and Professor of Political Science, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, respectively. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, April 5-7, Columbia University, New York. Funding for this paper was provided in part by the Baylor University Research Committee. The authors would like to thank Georgy Bovt, Gregory Kljutcharev, and Justin Miller for their assistance.