№ 1 - 2001
Oreshkin D.B.
Geography of Electoral Culture and Integrity of Russia

The author makes an attempt to determine Russia’s different territories’ adaptive powers and receptivity to political reforms. It’s electoral geographical analysis of the 1999 State Duma and of the 2000 Presidential election results that figures as investigative mechanism of comparing regional political cultures. The conclusion based on the said analysis boils down to dissimilarity of the country’s political and socio-cultural expanse and to the coexistence, within it, of a “European” model of voting and of an “Asian” one. The “electoral controllability index” introduced by the author, allows to subdivide the country’s territory into (1) the “Russian Russia” where a phase of political stability now prevails and (2) the “Russia of national formations” whose socio-cultural background is not yet ready for full electoral freedom and for democratization after a Western model.