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Regular version of the site

RWG academic seminar

Academic seminar of the Centre for Spatial Econometrics in Applied Macroeconomic Research was held on the 28th of October where Lada Kuletskaya gave a presentation «Spatial modelling of voting preferences: the “mystery” of the Republic of Tatarstan» (in co-authorship with O. Demidova and E. Podkolzina).

Abstract

We argue neighbors play a crucial role in voting behavior for the main candidate in Russia. Moreover, the official status of the region and connectedness with the ruling party matter. The spatial effects from neighbors we explain with the idea that voters base on public choices (Coleman, 2018) and illustrate it on the example of Privolzhskiy federal district regions further developing the results electoral deference over time occurs in the form of geographic clusters (Moraski & Reisinger, 2010) with an emphasis on Tatarstan and its effect on voting on the municipal level. The Republic of Tatarstan is an exceptional case also because it is the only republic in Russia that has reference to sovereignty in its constitution and at the same time is loyal to the Kremlin. This paper presents a detailed spatial analysis of voters’ responses at the municipal level covering Russian presidential elections in 2018 year using the example of the Republic of Tatarstan and its surrounding regions. The preferred 2-step OLS specification with instruments shows that Tatarstan has a strong positive effect on neighboring regions in terms of voting for the main candidate, while surrounding regions vote differently and negatively affect each other. Municipalities with better economic conditions have a negative impact on the share of votes for the main candidate and positive for the opposite.