Representation of Women and Ethnic Minorities in the Russian State Duma

• In Event: Electoral Politics in Putin’s Russia

Abstract

Elections to the Russian State Duma provide a unique context to study the representation of women and ethnic minorities in a national legislature. Russian elections have witnessed dramatic institutional variation, including a shift from semi-democratic contestation to competitive authoritarianism and the use of different electoral systems. Moreover, ethnic federalism has produced political and demographic conditions that promote the representation of titular ethnic groups in ethnic republics. Finally, the transition from a fragmented party system to one controlled by a single dominant party has had important ramifications for women and minority representation. We use a unique dataset that codes the ethnicity and sex of individual legislators for each election from 1995 to 2016 to analyze how regime type, electoral rules, demographic conditions, and party affiliation have affected descriptive representation in Russia. Using similar data on Ukraine and the Baltic states, we compare Russia’s experience with that of other postcommunist states.

Author

• Robert G. Moser, University of Texas at Austin