The Problem of Stability of the Russian Party System in a Mirror of Regional Elections
Article is devoted to the analysis of dynamics of the Russian party system and an assessment of degree of its stability. Conclusions of research are based on materials of statistics of elections in legislative assemblies of subjects of the Russian Federation on December 4, 2011. The index of volatility of M. Pedersen is applied to measurement of electoral stability of party systems in research, usually used in comparative political science. Comparison of indicators of support of parties and levels of electoral volatility of regional party systems by views of regions and federal districts is carried out. Despite distinction of results of the games in different regions, the big contribution of results of “United Russia” to the calculated indicators of volatility is emphasized. Change of officially recorded level of support of “United Russia” made about a half from total amount of quantitative changes in party system. The obtained data allow to pay also attention to extreme results of elections in representative bodies of some regions. All this in combination with low indicators of an index of volatility in many regions raises a question of efficiency of application of this indicator in transitional societies.