Development of Political Statistics: Conceptual Foundations for the Formation of a System of Indexes

The purpose of the study. The formation of a social state, the formation of civil society, the development of a multi-party system and public associations, including in the form officially registered of political parties (PP) and socially oriented non-profit organizations (SO NPO), the emergence of new channels of communication between the population and its active part – the electorate and the state authorities in the Russian Federation, modern trends in the development of a multipolar world and changes in the forms and types of foreign policy relations – all these phenomena and facts of social life become new objects of research of one of the oldest branches of social statistics: political statistics (PS), which makes necessary the formation of updated system of indexes for this branch of statistical science. Materials and methods. The conceptual basis for structuring sections of the PS, identifying a specific subject, method and research objectives, defining a system of indexes within each section of the PS and the relationships between these modules are presented in the form of an information and logical diagram of subsystems of indexes with the definition of algorithms for their calculation and data sources for their construction. Results. The results of the author’s applied research on some relationships between modules of indexes of PS sections (the number of SO NPOs and its relationship with the level of well-being of the population, the number of poor people) are presented, highlighting those emerging trends in Russia for 2012–2022, proportions, structural shifts in the sphere of socio-political relations; the main directions for the further development of the system of PS indexes in the context of its subsystems are determined, the problems ofstatistical observation in its various forms over the facts of political life are highlighted. Conclusion. The obtained research results can be used in analytical activities when organizing targeted studies of PS objects by statistical bodies, ministries and departments, and the Civil Chamber of the Russian Federation; in the educational process in the training of sociologists and political scientists in the country’s universities; in the analytical developments of academic and teaching staff.