Electoral Geography of Regionalism in the Komi Republic (The Case of the 2016 and 2021 State Duma Elections)

The electoral processes in the Komi Republic, their dynamics and territorial dimension are of serious research interest both historically and predictively. In the structure of Russia’s political landscape, the republic is one of the few regions with distinct elements of electoral nonconformism. Moreover, the degree of prevalence of such forms of electoral behavior on its territory is unequal, which indicates the variation of factors that cause them and the possibility of forming different political cultures within one region. The article shows that from 2011 to 2021 the electoral landscape in the Komi Republic has undergone a significant transformation, but remains unstable. The dynamics of election results and turnout levels indicate the electorate’s demand for political renewal and a revision of approaches to regional governance. Drawing on discourse analysis of the 2016 and 2021 Duma campaign participants’ electoral programs, the author identifies the candidate, whose ideological positions were most aligned with regionalism. Using the results of this candidate and his affiliated party, he implements electoral-geographical mapping and designates sub-regional clusters of their support. Disproportions between clusters confirm the influence of geographical voting effects on election outcomes and the applicability of the model of spatial diffusion of innovations to predicting ideological and political trends. The article reveals that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation owes its improved performance in 2021 to the strong results of the candidate from single-member district, and the regionalist party statements in combination with party campaigning resonate with the people in the republic more than the party’s overall platform. The candidate's electoral support map largely coincides with the geography of social tension and highlights the boundaries of regional protest. The author concludes that 2021 election results can be interpreted as a cleavage between the government and opposition in the political and economic spheres, and the concept of regionalism allows us to examine this cleavage through the prism of center-periphery model, focusing on the “centralism-particularism” polarization.