National and Institutional Network Relations between Deputies of People’s Assembly of the Republic of Dagestan of the VII Convocation

It has long been generally accepted in Political Science that distributed elite networks, rather than institutions, are crucial to the functioning of the Russian political system. One of the important factors in the formation of such networks is ethnicity. Of particular interest is the ethnic dynamics in those regions, where there is no dominant ethnic group and, consequently, mechanisms for balancing interethnic relations are needed. In Russia an extreme example of such regions is Dagestan. The article attempts to test the role of the ethnic factor in forming network relations between the deputies of the People’s Assembly of the Republic of Dagestan. In addition to ethnic ties, it examines institutional and bureaucratic connections based on factional affiliation and parliamentary committee membership. When solving this tasks, the authors employed two unique datasets that they compiled on the basis of the information from People’s Assembly official web page and a number of its archived versions, using network analysis and the exponential random graph models. The research has shown that the main role in structuring People’s Assembly deputies belongs to political party factions and especially to committee affiliations, which have a decisive influence on the formation of relations between deputies, including those that lead to active joint lawmaking. According to the authors’ conclusion, when forming ties between the deputies of Dagestani legislature, the ethnic factor is overall less significant than institutional factors, and the mechanism of the formation of such ties needs further investigation.