Final Activity Report

Project Title:
How electoral systems affect democratic accountability in Russian regions

Aitalina Azarova

During the second part of the IPF project (August 2004-May 2005), all the activities outlined in the project schedule were completed, namely, field research, field trips, survey of the Russian regions. Several drafts of research paper were written, published and  presented to different audiences.


1. Field research

In the second half of the period of the IPF project analysis of the current situation in the field of electoral rules and practises in different regions, and indicating of the possible electoral instruments aimed at the enhancing of accountability of the regional governments and collecting primary data from literature sources to achieve research objectives continued.
1. further research into the official documents on regional elections, using Internet resources, and sources available in the State Library in Moscow.
2. analysis of the web-sites of the legislative and executive branches of all regional governments, including on-line questionnaire.
3. further collection of the data for the construction of the variables necessary for accomplishment of the statistical analysis.
4. interviews with several officials and experts in individual regions

2. Survey of the regional experts
Conducting of mailing survey: during the period of October-December 2004 a questionnaire was distributed among representatives of a majority of the Russian regions.

3. Field trips

In the basis of the prevous consultations with national experts, two regions were selected for the more detailed analysis of the performance of their government. The analysis included interviews andregional literature and legislation review. During the October-November a number of  interviews with MPs, regional party leaders and members of the think tanks involved in research on regional politics were arranged and conducted.

•  Trip to S-Petersburg (October-November 2004) You can find interviews here

• Trip to Ekaterinburg (November-December 2004) You can find interviews here

    
4. Research  paper presentations

On 7 March 2005 several chapter of the research paper were prepared and presented at the Political Science Department of the Central European University, where it benefited from the discussions with professors Balazs Varadi, Zsolt Enyegi, Tamas Meszerics, and others.

In addition, the key problems of the research were discussed informally among participants of an Interregional Scientific Workshop “Sociological problems of the institutions during Russian transition”. St. Petersburg 14-17 October 2004.

5. Statistical analysis

The questionnaires received from respondents were processed into digital format and were used for the statistical analysis using SPSS software.

6. Publications

During the fellowship year I presented findings of the research  in following publications:

5. 1. Research paper was prepared and uploaded in the web-site of the Center of Policy Studies, Budapest, Hungary.

5.2.  Policy paper, stressing the necessity of electoral changes alongside the prescribed changes in the electoral formula, and outlining policy proposals for achieving those changes

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