Ballot Access, Vlast’ Dominance, and Pomoshchnik Political Culture in Russia’s Subnational Executive Elections

Executive elections have returned to Russia’s regions after eight years, during which time gubernatorial positions at the subnational level were filled by presidential appointment. These are critically important positions for ruling Russia, and thus controlling them is no less important to the Kremlin now than they were in 2004 when Putin abolished elections for these positions in order to strengthen the vlast’ vertikal. Although only 13 regions have held executive elections in this new era, vlast’ has won every contest. This paper examines an important aspect of how vlast’ maintains such electoral control. It uses statistical analysis to examine the importance of candidacy manipulations as an instance of “administrative resources” that the Kremlin employs to secure its desired electoral outcomes. The finding is that the maximization of vlast’’s electoral dominance is not as closely related to blocking the access of opposition candidates who want to get on the ballot as it is to the paucity of opposition candidates who even try to get onto ballot. Although decisions not to seek ballot access cannot be observed directly, the paper proposes an explanation for variations in the rate of opposition-candidate emergence: 10cal political culture that may enjoin politicians to define themselves as helpers, not autonomous agents or competitors. The paper then uses a case study of Briansk oblast to elaborate the evolution of such a “pomoshchnik culture,” and hypothesizes how it can affect attitudes about political competition among regional political elites.