Electoral Potential of New Parties in Russian Regions

This thesis discusses the impact of the major sociological and political factors on the electoral capacity of new political parties in elections to regional legislative assemblies during the period of 2012-2015. To asses the functional relationship between predictors and dependent variables, the regression analysis based on bootstrapping sample was used. Each group of models included the models consisting only of sociological factors, the models consisting only of political factors and the combined models. According to the results of the analysis, all initial working hypotheses on the relationship between first dependent variable and sociological (population, a share of urban population and degree of an ethnic fractionalization of society) and political (effective number of parties, electoral volatility, political regime and electoral activity of the population) predictors have been rejected. In the course of examination of the second dependent variable – electoral support of new parties in regions of the Russian Federation we have found that relationship with sociological and political factors exists.