The factors of competition in municipal elections by example of the Volga federal district cities

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to identify the factors that determine the presence or absence of competition in municipal elections. The paper summarizes the theoretical material on the phenomenon of competition at the federal, regional and municipal levels. The formulated theoretical framework allowed to identify such factors as quality of life, ethnic composition of population, the proportion of age retirement population, the share of registered incumbent candidates in the elections. The main content of the research is a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The results of elections to the representative bodies of the largest urban districts and municipal districts of the Volga Federal district during the last electoral cycle were analyzed. The analysis determined that the presence of political machines in the territories with a predominance of ethnic population contributes to low competition. The paper also confirmed the claims that the high turnout, the predominance of candidates-incumbents in the elections causes a low level of competition in the elections. The assumption of the role of quality of life in increasing competition is controversial, because it has not received a certain result during the work. At the same time, the identified factors are ambiguous, as due to the limited empirical data, significant variables were probably not taken into account.