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A. Borodin1
  • 1 National Research University Higher School of Economics, 20, Myasnitskaya str., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation

Social Conformity in the Behavior of Russian Voters

2005. Vol. 9. No. 1. P. 74–81 [issue contents]
It is common knowledge that one of the main benefits of democratic voting system is selection of alternatives favorable to the majority, provided all members of a society can make sensible decisions. But as one looks closer at how voting decisions are made, she may find that rationality is not their necessary attribute. Social conformity, defined as alignment of people’s thinking or behavior with a societal or group norm is a widespread occurrence that provides an example for the rational choice theory failure. From the behavioral voting studies it is known that voter’s choice is often correlated with his identification or affiliation with political parties, social groups or class; often voters tend to vote like their surroundings – friends, coworkers or in accordance with family traditions. Russia is the country with long history of conformity-shaped voting behavior. In the Communist era unanimous votes were not uncommon and dissidence was often persecuted. It seems like a habit for conformity still affects voting behavior to a substantial degree, as it stems from a conformity test proposed by Coleman (2004). In this study the test is carried out using a detailed data set from Russian Duma elections 1995–2003. In most cases statistically significant relation is observed, suggesting strong conformist pattern in Russian voter’s behavior.
Citation: Borodin A. (2005) Soglasovannost' kollektivnykh deystviy v povedenii rossiyskikh izbirateley [Social Conformity in the Behavior of Russian Voters]. HSE Economic Journal , vol. 9, no 1, pp. 74-81 (in Russian)
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