Russia’s State Duma

Jesse Wright

Blog 7

11/1/12

Russia’s State Duma

            Russia has a very interesting political history.  Within the last century it went from being a country run by kings (or tzars as they call them), to a communism led by a single, all-powerful party, to a democracy.  Although Russia has struggled to embrace fair democracy to the level that much of the world would like to see, they do hold free elections allowing all citizens over the age of 18 to vote. 

            Russia has a bicameral parliament called the “Federalnoye Sobraniye,” or “Federal Assembly” in English.  The upper house is called the Federation Council and the lower the State Duma.  “Duma” literally translates to “thought” and was the original name given to the parliament by Tsar Nikoli in 1905.[1]  I will focus on the lower house, the State Duma, which is proportionally elected.  Russia’s State Duma has 450 seats that are elected by party-list proportional representation.[2]  Russia uses a closed/nonpreferential list that allocates seats using the Hare method of “simple quotient and greatest remainder.”[3] The mathematical formula that Russia uses to allocate seats is called the “largest remainders” formula.  More specifically, the formula used is called the “Hamilton method of appointment” (named after Alexander Hamilton), which is a largest-remainder method which uses the Hare Quota.[4]  The entire nation is considered one constituency, which means that the district magnitude is the entire 450 seats that are all elected simultaneously. All parties that receive at least 7 percent of the vote are given seats in parliament.[5]  If a party receives between 5 and 6 percent of the votes, they are entitled to one seat, and a party that receives between 6 and 7 percent gets two seats.[6] There is one stipulation that is placed on representatives that come from parties winning 5 to 7 percent of the vote, which is that they are unable to join any parliamentary faction.[7]  The representatives in the State Duma are elected for a five year term.[8]  

            Russia’s last parliamentary elections for the State Duma were in December of 2011.  The results of this election were that the United Russia Party won 238 seats, the Communist Party won 92 seats, the A Just Russia Party won 64 seats, and the Liberal Democratic Party won 56 seats.[9]  Using the formula N_eff = 1/Ʃ(p2) to calculate the number of effective parties, I found that there are three effective parties in Russia. 

            Based on this information, it would appear the Russia supports Duverger’s Law, in that it does have proportional representation and has more than two effective parties.  Although Russia tends to support this theory, I would not consider it strongly supported. It has only three parties in its parliament, one of which is by far the dominant party, instead of many strong parties. 

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[1] Reverso Dictionary. “Duma”  http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/duma Accessed:  11/1/2012

[2] Intra-Parliamentary Union.  Parline Database “Russian Federation” http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2263_B.htm. Accessed:  11/1/2012

[3] Intra-Parliamentary Union.  Parline Database “Russian Federation” http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2263_B.htm. Accessed:  11/1/2012

[4] Wikipedia “Largest remainder method” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_remainder_method.

Accessed:  11/1/2012

[5] Intra-Parliamentary Union.  Parline Database “Russian Federation” http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2263_B.htm. Accessed:  11/1/2012

[6] Intra-Parliamentary Union.  Parline Database “Russian Federation” http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2263_B.htm. Accessed:  11/1/2012

[7]  Intra-Parliamentary Union.  Parline Database “Russian Federation” http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2263_B.htm. Accessed:  11/1/2012

[8] Center for the Study of Public Policy- University of Strathclyde.  “Russia Votes.” http://www.russiavotes.-org/duma/duma_electoral_system.php. Accessed:  11/1/12

[9]  Wikipedia “Elections in Russia.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Russia. Accessed:  11/1/2012