How Durable Is Russia’s Political System? Examining the Consequences of 2019’S Regional Elections

A talk with political scientist Yana Gorokhovskaia.

Regional and local elections in Russia are marked by low voter turnout and typically attract little attention at home and abroad. This summer, however, an election for seats in a rubber-stamp regional legislature drew over 50,000 protesters to the streets, resulted in 2,500 detentions, and ended with embarrassing losses for pro-regime United Russia party. Strategies developed and applied by long-excluded political actors—including innovative campaigns and voting technologies—are putting new pressure on the established political system. In this talk, Dr. Gorokhovskaia considers how the system might respond.

Yana Gorokhovskaia is a political scientist studying civil society and activism in Russia. Her research has been published in Post-Soviet Affairs, Democratization, and Russian Politics. Her commentary has appeared in The Washington Post, Voice of America, Al Jazeera, The Moscow Times, and The Huffington Post. From 2016 to 2019, she was the Russian Politics postdoctoral fellow at the Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies at Columbia University.