Long-term tendencies in the electoral behavior and the geography of voting in St. Petersburg: 1989-1995

This paper studies the basis and nature of the long-term factors that may have influenced the electoral behavior of St. Petersburgers between 1989 and 1995 from the perspective of geography. Our analysis shows two distinct periods in St. Petersburg's recent electoral history marked by differing behavioral motivations of voters in the city. The first period was marked by only one ideological cleavage between 'marketers' and 'hard-liners'. In 1993 protest motivation managed to erode the predominance of ideology as the determining variable in voting behavior, and began to act as a new independent variable. This marked the beginning of the second period. Four major groupings of St. Petersburg electorate are described in terms of the basic ideological cleavages, party affiliations and geographical gravity centers.