Ethnic factor in electoral behavior in Latvia: spatial effect

The article analyses the way the spatial effect is reflected in the ethnic voting in Latvia at the parliamentary elections of 2011, 2014 and 2018. The study reveals that the electoral support of both parties relying on Russian-speaking voters correlates with the share of Russians living in a municipality. However, in case of Social Democratic Party "Harmony" the correlation is higher than that of the Latvian Russian Union. The local indicators of spatial association display neighborhood clusters of high support of these parties in Latgale and those of low support in Kurzeme. The shape of these clusters does not change considerably from one electoral cycle to another. Municipalities with primarily non-Latvian population in Eastern Latgale close to the border with Russia and Belarus differ in their electoral behavior the most. Electoral zoning of Latvia by the method of spatially constrained hierarchical clustering based on the results of all parliamentary parties first and foremost indicates the cluster close to the border of Latvia with Russia and Belarus. Moreover, the cleavage in electoral behavior between these Latgalian municipalities and other Latvian regions appears to be the strongest not only in the Latvian context, but in comparison with electoral cleavages in eleven other countries bordering Russia.

spatial analysis, electoral geography, Latvia, Latgale, russians, ethnic cleavage, elections, parties, electoral zoning