Analyzing the 2010 Parliamentary Election in Kyrgyzstan from the Bottom Up: Preliminary Findings on Turnout and Party Voting

October 12, 2011

October 12, 2011

Pr. Eugene Huskey, Stetson University, Member of the Advisory Board of CASI

Abstract: Competitive elections are opportunities for political scientists to learn more about how societies are structured. Because of the absence of free elections in the last decade and a half, and the limited polling done in the country, it has been difficult to reach firm conclusions about the political preferences of Kyrgyzstan's citizens. Combining census data with the parliamentary election results, we can now begin to examine systematically the impact of urban/rural, education, ethnic, gender, age, and regional distinctions on political behavior. That is what Professors David Hill and Eugene Huskey at Stetson are doing in the study of the 2010 parliamentary election in Kyrgyzstan, based on data from all 2333 precincts in the country. The talk exploreed their initial findings related to voter turnout and party preference, findings that the authors hope the audience will help to revise, correct, and supplement.

Bio: Eugene Huskey is a Professor of Political Science at Stetson University in Florida. He is a specialist on politics and legal affairs in the USSR and the successor states of Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Among his recent works on Kyrgyzstan are "The 2010 Referendum and Parliamentary Elections in Kyrgyzstan" (with David Hill) in Electoral Studies (2011); "Narrowing the Sites and Moving the Targets: Institutional Instability and the Development of an Opposition in Kyrgyzstan" (with Gulnara Iskakova), in Problems of Post-Communism (2011); and "The Barriers to Intra-Opposition Cooperation in the Post-Communist World: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan" (with Gulnara Iskakova) in Post-Soviet Affairs (2010).

<< go to news list