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From “the Red Belt” to “the Bible Belt”: Historical Roots of the Shift in Russian Political Geography
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From “the Red Belt” to “the Bible Belt”: Historical Roots of the Shift in Russian Political Geography
Annotation
PII
S086904990000379-8-1
DOI
10.31857/S086904990000379-8
Publication type
Article
Status
Published
Authors
Andrey Shcherbak 
Occupation: Senior research fellow, laboratory for Comparative Social Research, NRU HSE; assistant professor, Department of Political Science NRU HSE-St.Petersburg
Affiliation: National Research University "Higher School of Economics" – St.Petersburg
Address: Russian Federation, Saint-Petersburg
Maria Ukhvatova
Occupation: Postgraduate student, Department of Political Science, NRU HSE – St.Petersburg
Affiliation: National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (NRU HSE) – St.Petersburg
Address: Russian Federation, St.Petersburg
Edition
Issue 6
Pages
98-113
Abstract

The paper aims to explore the relationship between religion and politics in Russia from a spatial perspective. The rise of political influence of the Russian Orthodox Church can be partly explained by the alliance of the Church and the Kremlin: the latter openly declares its’ commitment to “traditional values’ and the former demonstrates unconditional loyalty to the regime. Unsurprisingly, one can observe the increase of Vladimir Putin’s electoral support among the most religious Orthodox regions in the recent elections. Paradoxically, new Russian “Bible Belt” is made of formerly “red”, communist regions. We argue that it is not a coincidence. Using a comparative historical approach, we demonstrate that those regions of Central, South and Volga Russia belong to the historical core of the Russian state. Thus, the rejection of communism in the Center would lead to the rejection in the core as well; the Kremlin’s conservative agenda was first of all accepted right there. The comparison with the most studied “Bible Belt” – in the protestant regions in the US South – reveals very similar historical background in the making of the religious belts: belonging to the historical core, prevalence of exploitive labor, the Civil War’s cleavage and political realignment. Finally, we examined some recent social-demographic indicators and revealed how political religiosity may affect not only electoral behavior but also highly debated family, marriage and sexual education policy in those belts.

Keywords
religion, political geography, “Bible Belt”, elections, historical approach
Received
28.12.2018
Date of publication
28.12.2018
Number of purchasers
10
Views
1945
Readers community rating
0.0 (0 votes)
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References

1. Brunn S.D., Webster G.R., Archer J.C. (2011) The Bible Belt in a changing south: Shrinking, relocating and multiple buckles. Southeastern Geographer, no. 4, pp. 513–549.

2. Clarke C. J. (1990) The Bible Belt thesis: An empirical test of the hypothesis of clergy overrepresentation. 1890–1930. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, no. 2, pp. 210–225.

3. Fairbrother M. (2013) The Political Economy of Religiosity: Development and Inequality Reconsidered. Working Paper. (http://seis.bris.as.uk/-ggmhf/research.html).

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8. Nefedov S.A. (2005) Ob ekonomicheskikh predposylkakh russkoy revolyutsii [About economic preconditions of Russian revolution]. Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost', no. 3, pp. 83–96.

9. Troynitskiy A. (1861) Krepostnoye naseleniye v Rossii po 10-y narodnoy perepisi [Serfs in Russia according to the 10th national census]. St.-Petersburg: B/i.

10. Turovskiy R.F. (1999) Parlamentskiye vybory 1999 g.: regional'nyye osobennosti [Parliamentary Elections 1999: Regional Features]. Politiya, no. 4, pp 102.

11. Ukhvatova M.V. (2017) Religiya i elektoral'noye povedeniye v Rossii: regional'nyy aspekt [Religion and Voting Behavior in Russia: a Regional Aspect]. Vestnik Permskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, no. 4, pp. 26-48.

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