Prehistory of electoral sociology in pre-revolutionary Russia: an experience of interdisciplinary analysis

Abstract

The article discusses the process of the emergence of socio-electoral research in pre-revolutionary Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the authors make an attempt to link the emergence of scientific interest in understanding the phenomenon of electoral behaviour with the study of the institution of elections in related scientific disciplines – jurisprudence and political science. It is concluded that the practice of this kind of research led representatives of these sciences to formulate the problem of electoral choice, that was rather difficult to solve within the framework of traditional methodological directions. The appeal to sociological approaches of the theoretical and empirical levels made it possible to advance in the study of electoral issues and led researchers to the idea of separating its part into the area of special scientific research. The main stages of the formation of socio-electoral research are analysed: from the first attempts to study electoral behaviour in order to solve legal and political problems in the aspect of understanding the institution of elections to the emergence of the idea of creating a special sociological discipline, within which the phenomenon of electoral choice should be considered. The heuristic guesses of scientists of pre-revolutionary Russia are highlighted, that anticipated a number of research areas in the electoral sociology of the twentieth century. The methods of empirical electoral research, that were first tested in the practice of scientific and sociological work, are analysed. It is noted that neither the level of development of the institution of elections, nor the level of scientific methodology and methods of sociological research in pre-revolutionary Russia contributed to the formation of a special scientific discipline - electoral sociology, and subsequent political events in the country blocked this process for a long historical time.