Quantitative Analysis of Russian Protests: Regional Authorities and Regions of Authority (2018-2021)

The authors offer an original dataset of 4,909 protests across Russia in 2018-2021. The study shows that political and pro-democratic protests do not constitute the majority of protests in Russia, their agenda being mainly concentrated on social and economic issues at the local level. Second, the agenda, not geographic proximity, determines the spread of protests, and a political agenda results in faster dissemination. Third, the main organizer of protests is the Communist Party and not non-systemic parties. Fourth, Moscow and Saint Petersburg lag behind at least three other Russian regions in terms of the strength of local protest activity.