Abstract
Research on mixed electoral systems indicates that contamination effects between proportional representation and single-member district components should encourage political parties to maximize the number of placements in single-member districts under non-compensatory mixed rules. However, many parties in Russia and Ukraine fielded candidates in relatively few district races, while some nominated candidates in most districts in recent parliamentary elections. The article proposes possible solutions to this puzzle, identifying incentives and disincentives to maximizing candidate nominations in the districts and illustrating them with case analyses of strategies pursued by Ukraine's Rukh and Russia's Yabloko parties.
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