Political preferences of leaders at the municipal level of government (the case of the Moscow Central administrative district)

Abstract

This study analyzes the personal characteristics of municipal leaders in the context of upcoming elections in 2022. The empirical basis of the study was in-depth interviews with heads of municipal districts and a survey of 203 municipal deputies of the Central Administrative District of Moscow regarding their political expectations during the election campaign in 2021. The author proceeds from the understanding of municipal leadership as a political phenomenon. The theoretical basis for this interpretation is modern concepts of political leadership, which pay special attention to personal characteristics of leaders and the concept of local self-government. The result of the study was, first, a conceptual and methodological model for analyzing the personality of leaders at the municipal level of power, within which the key is to determine the main characteristics of representatives of this professional community and their personal characteristics. In addition, the process of collecting empirical data developed guides for in-depth interviews that have universality and applicability beyond Moscow. Data allowed us to propose a classification of municipal deputies according to their political preferences, developed using the methods of distant and contact diagnostics of the personality of municipal leaders.