Previous explorations of Russia’s mixed electoral system uncovered conflicting results on party discipline in legislative voting. The effect in recent convocations is modest, with single-member district deputies expressing slightly less factional loyalty than those elected under proportional representation. However, factors other than electoral mandate may also affect party cohesion. In particular, a definitive connection exists between holding public office in Russia and the opportunity to maximize personal profit-seeking. Using individual-level reading voting data on budgetary bills from the 7th State Duma, I examine how the profit-seeking behavior of deputies who previously held business positions at the executive level influences party cohesion. I find significant evidence that deputies with previous executive business positions defect from their party more frequently than those without. The effect is marginally greater for deputies elected from single-member districts rather than the party-list. These findings have greater implications for party cohesion and the involvement of businesspeople in national legislatures.

Rurality is oft considered concomitant with right-wing traditionalism, but what conditions might produce an ideologically left countryside? More foundationally, how can we explain not only the global tendency towards rural conservatism yet the occasional incidence of a left-wing countryside? In this article I argue that agriculturally engaged, labor-coercive estates heavily influence the ideological topography of rural society through the sorting of both land and labor. Local areas with such estates are beholden to two separate processes following enfranchisement and industrialization: if the landless labor emigrates to cities, an ideologically right countryside is likely. However, if the landless labor remains, either an ideologically left or -right countryside is expected to occur depending on the existence of historical labor coercion-derived behavioral motivations and institutional-structural conditions. Where these mechanisms exist, a left-wing rurality emerges, and where they don’t, right-wing ideology prevails. I present empirical evidence from France in support of this argument.

That natural geography played some role in early state-building is well-established, yet the longue durée consequences of this decisive factor largely remain a mystery. Of particular note is the focus of Carneiro (1970) on the role of geographic circumscription, where arable land is surrounded by natural geographic barriers such as mountains and deserts, in facilitating early statehood. After contributing to the emergence of the modern polity, how has geographic circumscription shaped the nature of states today? I present evidence from the Old World and China that geographic circumscription encouraged rulers to divest resources away from military capacity towards other components of the central state apparatus, facilitating absolutism. Measuring the circumscription of approximately 30,000 polity observations between 1200 and 1800, I demonstrate that countries today with more historical geographical circumscription (through their ancestral polities) have smaller militaries and larger governments as a function of total population and domestic production, respectively.