Re-conceptualising Russian party politics

Abstract

During the 1990s, studies of Russian party politics were largely based on the expectation that parties would provide the integrative and intermediary functions that political parties were expected to perform in established democratic systems. Scholarly attention focused on the role of parties as aggregators of societal interests and the impact of presidentialism on party development. With the entrenchment of electoral authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin, the focus of analysis must change. What matters much more than parties’ societal links are parties’ relationships with the state and the specific role each plays in sustaining the regime.

Keywords:

• Russian federation
• Putin
• political parties
• authoritarianism

Notes

The term ‘super-presidentialism’ with regard to post-Soviet Russia was coined by Timothy Colton (1995). See also Fish (1997).

Aleksei Kuzmin, Research Director, Institute for Humanities and Political Studies, Moscow, interview with author, 16 May 2001, Moscow.

The law has been frequently amended since 2001, the most significant change coming in April 2012 when, as one of Dmitry Medvedev's final acts as President, the number of members needed for a party to register was reduced to just 500. This was seen by some as a means of further splintering political opposition by encouraging the creation of a myriad of small parties. See, for instance, Golosov (2012).

Quote originally taken from the President's website (www.president.kremlin.ru) but since deleted. Cited in White (2006, p. 25). Unity was the precursor party to United Russia, merging with the Fatherland-All Russia alliance in December 2001 to create United Russia.

Following a judgement by the European Court of Human Rights in April 2011 that the dissolution of the Republican Party of Russian was unlawful, the decision was overturned by the Russian Supreme Court in January 2012. http://rapsinews.ru/judicial_news/20120123/259723488.html

It is worth noting that the 7% threshold in Russia is unusually high. A Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly report of 2010 recommends that thresholds should be no greater than 3% for parliamentary elections. http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc10/EDOC12107.htm

In an earlier study, Gel'man (2005) categorises opposition parties as providing either ‘principal’ or semi-opposition.

In addition to the party of power and the CPRF, Oversloot and Verheul (2006, pp. 391–393) define ‘genuine’ parties, ‘party of power helper’ parties, ‘favoured opposition’ parties, ‘parties of distraction’, and ‘vanity’ parties.

Interview with author, Moscow, 8 November 2010.

In 2009, it was reported that Gennady Zyuganov enjoyed warm relations with the Kremlin, evidenced by the installation of a presidential hotline in the Communist leader's office (Kosentko and Koriya 2009).

This supposition was supported by several interviews and conversations I had with current and former Yabloko activists in July and November 2010.