Political disengagement in post-communist Russia: a qualitative study

Nominally, Russia's post-communist institutions provide every opportunity for its citizens to choose the government they want, and to influence its actions. There are secret and competitive elections, held at regular intervals. The new constitution, adopted by popular vote in 1993, makes a formal commitment to multiparty politics. There is a separation of powers, and an independent judiciary. The classic liberal freedoms are all secured: there is freedom of speech, movement and assembly, and of conscience, and equality before the law. In the event of any disagreement, international norms take precedence over the laws of the state itself. There are freedoms that go beyond the practice of many liberal democracies, including the requirement that official bodies make available any information they hold on private individuals unless national security considerations are involved. And there are freedoms that have a particular resonance in post-communist conditions: freedom of entrepreneurship, and the right of private as well as other forms of ownership. The constitution even begins, in words that are hardly accidental, ‘We the multinational people…’.

Russians themselves have been less enthusiastic about their new circumstances. The survey evidence, at least, suggests a wide measure of agreement that there is greater freedom of speech, greater freedom to practise a religion, and greater freedom to decide whether or not to take part in political life. But there is nothing like the same measure of agreement that ordinary people have acquired a greater degree of influence over the government that speaks in their name, and many think government is less likely to treat them fairly and equally than it did in the Soviet period. 1 Elections are of course the classic means of allowing citizens to choose the future direction of government by selecting among parties and candidates. Yet for many Russian scholars, elections have undergone an ‘authoritarian adaptation’, and so far from eliminating the alienation of ordinary people from government, they have ‘only deepened it’.2 A deepening disillusion with the mechanisms of representative democracy—not, of course, unique to Russia3—has been reflected in falling turnouts at national elections (to not much more than half in the 2003 Duma election), and a steady increase in the vote ‘against all’ candidates and parties.4

So far, the study of Russia's ‘disempowered electorate’ has largely been conducted through the medium of national surveys, or voting data themselves. 5 This article employs a rather different body of evidence to explore the nature of political disengagement in the words of Russians themselves. It draws in particular on a series of focus groups that were conducted in the immediate aftermath of the parliamentary and presidential elections of December 2003 and March 2004 in a variety of central Russian locations. Each focus group involved eight or nine participants, normally of working age, following the same series of questions; transcripts and recordings were provided for further analysis, and the comments of a local moderator (further details are provided in the Appendix). Focus group methods of this kind have rarely been employed in the study of post-communist Russian politics, although they have a lengthy ancestry in the social sciences more generally; as Krueger has noted, they ‘allow the researcher to get in touch with participants’ perceptions, attitudes, and opinions in a way that other procedures do not allow’, and are particularly appropriate for ‘exploring “why” people think or feel the way they do’.6

In what follows we consider three central issues in discussions that extended across all the focus groups, and sometimes continued informally after the group had completed its formal business. We consider, first of all, the voting decision: whether or not to vote, and in either case for what reason. Second, we explore the electoral mechanism: whether it is perceived as honest, whether it allows ordinary citizens to express their preferences, and to what extent it appears to bring those preferences to the attention of government. And third, we consider wider questions of political efficacy: whether there are other mechanisms through which citizens can attempt to exercise their influence, and how effective (or otherwise) they appear to be. Each section concludes with an indication of the relevant survey evidence, allowing us to compare the distribution of opinion within our focus groups to the distribution of opinion within the wider society. Finally, we review the evidence as a whole and assess its wider significance.

To vote or not to vote

As in Western countries, a sense of civic duty is perhaps the most important motivation for voting in post-communist Russia. And not simply among those of advanced years, with voting habits formed over a lifetime of more or less compulsory participation. As Masha, an 18-year-old Tula student, explained, she thought of herself ‘as a citizen of the Russian Federation and voting is my civic duty’. Another Tula participant, 19 and unemployed, took the same view: ‘I participated, as that is everyone's civic duty’. Tanya, a student in Bryansk, had voted in the Duma election ‘because that is my civic duty’. So did Valeriya, a nurse in her thirties; so did Viktor, a railway official in his fifties; and so did Andrei, a janitor in his twenties. ‘Every citizen of the republic’, Andrei explained, ‘who is not indifferent to its fate, should reflect from time to time, and make a definite choice’. For Mikhail, a Komi pensioner, it was a combination of duty and his Soviet upbringing:

Mostly out of habit. It's customary to participate in our country. Duty is above everything else. I still have the old attitude. For me civic duty means a lot. I'll definitely take part in the elections—in any elections. And I think the comrades here who did not vote are wrong. You definitely have to participate!

There were similar views in Konstantinovo, a village in Ryazan' region. As Vladimir, a retired police officer in his early fifties, explained, voting was his ‘civic duty and constitutional right’. Alla, a saleswoman in her early twenties, knew that her vote ‘hadn't made much difference’, but all the same she had ‘fulfilled [her] civic responsibilities’. Sergei, a manager in his early thirties, took the same view. So did many of our participants in Biisk, in Novosibirsk region. ‘Everyone should vote’, explained Sergei, a scientist in his early fifties. ‘If there is an opportunity, you have to come and give your vote to whoever deserves it’. Elena, a Kolomna book-keeper in her fifties, was another who thought of voting as a ‘civic duty—how could we do otherwise?’—and the ‘whole family’ had gone out together to fulfil their obligations. Oleg, an auditor in his early forties, was even more committed: it was partly tradition, but

somehow I'm not indifferent to the whole process. After all I took part in it for some time. Now I don't want to let down my colleagues. And as well as that, I have my political preferences.

Party members, where they existed, were particularly committed: like Pavel, a Komi worker in his forties, who had voted for the Communist candidate in the presidential election. ‘We have discipline!’

For some, voting was more than a duty: it was also a means of influencing the political process, in however modest a way. As Sergei, a Voronezh official in his early thirties, explained, every vote counted: after all, ‘it is our little votes that make up the electorate’. And unless everyone believed that voting made a difference, and took part, the elections themselves might not take place: ‘you can't think like that’. Mikhail, a Komi pensioner, thought his vote would ‘all the same have some influence on the overall result’, even if it was ‘just a little’. Elena, a public organisation activist in Voronezh, always voted, and thought similarly that her vote had ‘some kind of influence’; it contributed to the bigger picture, and ‘that's important’. Aleksandr, a Voronezh deputy, was sure his vote had had some influence:

It only seems that a single person decides nothing. But society consists of us. And a great deal depends on us. And on myself personally.

It didn't particularly matter what party he or others might have voted for, explained Ivan, a Novosibirsk chemist in his fifties. ‘All the same, when there's a majority in the Duma, or in the city council, the policies will be ones I find acceptable, ones I need. So my vote does have some influence’.

There were similar views in Bryansk, a traditionally oppositional region. Naturally, explained Valeriya, a nurse in her early thirties, a single vote ‘decides nothing, but I put in my pennysworth. And accordingly I think had at least a little influence’. Andrei, in his mid-twenties, was even more emphatic:

Definitely yes! Just as you can't have a fist without fingers, a brush is made up of a lot of little twigs. Each twig is weak, it can be bent and broken. But when you have tied them into a brush, that's already a force you can't break or bend. So that from a decision everyone takes individually our entire future is constructed.

Anastasiya, a Biisk economist in her early fifties, ‘always’ took part: ‘although our role isn't a large one, all the same, every little makes a difference’. Vladimir, in Konstantinovo, pointed out that a single vote could actually be decisive—especially in local elections, where modest numbers were involved. Voting against all the parties or candidates was another way of exercising influence: ‘in this way we tell the authorities we are dissatisfied with something, that something doesn't suit us’, explained Elena, a Voronezh participant. ‘Every vote counts’, explained Vladimir, an engineer from the Moscow region. ‘Just as a drop of water in the sea, of course. But after all the sea is made up of drops’.

Avlentina, a Komi librarian and Yabloko supporter in her early fifties, was another who took the view that ‘at elections they all the same hear our voice, what we want and what we do not want’. She warned that it was

very dangerous to talk about elections not being necessary. If we think like that, very soon we'll slip back to what we had before. When ordinary people decided nothing at all. It's true that we decide almost nothing nowadays, but all the same when they ask us at the elections you have to use your chance and say what you think. So I went to the elections and will always go, as long as they exist.

She was among those who also believed that if they failed to vote, their vote might be misappropriated: for instance, added to the vote for United Russia. Even in the presidential election, in which Grigorii Yavlinsky had not been a candidate, she had voted for one of the others so that at least her vote could not be used by the authorities. Anatolii, a Bryansk pensioner in his late fifties, took the same view:

If I don't go, the electoral commission itself will fill out my ballot papers and claim I voted. How could I want that, that they should make use of my vote themselves, without me? Better to go and vote and cross out everything. Or spit on the ballot paper! And you can vote against all. That's also a good idea. The main thing is to stop enemies getting hold of my ballot paper!

In many other cases, the decision to vote was a less considered one. Nela, a Tula student teacher who was just 18, had ‘voted because when you vote for the first time, they give you a present’. Plamen, an unemployed worker from Biisk in Novosibirsk region, had missed the presidential contest but voted in the Duma election: ‘Why? Well, simply because I lived next door to the polling station, so I popped in to vote’. Sergei, an academic, had voted ‘just to save money for the state budget. We have to choose someone, and by-elections cost money out of our own pocket’. Natal'ya, a veterinary surgeon who worked in Novosibirsk itself, was another who hated the cost of second rounds, even though she had no doubt the authorities would ‘steal most of the money all the same’. Nikolai, a captain in the interior ministry troops, was worried he might be reprimanded and lose his end-of-year bonus if he failed to turn out. Some found it difficult to explain their decision to vote in any way other than a vague internal compulsion. Mariya, a schoolteacher in Moscow region, ‘just [couldn't] stay at home when there are elections. It's hard to explain…’. Andrei, a Voronezh teacher in his early fifties, voted ‘out of habit’; he'd voted all his life—why stop now? Something inside told him ‘you have to go!’. Anna, a local sales assistant, also voted, but ‘[didn't] know why’.

As well as voters, there were abstainers who also found it hard to explain their decision and who had been affected by all kinds of circumstances. Tanya, in Voronezh, was herself involved in the work of one of the electoral commissions at the time of the presidential election, and ‘didn't have time to go home to vote’. Larisa, a Bryansk book-keeper, had been ill at the time of the Duma election; so had Svetlana, in Kolomna. Anna, a Bryansk housewife in her early forties, had been in hospital at the time of the presidential election ‘and the members of the local electoral commission didn't bother to visit me, although they were meant to have done so’. Sergei, in Konstantinovo, had been working. Yurii, a Komi hairdresser, hadn't voted as he was out of town with his friends on polling day, and had also missed the Duma election: ‘I had no time, and anyway I didn't see the point’. Tanya and Anatolii, also from Konstantinovo, hadn't bothered to take part because it was ‘obvious that Putin would win’. Aleksei, from Odintsovo in Moscow region, ‘hadn't voted because it just didn't work out territorially’: he was registered in one district but lived in another, and hadn't asked for an absentee certificate.

But there were many more who hadn't voted because they thought their vote would make little difference. Lena, for instance, a student teacher in Tula, had decided not to vote as she ‘[did] not believe it [would] have any influence on the policies of the national government’. Lyudmila, an orderly at the city hospital, was another who had abstained because she had no reason to believe her vote would make any difference to national politics. Sasha, a medical student, had voted, but ‘against all, because [he hadn't seen] any worthy candidates’. Alena, a sales assistant, hadn't voted at all because it was ‘completely pointless’: everything had been decided beforehand, and everything would almost certainly remain the same. Andrei, a local teacher in his early fifties, was more categorical. He had no feeling he was exercising any kind of influence:

On the contrary, I had the feeling that everything was known beforehand and without me. And whether I vote or not—they couldn't care less. Of course, they had to get the turnout they need. That's all I'm needed for. They don't need my vote, just my attendance.

He went on:

They need us once every four years. The rest of the time we just get in the way, asking for things. Government is even more cut off from the people than it was in Soviet times. And nobody says anything about it. At least then there was some respect for the elderly, pensioners, the intelligentsia, and working people.

Or as Fedor, a retired army officer from Moscow region, put it, everything had been sorted out beforehand: who would win and who would lose: ‘we're just pawns’.

There were many more who took the same view, and for a variety of reasons. Plamen, from Biisk, thought the winner would be ‘the one they want’, whether people took part or not. In El'tsin's time, perhaps, it had been possible to exercise some influence in this way, ‘but elections nowadays are not the same’. Valentin, from Komi, also used to take part regularly in elections,

but now I've lost confidence in them. Because all the programmes are the same, and they don't carry out their promises. I'm very disillusioned with elections. It just costs public money, and to no good purpose. The presidential elections were hardly necessary, everyone knew who would win. What's the point?

Igor', a local entrepreneur, had not voted either, as everything depended on money, on government itself, on connections, and not on ordinary people. He could exercise some influence by contributing money—but none at all by voting. Elena, from Konstantinovo, was another who thought it would have been better to cancel the presidential election altogether and save the money, ‘as we don't choose, they choose for us’. 7 Anna, a Bryansk housewife, was similarly convinced they would just ‘give a seat to whoever they wanted, from “high society”, and our votes are just a diversion [dlya otvoda glaz]’.

For some, the most basic problem of all was an underlying lack of trust between regime and society. There was little point in elections, explained Sergei, a Voronezh businessman, as long as people didn't trust the government. And there was a lack of transparency, continued another Voronezh participant, which was related to corruption.

Honesty and transparency are two sides of the same medal. So long as the elite is not transparent, closed off from society, people have no trust in it. And they don't trust elections either.

Sergei thought there was a more general disillusion. Indeed

who can you trust nowadays? There's a general distrust. Apathy, disillusion. People have waited and waited, and now they see they have been deceived. Those who were rich have become even richer. The poor just flounder about somewhere below, not needed by anybody. And how does the elite decide important matters? They visit each others' offices, close the door, and that's it. And you talk about elections?

Boris, a tractor driver from Moscow region, had the same despairing view:

I just don't believe them. Whenever you ask them to help, about housing or whatever, nobody helps. After the election deputies just forget about us. They only need us for a vote, for the elections. And as soon as they're elected, to hell with us, they start to get on with their ‘business’. Lining their own pockets.

Nowhere, in December 2003, did turnout fail to satisfy the 25% requirement, but in three single-member constituencies no valid result could be declared as the vote ‘against all’ was greater than the vote for any of the individual candidates. In the Volga city of Ul'yanovsk, ‘against all’ went on to win the by-election that took place in March 2004 and even increased its ‘majority’. 8 Why Ul'yanovsk? Because, our focus groups suggested, of social conditions, and the failings of the city authorities. The streets weren't lit; there was dirt everywhere; and payments for utilities kept increasing. Local people had few other ways of expressing their dissatisfaction than by rejecting the candidates that were offered for their approval; there was certainly no point in demonstrations, as there was nobody they could be directed against. Some were disillusioned, not simply with government, deputies and local leaders, but with the president himself, who had promised to visit the city but failed to do so. ‘There's been no real progress’, complained one interviewee; everything depended on the high price of oil, and if it were to fall, the consequences would be catastrophic. As it was, hardly anything was being produced, and the factories were idle.9

The reported turnout, in the December 2003 Duma election, was 55.7% (a slightly larger number ‘took part in the election’ by receiving but not necessarily casting a ballot). 10 Of those who voted, 4.7% cast ballots ‘against all the parties’ in the national party-list contest, and 12.9% against all the candidates in the single-member contests of which the other half of the Duma is composed;11 both figures were considerably larger than they had been in the two previous Duma elections. In our post-election survey, a nationally representative sample of Russians was asked about their reasons for not voting (if this was the response they had given). Respondents could opt for a number of ‘physical’ reasons, such as ill health, or for ‘political’ reasons, such as that there were no parties with whose platforms they were in agreement, or that they believed their vote would make no difference. By almost two to one, respondents identified ‘political’ rather than ‘physical’ reasons for their abstention (see Table 1): results that are certainly consistent with the pattern of focus group responses, and not very different from responses in the other Slavic republics.

TABLE 1 A Typology of Electoral Abstention, 2004 (% of adults)

	Russia	Belarus	Ukraine
‘Physical’ abstention	35	14	23
‘Political’ abstention	61	50	49
Other forms of abstention	4	36	28
Note: ‘Physical’ abstention includes all respondents who indicated they were ‘unable to get to the polling station’ for whatever reason. ‘Political’ abstention includes all who indicated there were ‘no parties whose political platforms reflected their interests’, that they ‘believed their vote wouldn't change anything’ or similar reasons. ‘Other’ forms of abstention include those who refused to answer or were unable to remember. Respondents were invited to select a single option from a list provided.
Source: Author's surveys (see Appendix).

The electoral mechanism

Responses of this kind raised questions about the electoral system itself, and about the extent to which it accurately transmitted popular preferences. There were many, certainly, who thought it did so. Aleksandr, an engineer from Moscow region, pointed out that international observers had concluded that the Duma election had been free and fair; in his own view, it had been the ‘most honest and fair’ of all the elections Russia had so far experienced. 12 There had been observers of all kinds, added Aleksei, an army major in his thirties, and it would ‘just have been too difficult to make any undetected changes. If there was any falsification it was very minor, not of a kind that made much difference to the election campaign’. If the elections had been falsified, he went on, why would they have bothered to count the vote? And how could governors and deputies have lost, if everything had been decided in advance? In the case of the presidential election at least, there was general agreement that no falsification had been necessary as Putin was genuinely popular; or at any rate no more than ‘minor’ falsifications. At last, as one of our Bryansk participants remarked, Russia had a leader who was not an embarrassment, and who was trying to do something for the country.

Some, indeed, could draw on their own experience. Tanya, from Voronezh, had worked in an electoral commission, and could

say for certain: the [presidential] elections were honest. We didn't falsify anything. We did everything exactly, according to the law. People checked on this very closely. You couldn't infringe any of the requirements. It was simply impossible! At least where I was, in my district. Perhaps there were violations somewhere else. In my view, that isn't the main problem. At our elections, that's turnout. With every election lower and lower…What next? If you talk about elections the way you do, it will seem that nobody needs them. And they will be cancelled! Then you'll remember how you used to go to the polls, and vote as you wanted. But it will already be too late!’

Liliya from Biisk had a friend who had worked in an electoral commission during the presidential contest; she had also assured her there had been no fraud, and that everything had been properly calculated.

She told me all about it in detail, how they were afraid of making a mistake, how their work was checked. It's easy to say—falsification! But just imagine, how many eyes are there, how much monitoring! And you can be put in prison for a violation. Who wants such unpleasantness? Would you do it yourself if you had family, and children? Is it worth the risk? I think there was nothing of the kind. We've just got out of the habit of believing the authorities.

Some of our Voronezh participants had been particularly impressed by the election of the city mayor that had taken place at the end of January 2004, in which the deputy speaker of the regional assembly, Boris Skrynnikov, had defeated a candidate supported by the regional administration and United Russia. 13 Elena, a local activist, had been an official observer and had been

rather surprised. Earlier it had seemed to me that elections were dishonest, that administrative resource was used very widely. But in this case I found to my surprise that the regional administration didn't have the situation under control. Their candidate lost! And a completely unexpected candidate was successful, much against what I had expected. But our people had just had enough. The last mayor wasn't a bad manager, but he wasn't respected as a politician. And people had got tired of the elite looking after themselves. So they voted as a protest. And I realised that everything isn't lost, that elections can still decide something in our life. But if you'd asked me beforehand about the mayoral elections, I would have said it was just decoration.

But other Voronezh participants thought the result had simply been a miscalculation by the authorities, who had underestimated the risk to their favoured candidate; ‘usually everything at the elections is decided by the executive’.

There was certainly less satisfaction with the Duma election that had taken place the previous December. Lyudmila, for instance, a pensioner from Moscow region, was convinced that a substantial number of votes had been taken from the Communists, against whom there had been an ‘entire campaign of discreditation’. She was one of those who expressed concern about the electronic voting system, GAS Vybory, which is currently used in conjunction with a manual count:

I don't think the elections were honest. They put everything into the computer so that to change any of the figures just takes a minute. And we'll have no means of knowing what the results really were. Zyuganov took on the mammoth task of checking everything, and immediately found mistakes. He didn't check it on the computer, but on the ballot itself. So he couldn't have been wrong. But he won't get anywhere, as all the judges have been bought up by the regime.

Mariya, also from Moscow region, was particularly disappointed by the failure of Yabloko to make the party list threshold, and thought ‘the regime had simply decided not to let democrats into the Duma’. She was sure there had been falsification:

Even Zyuganov admitted that Yabloko had got 5%. But how can that be proved, or checked? After all the entire electronic counting system is in the hands of the Kremlin. And nobody is allowed anywhere near it.

This was a charge that was repeated by disappointed democrats elsewhere, and it was what the Yabloko leader had himself suggested when he spoke at a party gathering shortly after the results had been declared. 14

Opinion elsewhere was still more sceptical. Indeed, all our Komi participants thought elections were routinely falsified. Vladimir, a stallholder in his early twenties, thought there had been no need to falsify the presidential contest, but in the Duma election things had been very different, as the authorities hadn't been sure they would win a majority of seats and so they had done their best to discredit the democrats as well as the Communists. Igor', an entrepreneur in his thirties, was another who was concerned about the electronic voting system, with which the authorities could ‘do whatever they wanted’. If there was any disagreement they would simply say ‘the sociologists [had] got it wrong!’. Pavel, a worker in his forties, had equally little doubt there had been falsification. Zyuganov, for instance, had told the press that the Communists had been robbed of 10% of their vote, and that the democrats had also been defrauded; Zyuganov's own parallel count had shown what had really happened. Yurii, a hairdresser in his early thirties, was similarly convinced there had been falsification; he had no idea what Zyuganov had reported, ‘but the authorities in our country just can't do everything correctly. Simply by definition’. Valentin, an unemployed worker in his late forties, recalled Stalin's celebrated observation that what mattered was not how people voted, but who counted. ‘What honest elections? Our television isn't honest, and our government isn't honest. So how can our elections be honest?’

Opinion in Konstantinovo was also sceptical, though few had personally witnessed any falsification. Sergei, a manager in his early thirties, listed some of the ways in which the right result could be engineered. For instance,

tampering with ballot papers. They write corrections on them so that they can be declared invalid. It can take place if the electoral commission is bribed, or poorly supervised. Or there's the case I read about in the newspapers. They organise a ‘carousel’: whoever doesn't come to the elections, their ballot papers are taken elsewhere and then brought back, completed.

Valentina, in Bryansk, was another who was convinced there had been falsification and deceit: ‘I don't know why, I just believe it. It's just not like our kind of government to do anything honestly’. Several were concerned that United Russia, the Kremlin-sponsored ‘party of power’, was competing in the Duma election and at the same time responsible for supervising the count. ‘We'll never find out what the real results of the election were’, complained Gennadii in Ryazan’, ‘because the votes are counted by Putin's people, and they know what they want’. Vera, a housewife in her mid-forties, had acted herself as the secretary of an electoral commission and had no doubt the authorities could ‘falsify everything’ if they wished. ‘Honest elections in Russia?’, she commented ironically; ‘that's a fantasy’.

There were certainly major differences between town and countryside. ‘Just try to vote against the authorities in a village or a small town’, commented Alevtina, one of our Komi participants; ‘everyone is afraid, because nobody believes the results are really secret’. ‘There were elections, and there weren't’, explained Andrei, one of our Voronezh participants. Everyone was afraid that if they didn't vote the way the authorities wanted them to, they would get no winter fuel, and their electricity would be cut off. So they voted like a herd of cattle. ‘But you can't blame them. You have to live.’ He had an aunt himself who lived in the countryside, 30 kilometres away. She had told him that everyone in the village knew how everyone else had voted. How could that be, with secret voting? She had replied

What do you mean, secret? They put a monitor into the voting booth so the bosses know how everyone has voted! And if you don't vote the right way, they won't give you any fuel.

In Bryansk the same kind of story was in circulation: that video cameras had been set up in the polling stations, and that if you voted against the head of the region you would get no pension, nor any fuel for the winter. ‘There's free elections for you’, Andrei commented. ‘Local officials tell them all kind of stories about “monitors” in the polling booth; they frighten old people, who believe them…That's a real administrative resource’.

The fairness of the election was not simply a matter of the casting of ballots, but of the wider environment in which the contest took place. Many remarked on the one-sided nature of the media coverage. ‘It's not just a matter of the day of the elections’, remarked Alevtina. ‘Everything was violated even before that—all the principles of honest competition. Air time was given out unequally, and space in the newspapers.’ In the countryside particularly there were only two television channels, both managed by the state, ‘and we all know who they show, and whose advertising films’. Television, other participants agreed, was much too heavily influenced by the authorities. United Russia, for instance, had refused to take part in the party debates, but leader Boris Gryzlov had been shown almost continuously. Some, of course, had been working at the time of the television debates, and others had switched off the ones they didn't like. Lyudmila, a pensioner in her fifties, was one of those who had been working and so she had seen very few of them. But

when I see those ‘democrats’—Nemtsov, Khakamada, Chubais—I turn it off at once. I hate them, those fools! That Chubais should be on trial. He's robbed the whole country!’

Newspapers were more objective in their coverage, but relatively expensive for ordinary people, and even in Moscow region, complained Igor', an engineer in his forties, ‘they hardly reach us’. As for other forms of propaganda, explained El'vira, a housewife in her twenties, her husband ‘throws them straight into the bin’.

Others pointed to the importance of the power resources that were at the disposal of the state and its officials. Vladimir, for instance, a department head at an engineering factory in Moscow region, didn't believe in the ‘mechanical falsification of results’ but attached a great deal of importance to ‘administrative resources’ of this kind.

Representatives of the executive, often not directly but indirectly, force people to vote for one or other party. The head of the administration comes into a school, and tells the director—you'll get extra funding if you tell the pupils which candidate to vote for. The children go home, and repeat this to their parents. The parents understand that if the director told them to vote a certain way, they had better do so. Otherwise their child might have difficulties in school.

There were similar practices in the armed forces, explained Fedor, a military pensioner:

For instance, they draw up the regiment and say: ‘You'd better vote for so and so! Otherwise there will be unfortunate consequences’. So the soldiers go and vote as their officers tell them. Then the officers report to their own superiors. They are themselves told who the regiment should vote for. So there's no need for falsification; everything is done ‘honestly’.

‘In principle’, reflected Lyudmila, ‘elections are fine. Theoretically. Somewhere in the West. But with us, they spend the people's money on these elections and then decide themselves who should be in the Duma and who should not’. Far better to spend the money on pensions and higher wages.

Again, the balance of the discussion—substantial scepticism, although many accepted that in the presidential election at least there had been little falsification because little had been needed—was reflected in our survey responses ( Table 2). There was most scepticism about television coverage (about a third, interviewed immediately after the Duma election, thought it had been unfair), and about a quarter had some degree of reservation about the counting of votes, the representation of a variety of opinion, and the conduct of the election campaign in their own district. Another post-election survey found somewhat higher levels of scepticism, but still a divided view: 43% thought the Duma election had been ‘somewhat’ or ‘completely honest’, but 38% thought it had been ‘not very’ or ‘completely dishonest’; there was less concern about the counting of the vote itself, with 53% satisfied and just 16% dissatisfied. 15 Taken together, these were results that suggested that substantial numbers had little faith in their ability to influence government through the electoral mechanism, but which also suggested that, for most of them, the problem could not be reduced to the integrity of the process by which votes were collected and counted on polling day.

TABLE 2 How Fair are Russian Elections? (%)

	Definitely fair	Somewhat fair	Not very fair	Not fair at all
Ballot paper and vote count	23	38	19	5
Representation of different opinions in the Duma	24	37	17	4
Television coverage of the election campaign	18	37	23	8
Conduct of the election campaign in your district	19	38	18	6
Question wording was: ‘In your opinion, how fair are Russian elections in relation to: the layout of the ballot paper and the vote count; the provision of a vote in the Duma to people with different views; television coverage of the election campaign; the conduct of the electoral campaign in your district’.
Source: author's post-election survey (see Appendix); rounded percentages; don't knows and refusals account for residuals.

Elections and political efficacy

What, then, if we asked about the repertoire of political action that was available to ordinary people, apart from periodic elections? What means were at their disposal if they wished to exercise some influence on government, and how much influence did ordinary people believe they had taking all these means into account—what is conventionally known as political efficacy? It is, of course, universal that the interests of ordinary citizens are not fully reflected in the actions of government, and adult citizens in other countries do not necessarily exaggerate their influence. In the United Kingdom, for instance, 54% think ‘people like me have no say’ in the making of government decisions; in the United States 42% take the same view. 16 Nominally, as we have seen, Russians enjoy comparable freedoms: a multiparty system, the rule of law, no censorship at all, and the right to hold public demonstrations. To what extent have mechanisms of this kind persuaded ordinary Russians that they exercise an effective leverage over the actions of government of a kind they did not enjoy in the Soviet period?

There were some, certainly, who thought their influence was greater. Vladimir, in Konstantinovo, agreed that the concerns of ordinary people were given insufficient attention, but there had been some ‘positive developments’ all the same, such as an increase in pensions and in living standards more generally. Government was ‘at least trying to think about ordinary people, and to make things better’. And gradually, there was a bit more order in public life. Some had clearly been impressed by new opportunities to advance their interests through the courts. Sergei in Voronezh, an official himself, pointed out that there had been cases when ordinary people had sued the housing authorities, or the police, and won their case; there were even cases when the authorities had done something worthwhile for its own sake. Leonid, a Kolomna businessman in his late forties, took a similar view. Defending one's rights in court, he suggested, was ‘becoming increasingly effective…When people actively speak up for their rights, things move forward; and the authorities listen if the voices are loud’.

Another way of bringing their concerns to the attention of the authorities was more traditional: to go and see them. Liliya, in Biisk, explained that you could try to secure a meeting with the mayor, or even the governor, and sort things out face to face. She had been able to raise some of her own family concerns in this way, but it was a more general facility: ‘You can influence the authorities, say things to them openly at meetings, and convince them’. Or you could write to the president himself, suggested Natal'ya, a janitor in her forties (more than half a million were doing so in the early years of the new century, twice as many as had written to Boris El'tsin 17). The President did take the opinions of ordinary people into account, suggested another Biisk participant, ‘out of populist considerations. They conduct sociological investigations, and he sees what the majority are thinking. Then he says it. That is, not what he thinks himself, but so that people are satisfied’. Direct interventions of this kind, however, were more likely to be effective if they related to minor and local issues, rather than the policies of the federal government.

What about other forms of action, such as meetings or demonstrations? But meetings were only realistic in larger cities; they could scarcely be contemplated in a smaller town, or the countryside, other than meetings of collective farmers that would be under the control of their chairman. And you had to have a lot of money, among other things to hire a lawyer. It was just ‘unrealistic’, under current Russian circumstances, to hope to exercise a significant influence in this way. As Aleksandr, from Ryazan’, explained:

The miners went on strike, the teachers went on hunger strike. The authorities just laughed at them, and made a lot of noise about taking appropriate measures…. So almost all of these strike actions and meetings have petered out.

Andrei, in Voronezh, had a similar experience:

In earlier times we all went to the demonstrations on public holidays. And I went once or twice to the kind of protest demonstrations you have in mind, back in the El'tsin years. But not now, I don't attend them, though I've heard the traders assembled and protested against the closing of the market. But what good did it do? The authorities did what they wanted. And they couldn't give a damn about the protest.

Larisa, a Bryansk book-keeper, thought workers' demonstrations might have some influence,

but very limited and short-lived, especially as compared with other countries. We make a noise and create a fuss—and then we go home. And the authorities do nothing about it. As a result, we have our meetings, but government takes no notice.

Maybe there were some other towns in which such actions had had a greater effect: as when the miners had gone on strike, or closed down the railways. But nothing of the kind had happened in Bryansk: ‘A few hundred people meet on the square, they stand around and make a noise, and then go home’. Yurii, one of our Komi participants, had a similar opinion:

Suppose you went to a demonstration about housing and communal services. Would they lower the rents? They don't give a damn about your meetings, or your trade unions. They're only afraid of losing power, and who would take it from them?

There were similar views among younger participants in Tula: if they organised strikes, Lena explained, the authorities would simply call out the police and disperse them, and everything would be the same as it had been before.

Political parties offered little more opportunity for the exercise of popular influence. 18 Aleksandr, a Voronezh businessman, was a supporter of the Union of Right Forces, but had no idea if it would continue to exist after its Duma defeat. The local branch still formally existed, but it just waited for instructions from Moscow, ‘and there aren't any instructions at all. And no money either’. There was a similar view among our participants in the Moscow region. ‘Here in Odintsovo there's no sign of any parties’, explained Lyudmila, ‘they're all somewhere in Moscow’. Mariya had wanted to join Yabloko,

but it wasn't clear how I could do so. Our parties in this respect leave a lot to be desired. People are ready to join, but they don't know how. The parties have hardly anything to do with ordinary people. They shut themselves off in their Duma work, forgetting that people would like to join them. They could learn a lot from the CPSU about recruiting a membership.

She had helped Yabloko collect signatures at one of the previous elections, and started to make contact with them, ‘but after the elections they all disappeared’. She would have been glad to help Irina Khakamada gather signatures for her 2004 presidential bid, ‘but they don't get in touch with you. And I've no idea how to find their headquarters’. The parties were all busy doing deals in the Duma, but where did they exist on the ground?, asked Svetlana, a Kolomna lawyer. ‘In my opinion, on another planet’.

The lack of effective party politics illustrated some of the difficulty of attempting to generate any form of collective action. The central government, for a start, was physically remote. As Vladimir, in Komi, pointed out,

the government is in Moscow. When was the last time you saw it? When was the last time you saw our deputies? They travel here to get elected, and once they're elected, they leave again…They just need a vote from us, once every four years.

‘What influence can we have’, asked Mikhail, a Komi pensioner, ‘if we are in Syktyvkar, and the government is in Moscow?’ It was more than a geographical distance that separated ordinary people from government, in the view of a Ryazan’ businessman. The governing elite, he went on,

don't know the views of ordinary people and usually don't want to know. They have their own intrigues, their own world. The elite have completely different living standards. An ordinary person who enters the power elite quickly changes and becomes alien to ordinary people. I don't know how it is in developed democratic countries, but with us the gulf between government and people is too deep.

‘They have their own interests, and their own aims’, explained a Komi participant. ‘But they have no understanding of ordinary people. They are up there, and the people are down below’.

Another difficulty was the form of government, and the disproportionate powers that were enjoyed by the executive branch. Aleksandr in Ryazan’, for instance, had not voted for some time, and one of the reasons was the negligible importance of the Duma in a super-presidential republic. Everything was decided behind the scenes, among the clans that competed for presidential favour. A few representatives of SPS or Yabloko would make no difference, as the Duma had long been entirely subordinate to the Kremlin.

Neither the ordinary people, nor the Duma they elect has any influence at all. Everything is decided by the president and the clans that try to influence him, although ordinary people know almost nothing about this struggle, even though the fate of all of us depends on its outcome. It's unfortunate as well that the clans themselves are corrupt, and connected with the criminal world. We live in a criminal-clan state. What influence can we possibly have? It's enough to make a cat laugh.

Leonid, in Kolomna, had long been convinced he had no influence at all: partly because everything was decided beforehand, and partly also because the Duma itself was such a negligible institution.

Nothing depends on the Duma, everything is decided elsewhere, in the Kremlin. The Duma is just decoration, to distract attention…Everything is decided at the top, and we are just cogs in the great mechanism of the state.

In any case, once deputies had been elected, they quickly lost interest in their constituents. Their philosophy, complained Vladimir, an engineer from Moscow region, was the ‘residual principle—first of all, everything for themselves, and what remains for the people’. Evidence of this was the enormous gold reserves of the State Bank, on the one hand, and on the other, pensions that were below subsistence levels. As soon as they were elected, added Valentina, a Bryansk pensioner, ‘that's it! They become different people’. Valentin, from Komi, agreed that, on the face of it, they could choose any candidate they liked.

But once he's in power, he changes. He forgets everything he promised. He begins to steal, to put everything in his own pocket, without any thought for ordinary people. …So at the moment of election we seem to choose, but after the election we have no influence at all.

Elections, a Bryansk participant explained, were not enough: instead of an election every four years, there had to be a more continuous form of supervision. At present, even if the elections themselves were honest, after that the deputies just did what they wanted.

A still larger issue was the dominance that appeared to be exercised by the rich and powerful, in spite of all the arrangements that were designed to secure the accountability of government to those who elected them. As Viktor, a Bryansk railway inspector, explained,

In reality, it's the interests of the oligarchs that take first place. You could say that we have power for the rich. They understand each other. But they don't even hear us.

This meant, among other things, that anything could be bought: ‘not just a car or a house, but any law, any official’. The media could be bought as well, ‘and whoever owns the media, has influence’. Ordinary workers, like the former Communist deputy Vasilii Shandybin, had meanwhile been forced out of the Duma, and now it was mostly made up of ‘people from the capital, from prosperous families, aristocrats’, who ‘haven't much idea how people live here in Ryazan’ region, in the countryside’. Even in local elections, it was only the rich who took part; ‘an ordinary person can do nothing with his few kopeks’. Deputies, in turn, reflected the interests of their wealthy sponsors, and if they took any account of the commitments they had made to their electors, it was ‘just for political publicity, or to draw attention to themselves. Maybe there are a few “Robin Hoods”—but not many’.

Some, in these circumstances, saw positive features in the Soviet system they had left behind. The Soviet system, argued Andrei, a Voronezh teacher, had been

more democratic. Then teachers, writers and scholars were more respected in society. And the working class was respected. Where is it now, the working class? Nowhere! Everyone is just selling cast-offs. And the factories are idle. Then any capable person could study. But now? Only the rich.

People had said it had been bad in the communist period, added a Komi participant.

But at least the authorities listened to what people were saying. There was some kind of order. People could complain, and the boss could expect a reprimand. But now whether you complain or not, it's all the same. Then, the authorities had some concern for ordinary people; medical services were free, and education, and there were all kinds of social benefits. Now they want to cancel the benefits, so that we all die as quickly as possible.

On the face of it, a Kolomna participant explained, ordinary people had more influence than ever before; but in fact more attention had been paid to their views during the Soviet years.

For instance, a strike was considered an extraordinary event. It was reviewed at the highest levels of government, and the necessary conclusions were drawn. A letter to the newspaper was considered at every level, from top to bottom. And it sometimes had the most serious consequences for officials as well as offenders. Now public opinion is considered much more formally. Nobody reacts to newspaper articles, even when the most outrageous violations of the law are reported. They used to worry about exposures, or satirical articles. Now nobody in government takes much notice of them. They steal themselves, and let others do so. All that worries them is that someone might threaten their own interests.

Even those who were broadly supportive of the post-communist order accepted that authoritarian tendencies were increasing. ‘Now you can't say any more that the country is democratising’, remarked a Voronezh participant.

It's clans that rule. In our region we don't have any blood-relations clans, or family or ethnic clans. But we have corporate clans. They are connected with big business, every section of which has its own clan, who put their own people into the leading positions in the regional or city administration. And decisions are taken by a very small group of people—literally three to five. All the others, even deputies, are just decoration.

A local businessman was worried by the ‘very negative developments’ that were taking place, and not just in Voronezh:

People are afraid to speak out, afraid to act. Business, for the most part, is afraid. As we are very vulnerable. Every one of us at any moment could begin to be pressured. Or at any moment could be threatened by a criminal prosecution. But the most dangerous tendency is the possible redistribution of property. The siloviki [representatives of force ministries] have come to power, they want to eat bread with butter and caviar as well, which means they have to divide everything up again. Which means they have to take it from its present owners, by instituting criminal proceedings. And I'm in a position to tell you, that if the authorities want, they can crush any of us. Authoritarianism itself is an abstract concept. But siloviki and the redistribution of property are a real threat.

‘If they put people like Khodorkovsky in prison, in Moscow, that says a lot’, added one of our Komi participants. ‘I used to support candidates at elections, and sponsor them, but now it's got dangerous. Now there are new rules of the game’.

For others as well, things had been moving in the wrong direction. Mariya, a schoolteacher in her mid-thirties, thought ordinary people had still been able to exercise some kind of influence three or four years earlier, through the ballot box.

The regime couldn't just do what it wanted; it had to listen to journalists, and to strikers. But now the chasm between regime and society is bigger than ever. In my opinion, the regime takes less and less account of the opinions of ordinary people. We've lost almost all opportunity to have any kind of influence. So what can I do? Vote? And if the democrats don't get in, who will listen to us?

These were the views of a Yabloko supporter; but the theme of a ‘chasm between regime and society’ was repeated in many other contributions, and in remarkably similar language. For Aleksandr, a Voronezh deputy in his late thirties, it was the ‘people by itself, and the elite by itself’. For Masha, an 18-year old student in Tula, it was ‘the people by itself, and the government by itself’. For Aleksei, a major in Moscow region, it was ‘elections by themselves, and the government by itself’. And for El'vira, a local housewife in her early twenties, it was ‘the government by itself, and ordinary people by themselves’. ‘Maybe there's somewhere in the West that government listens to the people’, observed Anna, a Bryansk housewife, ‘but not here’.

The theme of powerlessness was once again borne out in the evidence of our survey, conducted shortly after the December 2003 Duma election. An overwhelming 80% of our respondents thought they had an ‘insignificant’ influence on government, or none at all ( Table 3)—almost twice as many as thought they had no political influence in the United States or Britain, on the evidence quoted at the start of this section. These, moreover, were not isolated responses. A very large majority (65%), for instance, were to some degree dissatisfied with the ‘level of democracy’ in Russia. An even larger majority (76%) were dissatisfied with the extent to which individual rights were respected. Just 3% thought Russia had become a democracy, although another 26% thought they were moving in that direction. And 87% thought it was ‘very difficult for ordinary people to secure their legal rights’. These were certainly responses that were consistent with the widespread perception within our focus groups of a regime over which ordinary citizens had little influence, that was remote from them in a social as well as a geographical sense, and that was apparently becoming even less open to their influence than it had been in the early post-communist period.

TABLE 3 Political Efficacy, 2004 (%)

	To a significant extent	To some extent	To an insignificant extent	None at all
Perceived ability to influence the actions of central government	2	14	25	55
Question wording was ‘What do you think, to what extent can people such as you exercise direct influence on the actions of the central organs of government?’
Source: author's post-election survey (see Appendix); rounded percentages; don't knows and refusals to answer account for residuals.

Conclusions

Focus groups, the literature agrees, are not necessarily representative of a wider universe. But ‘the direct, open-response interaction among participants and between the moderator and the participants allows for a variety of responses, clarification, probing, connections among points made, nuances and deeper levels of meaning’. 19 There is strong support, in this connection, for ‘triangulation’, by which focus group evidence is used in conjunction with quantitative evidence of the kind we have also been considering. Triangulation ‘can be particularly useful when the topic of investigation is very complex or controversial, or requires a holistic view’.20 Survey evidence, taken by itself, suffers from a number of familiar shortcomings: not least, the framing of questions in a manner that reflects the assumptions of the investigator, and the relatively superficial, yes–no form of the response.21 Focus groups, by contrast, draw upon the actor's frame of reference, allowing respondents to use their own language and to respond at whatever length they think appropriate, individually and in discussion with others.

In many respects focus group evidence of the kind we have been considering parallels the evidence that is available from other sources. In some cases, however, it goes beyond it. This was perhaps most clearly the case in relation to ‘administrative resource’, a central feature of the Russian electoral process in the view of those directly engaged in it, but one that is poorly reflected in the secondary literature and rarely investigated by survey methods. 22 Our respondents identified at least two examples of the ways in which the authorities could place pressure upon their subordinates for the ‘right’ result: either through the educational system, or through the armed forces. And they drew attention themselves to the limited understanding of this set of practices by outsiders. Fedor, a military pensioner in his late forties and resident in Moscow region, argued that administrative resource was actually more important than any direct falsification of election results, on which foreigners tended to concentrate their attention. ‘We know ourselves how it's actually done’.

Focus group participants, however, also had views to express about the falsification of election results, and how it was carried out. Scholars have long been puzzled by the ‘biddable electorates’ that appear to exist in many Russian regions, with overwhelming, even ‘Soviet’ levels of support for pro-Kremlin incumbents, and rapid shifts of allegiance between two rounds of an election once the likely winner has become apparent. 23 Surveys on matters of this kind are likely to collect another set of ‘expected’ responses. But a focus group discussion, with locals talking to each other about practices they all know to exist, can take matters further. The discussions we have reported were particularly revealing in relation to the countryside, where a third of the population still live, and where the goodwill of a local administration may be decisive in the supply of fuel for the winter months, or retaining employment. The belief that a secret video-camera was recording voting decisions was likely to be very influential in such circumstances.

There were particularly strong and often despairing responses in relation to larger questions of the relationship between government and society. Nominally, the Russian president continues to enjoy a high level of public satisfaction, and as many as 88%, in our national survey, expressed some degree of approval for his work. But on the evidence of these focus groups, there is much less confidence in the institutions through which the exercise of political power is mediated. Voting is thought to make little difference, which helps to explain why turnouts are low, and in any case the institutions to which deputies are returned, such as the State Duma, are seen as marginal to the exercise of political power. Demonstrations, at the same time, are difficult to organise, and ignored by those they are supposed to influence. The media are in the hands of the regime itself, and newspapers, in any case, hardly circulate outside the major cities. It was, perhaps, ‘no accident’ that so frequently our focus group participants chose the same terms to explain their situation: it was, most often of all, a regime that was ‘all by itself’, and a people that were also ‘all by themselves’.

A limited number of focus group discussions can scarcely provide a basis for still more wide-ranging conclusions. But recent events in Ukraine, and some of the other post-Soviet republics, remind us that an electoral process in which there is no popular confidence may be open to public challenge and that the regime itself may be a casualty. Western governments, bolstered by institutions in which there is public confidence, can generally survive the introduction of policies that are widely resisted. In Russia, with less trust in established mechanisms for the articulation of popular concerns, ordinary people are more likely to take to the streets to resist (for instance) the monetisation of social benefits—and in spite of the difficulties of organising mass action to which our focus groups have testified. With a high world price for oil, popular dissatisfaction may not be insupportable. But the disjunction between regime and society that was apparent throughout our discussions suggests that the Russian authorities may find it difficult, when their policies are challenged, to fall back on a more general commitment to the constitutional framework through which those decisions are made.

Notes

1 Further details are provided in the Appendix. Interviewed in the spring of 2004, equal numbers (25%) thought their influence on government was greater, or less, than in the Soviet period (for 44% it remained unchanged); 17% thought government treated citizens more equally and fairly, but 34% disagreed (for 37% there had been no change).

2 Mikhail N. Afanas'ev, Klientelizm i rossiiskaya gosudarstvennost’, 2nd ed. (Moscow, MONF, 2000), p. 17; A. V. Zinov'ev & I. S. Polyashova, Izbiratel'naya sistema Rossii (teoriya, praktika i perspektivy) (St Petersburg, Yuridicheskii tsentr Press, 2003), p. 8.

3 Indeed, ‘[i]t is rare within comparative politics’, as Marvin Wattenberg remarks, ‘to find a trend that is so widely generalizable’: Where Have All The Voters Gone? (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 29.

4 See Hans Oversloot, Joop van Holsteyn & Ger P. van der Berg, ‘Against All: Exploring the Vote “Against All” in the Russian Federation's Electoral System’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 18, 4, December 2002, pp. 31–50; A. E. Lyubarev, ‘Golosovanie “protiv vsekh”: motivy i tendentsii’, Polis, 2003, 6, pp. 104–113; and Derek Hutcheson, ‘Disengaged or Disenchanted? The Vote “Against All” in Postcommunist Russia’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 20, 1, March 2004, pp. 98–121.

5 See for instance Stephen White & Ian McAllister, ‘Dimensions of Disengagement in Postcommunist Russia’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 20, 1, March 2004, pp. 81–97; Stephen White, ‘Russia's Disempowered Electorate’, in Cameron Ross (ed.), Russian Politics under Putin (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2004), pp. 76–92; V. Petukhov, ‘Politicheskoe uchastie v grazhdanskoi samoorganizatsii v Rossii’, Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 2004, 8, pp. 26–35.

6 Richard A. Krueger, Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage, 1994), p. 238; Lia Litosseliti, Using Focus Groups in Research (London, Continuum, 2003), p. 18. Some of the methodological issues involved are considered further in Michael Bloor et al., Focus Groups in Social Research (London, Sage, 2001), and Claudia Puchta & Jonathan Potter, Focus Group Practice (London, Sage, 2004). The Russian-language literature includes S. A. Belyanovsky, Metod fokus-grupp (Moscow, Nikkolo-Media, 2001); and Aleksei Levinson & Ol'ga Stuchevskaya, ‘Fokus-gruppy: evolyutsiya metoda’, Monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniya, 2003, 1(63), January–February, pp. 46–55. Among the few studies on contemporary Russian politics that employ focus group methods see for instance G. L. Kertman, ‘Interes k politike po-rossiiski: motivy yavnye i skrytye’, Polis, 2005, 1, pp. 94–107.

7 This was a majority view, according to the survey evidence: 55%, interviewed immediately after the Duma election, thought it would be better to save money by not holding the presidential election, with 35% in disagreement [Richard Rose, New Russia Barometer XII: The Duma Election (Glasgow, Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, SPP 384, 2003), p. 28; fieldwork was carried out between 12 and 22 December 2003 and the number of interviewees was 1,601].

8 Moscow Times, 24 March 2004, pp. 1, 4.

9 Details of our Ul'yanovsk focus groups are provided in the Appendix; these remarks were derived from groups 5, 1 and 2 respectively. Local survey evidence indicated that voting ‘against all’ was most likely to be inspired by the ‘crisis in the economy of the town/region’ and the ‘unsatisfactory performance of the local authorities’ (both 41%), followed by ‘poor living standards’ (32%): Moskovskie novosti, 26 November 2004, p. 9.

10 Corrected figures for the final result appeared in Vestnik Tsentral'noi izbiratel'noi komissii Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 2004, 5, pp. 15–16. As is traditional, a somewhat larger proportion (64.3%) was reported to have cast ballots in the presidential election (Ibid., 2004, 7, p. 113).

11 Calculated from constituency data reported in Vybory deputatov Gosudarstvennoi Dumy Federal'nogo Sobraniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii chetvertogo sozyva. 7 dekabrya 2003 goda. Itogi (Moscow, Ves' mir, 2004).

12 This was not, in fact, the conclusion of the largest group of observers, from the OSCE, who reported that ‘While generally well-administered, the election failed to meet a number of OSCE commitments for democratic elections, most notably those pertaining to unimpeded access to the media on a non-discriminatory basis, a clear separation between the State and political parties, and guarantees to enable political parties to compete on the basis of equal treatment’. (Elections to the State Duma 7 December 2003. OSCE/ODIHR Observation Mission Report, Warsaw, 27 January 2004, p. 1, www.osce.org).

13 Kommersant Nechernozem'e, 27 January 2004, www.voronezh-media.ru.

14 Yabloko's share of the vote should have risen sharply, Yavlinsky insisted, once the results for European Russia began to be added to those for the eastern parts of the country, but it had stayed in the same place, apparently because the authorities had decided to raise the reported level of turnout from 47% to 56%. Yabloko Rossii, Spetsvypusk, January 2004, p. 2.

15 Rose, New Russia Barometer XII, p. 19.

16 See respectively the British Election study, post-2001 election survey, question BQ65a, www.essex.ac.uk/bes; and the (US) National Election Study, 2004, question V045202 M2b, www.umich.edu/∼nes.

17 St Petersburg Times, 17 May 2002, internet edition.

18 For a fuller discussion, using focus group as well as other evidence, see Stephen White, ‘Russians and Their Party System’, Demokratizatsiya (forthcoming).

19 Litosseliti, Using Focus Groups, p. 19, citing D. W. Stewart & P. N. Shamdasani, Focus Groups: Theory and Practice (London, Sage, 1990).

20 Litosseliti, Using Focus Groups, p. 17.

21 James Alexander, ‘Surveying Attitudes in Russia: a Representation of Formlessness’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 30, 2, June 1997, pp. 107–128.

22 The term is not listed, for instance, in the index to Timothy J. Colton, Transitional Citizens: Voters and What Influences Them in the New Russia (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2000); Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 3rd ed. (London, Routledge, 2002); nor, it has to be admitted, Stephen White, Richard Rose & Ian McAllister, How Russia Votes (Chatham, NJ, Chatham House, 1997). See however A. Vorontsova & V. Zvonsky, ‘Administrativnyi resurs kak fenomen rossiiskogo izbiratel'nogo protsessa’, Polis, 2003, 6, pp. 114–124.

23 A ‘biddable (upravlyaemyi) electorate’ was particularly characteristic of some of the ethnic republics, such as Bashkortostan and Dagestan, where a high level of support for Gennadii Zyuganov in the first round of the 1996 presidential election was succeeded by a high level of support for Boris El'tsin in the second round just over two weeks later: Vybory Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii. 1996. Elektoral'naya statistika (Moscow, Ves' mir, 1996), p. 197.

Appendix

Focus groups were conducted in the following locations:

1.	Tula, 3 January 2004 (seven participants aged 18–21)
2.	Odintsovo, Moscow region, 12 January 2004 (nine participants aged 35–63)
3.	Ryazan’, 12 January 2004 (nine participants aged 24–62)
4.	Kolomna, Moscow region, 13 January 2004 (eight participants aged 19–59)
5.	Novosibirsk, 15 January 2004 (nine participants aged 25–73)
6.	Voronezh, 25 April 2004 (eight participants aged 21–53)
7.	Bryansk, 20 April 2004 (nine participants aged 20–54)
8.	Syktyvkar, Komi, 29 April 2004 (eight participants aged 22–64)
9.	Konstaninovo village, Ryazan’ region, 24 April 2004 (eight participants aged 23–61)
10.	Biisk, Novosibirsk region, 25 April 2004 (eight participants aged 23–71)

Interviewers were selected and briefed by the Institute of Applied Politics in Moscow, directed by Dr Ol'ga Kryshtanovskaya, on the basis of a list of questions agreed in advance with the author. The second round of focus groups took account of the experience of the one before it, and some adjustment was made to the questions. The discussions lasted, on average, about two hours; they were taped and then delivered in printed and electronic formats, together with a brief evaluation by the moderator. The moderator, at the outset, explained that the exercise was being conducted as part of a programme of scholarly research, and participants were identified by first name alone so that their anonymity could be protected.

Five additional focus groups were conducted in the city of Ul'yanovsk between 30 March and 1 April 2004. Each of our focus groups was composed of males and females, aged successively between 18 and 25, 26 and 35, 36 and 45, 46 and 55, and 56 and 65. These focus groups were funded by the ESRC under grant R223250028 and were kindly made available by Dr Sarah Oates.

Our national survey was conducted by Russian Research in association with the project on ‘Inclusion without Membership? Bringing Russia, Ukraine and Belarus closer to “Europe”’, which is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council under grant RES-000-23-0146 to Stephen White, Margot Light and Roy Allison. Fieldwork took place between 21 December 2003 and 16 January 2004. The number of respondents was 2000, selected according to the agency's normal sampling procedures; it was representative of the population aged 18 and over, using a multistage proportional representation method with a random route method of selecting households. Interviews were conducted face to face in respondents' homes. The response rate was 57%. The sample was then weighted in accordance with sex, age and education in each region. There were 97 sampling points, and 150 interviewers were employed.

A preliminary version of this article was presented to the annual conference of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies in Cambridge, April 2004, and a more developed version to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Salt Lake City, November 2005. The support of the British Academy Small Grants Scheme SG-37188, and of the Nuffield Foundation Social Science Small Grants SGS/00960/G, is gratefully acknowledged.