Electronic Resources and the Study of Political Elites in Russia

Abstract

Developments in the information society in Russia have led to the creation of an abundance of online primary texts by political actors and institutions. This article surveys a large selection of official electronic texts with the aim of encouraging more extensive use of online sources and easing researchers' navigation of Russian politicians' use of the internet. While the authors do not claim that online data can replace the insights gained from elite interviews, the article suggests that online texts could be used more extensively as a valuable addition to existing methods applied to the study of Russian political elites.

Notes

¹ For example, survey work by the Public Opinion Foundation (Fond obshchestvennoe mnenie), http://corp.fom.ru, the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (Vserossiiskii tsentr izucheniya obshchestvennogo mneniya), http://wciom.ru, and the Levada Centre, http://www.levada.ru, have facilitated much Russian and English-language academic research.

² While only 2% of the population were regular internet users in 2000, this proportion increased to over 40% by 2010, available at: http://www.internetworldstats.com/euro/ru.htm, accessed 2 July 2011.

³ Namely, 34 officials employed in the Office of the President or Kremlin (including the President), 26 officials in the office of the Prime Minister (including the Prime Minister), the 83 regional governors, 166 Senators in the Federation Council or upper house, and 450 deputies in the State Duma or lower house.

⁴ Medvedev's Go Russia! manifesto on his visions for the country's political and economic development was first published on the liberal newspaper Gazeta's website in September 2009. The full text is available at: http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/298, accessed 2 July 2011.

⁵www.kremlin.ru, accessed 18 May 2012.

⁶http://eng.kremlin.ru/, accessed 18 May 2012.

⁷http://kremlin.ru/search, accessed 18 May 2012.

⁸http://kremlin.ru/audio; http://kremlin.ru/video, accessed 18 May 2012.

⁹http://www.youtube.ru/user/kremlin, accessed 18 May 2012.

¹⁰http://archive.kremlin.ru/, accessed 18 May 2012.

¹¹http://oldsearch.kremlin.ru/kremlin_ru/, accessed 18 May 2012. Elsewhere, similar online archives have been used, for example, to study the policy position of the President of the Republic of China, Chen Shui-bian. Analysing more than 2,000 of his speeches with the help of computer-assisted content analysis the research assessed his position on Taiwanese independence over time and uncovered findings that significantly challenged previous studies on the same subject (Sullivan & Lowe 2010).

¹²http://kremlin.ru/video/blog; http://blog-medvedev.livejournal.com/, accessed 24 July 2013.

¹³ For a more detailed analysis of Medvedev's video blog, see Töpfl (2012).

¹⁴http://state.kremlin.ru/, accessed 18 May 2012.

¹⁵http://state.kremlin.ru/state_council, accessed 18 May 2012.

¹⁶http://www.i-russia.ru/sessions/reports/; http://www.i-russia.ru/sessions/sessions_video, accessed 18 May 2012. Whilst full transcripts were available for all 25 meetings of the Commission by July 2011, the video recordings in some instances only show Medvedev's opening and/or closing remarks.

¹⁷http://premier.gov.ru/; http://government.ru/, accessed 10 July 2011.

¹⁸http://premier.gov.ru/events/, accessed 10 July 2011.

¹⁹http://premier.gov.ru/points/, accessed 10 July 2011.

²⁰http://premier.gov.ru/search/, accessed 10 July 2011.

²¹http://government.ru/documents/, accessed 10 July 2011.

²²http://government.ru/gov/, accessed 11 July 2011.

²³http://government.ru/gov/, accessed 11 July 2011.

²⁴http://gov.ru/, accessed 24 July 2013.

²⁵http://gov.ru/main/ministry/isp-vlast44.html, accessed 11 July 2011.

²⁶ The second chamber of Russia's Federal Assembly—the Federation Council—was directly elected only in 1993. Subsequently its members have been selected by different means. Party factionalism in the Federation Council is not permitted.

²⁷ Elsewhere, researchers have successfully conducted systematic analyses of similar texts with the help of computer-assisted content analysis. Using software packages such as Wordscores or Wordfish, for example, policy positions of parliamentarians have been reliably identified in the contexts of the EU, the US and Germany (Benoit et al.2005; McGuire & Vanberg 2005; Slapin & Proksch 2008; Proksch & Slapin 2009). As these techniques are non-language specific, similar systematic analyses of textual sources studies could be conducted in the Russian context.

²⁸http://www.duma.gov.ru/, accessed 11 July 2011.

²⁹http://www.duma.gov.ru/legislative/statistics/; http://www.duma.gov.ru/representative/interpellations/; http://www.duma.gov.ru/systems/law/, accessed 11 July 2011.

³⁰http://duma.consultant.ru/, accessed 11 July 2011.

³¹http://transcript.duma.gov.ru/, accessed 11 July 2011.

³²http://www.cir.ru/duma/, accessed 11 July 2011.

³³http://www.duma.gov.ru/structure/deputies/; http://www.duma.gov.ru/structure/factions/; http://www.duma.gov.ru/structure/committees/, accessed 11 July 2011.

³⁴http://www.duma.gov.ru/about/history/, accessed 11 July 2011.

³⁵http://www.vedomosti.ru/special/deputies-communications.shtml, accessed 24 July 2013.

³⁶ ‘Medvedev Does Not Rule Out Emergence of Other System of Forming FC’, Itar-Tass news agency, 18 May 2011, available at: http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c152/145016.pdf, accessed 2 July 2011.

³⁷http://www.council.gov.ru, accessed 11 July 2011.

³⁸http://www.council.gov.ru/lawmaking/sf/index.html, accessed 11 July 2011.

³⁹http://www.council.gov.ru/events/parliament/index.html, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁴⁰http://www.council.gov.ru/inf_ps/parlisurvey/index.html; http://council.gov.ru/publications_sf/publisher1/index.html, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁴¹http://www.council.gov.ru/inf_sl/bulletin/index.html, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁴²http://www.council.gov.ru/staff/members/index.html, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁴³http://www.council.gov.ru/search/index.html, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁴⁴ Regional governors were appointed by the president from 1991 to 1996. They were elected from 1996 to 2003 and the system of appointments was reintroduced in 2004.

⁴⁵http://www.council.gov.ru/subject_RF/sub/index.html, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁴⁶http://www.mos.ru; http://www.duma.mos.ru/, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁴⁷http://www.mos.ru/documents/, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁴⁸http://www.mos.ru/authority/mayor/; http://www.mos.ru/press-center/transcripts/, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁴⁹http://www.mos.ru/authority/structure/, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁵⁰http://old.mos.ru/, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁵¹http://www.duma.mos.ru/zakon.shtml; http://www.duma.mos.ru/stn.shtml, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁵²http://www.gov.ru/main/page3.html, accessed 24 July 2013.

⁵³http://www.sibfo.ru/institutes/sovet/protocol.php; http://pfo.ru/?id = 8127, accessed 11 July 2011.

⁵⁴http://goslyudi.ru/competence/munmanagement/, accessed 2 July 2011.