This article explores the region-level impediments to the process of party formation in Russia during 1993–2002. The design of Russia’s national electoral system produces parties because they are entitled to contest the proportional part of legislative elections. Once produced in this way, parties are motivated to penetrate into the regions. However, the article empirically demonstrates that the parties’ attempts to penetrate the peripheries of the country have failed throughout the period. Region-level factors that impede the process of party formation include the dominant modes of separation of power, electoral systems, and the patterns of intra-elite conflict in the regions. In turn, the lack of territorial penetration makes national political parties unsustainable.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Afanas’ev, M. (1997). Klientelizm i rossiiskaya gosudarstvennost (Clientelism and Russian Statehood). Moscow: MONF .
2.
Aldrich, J. (1995). Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .
3.
Colton, T.J. and McFaul, M. (2000). “Reinventing Russia’s Party of Power: ‘Unity’ and the 1999 Duma Elections,” Post-Soviet Affairs16: 201–225 .
4.
Duverger, M. (1986). “Duverger’s Law: Thirty Years Later,” in B. Grofman and A. Lijphart (eds) Electoral Laws and their Political Consequences. New York: Agathon Press .
5.
Evans, G. and Whitefield, S. (1998). “The Evolution of Left and Right in Post-Soviet Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies50: 1023–1042 .
6.
Fish, M.S. (1995). “The Advent of Multipartism in Russia,” Post-Soviet Affairs11: 340–383 .
7.
Gel’man, V. and Golosov, G.V. (1998). “Regional Party System Formation in Russia: The Deviant Case of Sverdlovsk Oblast,” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics14: 31–53 .
8.
Gel’man, V., Ryzhenkov, S. and Brie, M., eds (2000). Rossiia regionov: Transformatsiia politicheskikh rezhimov (Russian Regions: Transformation of Political Regimes). Moscow: Ves’ Mir .
9.
Golosov, G.V. (1997). “Russian Political Parties and the ‘Bosses’: Evidence from the 1994 Provincial Elections in Western Siberia,” Party Politics3: 5–21 .
10.
Golosov, G.V. (1998). “Who Survives? Party Origins, Organizational Development and Electoral Performance in Post-Communist Russia,” Political Studies46: 511–543 .
11.
Golosov, G.V. (1999). “From Adygeya to Yaroslavl: Factors of Party Development in the Regions of Russia, 1995–1998,” Europe-Asia Studies51: 1333–1365 .
12.
Golosov, G.V. and Yargomskaya, N. (1999). “The Impact of Russia’s Electoral System on the Competitive Strategies of Political Actors in the Duma Elections,” in V. Gel’man and G.V. Golosov (eds) Elections in Russia, 1993–1996: Analyses, Documents and Data. Berlin: Edition Sigma .
13.
Hughes, J. (1997). “Sub-National Elites and Post-Communist Transformation in Russia: A Reply to Kryshtanovskaya and White,” Europe-Asia Studies49: 1017–1036 .
14.
McFaul, M. (2001). “Explaining Party Formation and Nonformation in Russia: Actors, Institutions, and Chance,” Comparative Political Studies34: 1159–1187 .
15.
McFaul, M. and Petrov, N., eds (1998). Politicheskii al’manakh Rossii 1997. Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Center .
16.
Massicotte, L. and Blais, A. (1999). “Mixed Electoral Systems: A Conceptual and Empirical Survey,” Electoral Studies18: 341–366 .
17.
Matsuzato, K. (1997). “The Split and Reconfiguration of Ex-Communist Party Factions in the Russian Oblasts: Chelyabinsk, Samara, Ulyanovsk, Tambov, and Tver (1991–1995),” Demokratizatsiya5: 53–88 .
18.
Matsuzato, K. (1999). “Local Elites Under Transition: County and City Politics in Russia 1985–1996,” Europe-Asia Studies51: 1367–1400 .
Moser, R. (2001). Unexpected Outcomes: Electoral Systems, Political Parties, and Representation in Russia. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press .
21.
Novikov, S. (1998). Omskaia oblast’: Vybory-1998, Chernye stranitsy rossiiskoi demokratii (Omsk Oblast: Elections-98, The Black Pages of Russia’s Democracy). Omsk.
22.
Oates, S. (1998). “Party Platforms: Towards a Definition of the Russian Political Spectrum,” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics14: 76–97 .
23.
Petrov, N. (1995). “Vybory organov predstavitel’noi vlasti regionov” (Elections of Regional Organs of Representative Power) , Mirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia3: 25–34 .
Rae, D. (1967). The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press .
26.
Remington, T.F. (2000). “The Evolution of Executive-Legislative Relations in Russia since 1993,” Slavic Review59: 499–520 .
27.
Ross, C. (2000). “Federalism and Democratization in Russia,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies33: 403–420 .
28.
Sakwa, R. (1993). “Parties and the Multiparty System in Russia,” RFE/RL Research Report2(31): 7–15 .
29.
Sartori, G. (1976). Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
30.
Shevchenko, I. and Golosov, G.V. (2001). “Legislative Activism of Russian Duma Deputies, 1996–1999,” Europe-Asia Studies53: 239–261 .
31.
Shugart, M.S. (1998). “The Inverse Relationship Between Party Strength and Executive Strength: A Theory of Politicians’ Constitutional Choices,” British Journal of Political Science28: 1–29 .
32.
Simonsen, S.G. (2001). “Nationalism and the Russian Political Spectrum: Locating and Evaluating the Extremes,” Journal of Political Ideologies6: 263–288 .
33.
Slider, D. (1996). “Elections to Russia’s Regional Assemblies,” Post-Soviet Affairs12: 243–264 .
Urban, M. and Gel’man, V. (1997). “The Development of Political Parties in Russia,” in K. Dawisha and B. Parrot (eds) Democratic Changes and Authoritarian Reactions in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus’, and Moldova. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
36.
Weaver, L. (1984). “Semi-Proportional and Proportional Representation Systems in the United States,” in A. Lijphart and B. Grofman (eds) Choosing an Electoral System: Issues and Alternatives. New York: Praeger .
