Why Not Parties in Russia?: Democracy, Federalism, and the State

ISBN-13: 9780521718035 / Angielski / Miękka / 2007 / 288 str.

Henry E. Hale

Opis

Russia poses a major puzzle for theorists of party development. Virtually every classic work takes parties to be inevitable and essential to electoral competition, but Russia remains highly nonpartisan more than fifteen years after Gorbachev first launched his democratizing reforms. The problem is that theories of party development lack a "control case," almost always focusing on cases where parties have already developed and almost never examining countries where independent politicians are the norm. This book focuses on Russia as just such a control case. It mobilizes fresh public opinion surveys, interviews with leading Russian politicians, careful tracking of multiple campaigns, and analysis of national and regional voting patterns to show why Russia stands out. Russia's historically influenced combination of federalism and "superpresidentialism," coupled with a postcommunist redistribution of resources to regional political machines and "oligarchic" financial-industrial groups, produced and sustained powerful "party substitutes" that have largely squeezed Russia's real parties out of the "electoral market, damaging Russia s democratic development."

Recenzje

'… the substance of Henry E. Hale's detailed, scrupulously researched and engagingly written study is likely to be consulted for a long time to come. It makes key empirical and theoretical contributions to the study of Russian politics from a wide range of sources … this rich volume will remain pivotal for understanding Russian politics, perhaps even after Putin himself no longer remains so.' Luke March, University of Edinburgh

Spis treści

1. Electoral markets and Russia's political smorgasboard; 2. Party entrepreneurship in Russia's electoral market, 1989–2004; 3. How much party is in the party system?; 4. Electoral markets and party substitutes in Russia: origins and impact; 5. Parties and party substitutes: determining the balance; 6. Conclusion: the market model and theories of parties, national integration, and transitions from authoritarian rule.