One of the tales told about American political parties is that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, desiring to create an institution uniting sup-porters of their beliefs about the means and ends of government, set off from their Virginia plantations on what was described to inquisitive journalists as an expedition to gather botanical specimens. Instead of collecting specimens, however, they are alleged to have created the original specimen of the modern political party.
If a country has no developed political party system, it is not really a democracy. And the development of political parties in Russia has a long way to go. The only branch of government in which parties play an influential role is in the State Duma (the lower house of parliament) -- not in the Federation Council (the upper house) or the executive branch. Addressing the question of why parties have developed so little elsewhere, it is argued that they are weak because the most powerful politicians choose to make them so. This institutional arrangement suits their purposes to control what happens in government from the top. Tracing the origins of this situation reveals that they lie in Russian history & culture, predating the Soviet period. Another impediment to party development is the scale of socioeconomic change in Russia. Socioeconomic cleavages were important to party development in Western Europe, with liberal & conservative parties representing different sectors of the population. However, there is reason for optimism for the future. While Putin enjoys solid support from the people, other major political actors do not; if Putin should cease to identify with Unified Russia, the majority party's future is uncertain. Also, a 2002 law passed by both houses & the president requires regional parliaments to be proportional in terms of political party representation. This will lead to party development at the regional level, which conceivably could spread upward. Tables. J. Stanton
List of Tables. Foreword by T.N. Chaturvedi. Acknowledgements. Abbreviations. Glossary. -- Introduction -- . -- Chapter 1 -- Evolution of Ideas on Nation-Building and Modernization. -- Chapter 2 -- Constitutional Reforms, Electoral System, Political Parties and Elections before Independence. -- Chapter 3 -- Electoral System, Political Parties and Lok Sabha Elections. -- Chapter 4 -- A Comparative Analysis of Party Manifestos of National Political Parties. -- Conclusion. Note on Bibliography -- . Index