Suchergebnisse

Political parties typically are assumed to be essential for contemporary democratic government and governance. Why, then, has the regime change in Russia failed to produce viable political parties? Grigorii Golosov addresses this question, exploring issues central to an understanding of Russian political development. Golosov combines statistical and qualitative analysis, including case studies, to explain why political parties have not yet taken hold in Russia's regions. His argument is bolstered by a uniquely comprehensive database of regional elections held in the period 1993-April 2003. Moving from the late Soviet era to current efforts by the federal government to promote a viable party system at the regional level, his work is a pathbreaking contribution to both Russian studies and comparative politics

In the run-up to the September 2021 Duma elections, the Russian authorities employed a range of tools to increase the odds that United Russia, the main pro-government party, would retain its two-thirds majority in the Duma in a context of low public support. They sought to facilitate the administrative mobilization of loyal voters through electronic voting and multi-day elections while reducing incentives for opposition-minded voters to turn out by excluding Navalny, listing independent media as foreign agents, and cracking down on protests. These tools were apparently successful: as counting went on, the vote shares of United Russia and A Just Russia steadily increased, while the vote shares of other major parties declined. But the sweeping and unidirectional nature of this change prompted widespread speculation about fraud, which has hampered the authorities' search for electoral legitimacy.

While formally a federation that vests significant powers in the sub-national bodies of government and leaves it for its federal units and municipalities to decide who will govern them by conducting elections, the Russian Federation is effectively a centralized authoritarian state. This paper uses evidence from the September 2017 sub-national elections in Russia to examine the role of formal political institutions in sustaining the country's political regime. The analysis shows that the political domination of the pro-government party over the regional political assemblies is sustained by a complex combination of party regulations and electoral rules. In particular, gubernatorial elections are organized and conducted in a way that ensures the victories of the incumbent governors who are effectively appointed by the president of Russia.

Die ideologischen Positionen des politischen Regimes in Russland sind äußerst stark von Unbestimmtheit gekennzeichnet. In dem Personenkreis, der der politischen Führung Russlands nahesteht oder mit dieser kooperiert, sind zwar deutlicher ausgeprägte ideologische Ausrichtungen zu erkennen (Nationalismus und Wirtschaftsliberalismus), doch ist keine von beiden vorherrschend. Die russische Opposition braucht im Unterschied zur Regierung dringend ideologische Vehikel, um auf das Bewusstsein größerer Bevölkerungsteile einzuwirken. Die Effektivität solcher Instrumente bleibt jedoch recht gering, da die Art, in der liberale Haltungen in öffentlichen Auftritten der Opposition präsentiert werden, nicht ganz den Werten der breiten Bevölkerung entspricht. Darüber hinaus integriert die Ideologie der Opposition nur unzureichend Werte, die mit nationaler Identität und sozialer Gerechtigkeit verbunden werden und den Bürgern Russlands wichtig sind.

Die ideologischen Positionen des politischen Regimes in Russland sind äußerst stark von Unbestimmtheit gekennzeichnet. In dem Personenkreis, der der politischen Führung Russlands nahesteht oder mit dieser kooperiert, sind zwar deutlicher ausgeprägte ideologische Ausrichtungen zu erkennen (Nationalismus und Wirtschaftsliberalismus), doch ist keine von beiden vorherrschend. Die russische Opposition braucht im Unterschied zur Regierung dringend ideologische Vehikel, um auf das Bewusstsein größerer Bevölkerungsteile einzuwirken. Die Effektivität solcher Instrumente bleibt jedoch recht gering, da die Art, in der liberale Haltungen in öffentlichen Auftritten der Opposition präsentiert werden, nicht ganz den Werten der breiten Bevölkerung entspricht. Darüber hinaus integriert die Ideologie der Opposition nur unzureichend Werte, die mit nationaler Identität und sozialer Gerechtigkeit verbunden werden und den Bürgern Russlands wichtig sind.

The contemporary electoral system of Russia, once adopted to foster the country's transition to democracy, has been transformed into a crucial pillar of electoral authoritarianism. This study investigates how the principal elements of Russia's electoral system contributed to the consolidation of the authoritarian political order. While certainly not undemocratic in themselves and often borrowed from well-established democracies, the electoral institutions of Russia were assembled into a combination that effectively prevents alternation in power. The study shows that central role in this process was played by learning from error. At each of the stages of transition to authoritarianism, electoral reforms were implemented in order to minimize the risks that were revealed by the previous electoral experiences of the authoritarian leadership.

This study uses empirical evidence from a nearly comprehensive set of electoral democracies that use single-member plurality systems or mixed electoral systems with single-member plurality components in order to establish empirically the impact of territorial patterns of electoral support upon vote-to-seat conversion. The analysis, employing individual parties as units of analysis and multiple linear regression with cluster-robust standard errors as its main methodological tool, confirms the hypothesis that single-member plurality rules give a representational bonus to parties with low levels of nationalization. This effect is contingent upon absolute and relative party size, so that very large parties, and particularly frontrunners in party competition, receive an advantage irrespective of their nationalization. Mixed electoral rules further facilitate their advantage, while the gains of very small parties tend to be enhanced by large assembly size. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of party system development under Duvergerian conditions.