Russia's Political Party System as an Impediment to Democratization

Abstract

Political parties play a fundamental role in the representative political systems of northern industrialized democracies. They connect civil and political society, advance the perceived interests of individuals, groups, and social strata while aiming consciously to develop these constituencies, and provide a link between society and the state, espousing the claims of the one and enforcing the rules of the other (Sakwa 1995, 169). Political parties provide representation and accountability, electoral pressure for partisan constituencies, and the basis for structuring political choice in the competition of interests in the political arena. In short, they serve as an integral aspect of representative democracies, and thus are perceived as the bedrock for the process of democratization. It is the argument of this article, however, that Russia's transition to democracy actually has been inhibited by the development of a dysfunctional and extremely unstable party system. An important starting point for understanding the woeful state of Russia's contemporary party system is examining the motivations surrounding the choices made by self-interested political elites. The desire of those who already possess power to maintain it and the desire to obtain the goods of political office--most notably power and personal enrichment--by those who seek them, have adversely impacted party system formation. These motivations also have had an impact on the structure of the institutions of government with which the parties interact, creating a political environment that reduces the importance of the role played by parties. In this regard, Russia's transition to democracy played a key role, because it served to enhance the freedom of action of the political elites, allowing them to better mold the political system according to their desires. This analysis emphasizes the profound impact of two factors on the development of Russia's party system: the course of the initial transition and the role of elites during and after the transition process. The sudden collapse of the Soviet system disrupted the development of the nascent party system, severing its connections to society and leaving it to be reconstituted from above by elites in circumstances that limited its connections with the society and the political system. In these circumstances, the parties became led by the elite. The later changes made to the overall political system during the 1993-95 and 1999-2000 election cycles have reinforced the party system's susceptibility to the behavior of the elite but at the expense of developing links between political and civil society. Those changes also shaped the incentives for elite action in ways that have led away from the development of a well-structured party system. Until the party system re-establishes its links with society and the incentives of party elite behavior are shaped by the need to promote societal interests rather than their own, Russia's party system will continue to be dysfunctional in the ongoing process of democratization. The remainder of this article is divided into five sections. Section one discusses how the collapse of the Soviet Union granted elites the leeway to fashion a party system and political institutions according to their own desires. Sections two and three describe the major developments in party system formation during the 1993-1995 and 1999-2000 election cycles, respectively. Section four draws on the historical evidence described in the preceding three sections to outline the principal factors that have contributed to the dysfunctional nature of Russia's political party system and its impact on the consolidation of Russian democracy. Section five offers general conclusions and prescriptions for the future. Impact of the Soviet Union's Collapse on the Emergence of a Nascent Multiparty System Competitive provoke party development, and this is one reason that founding elections are considered to be so important in transitions to democracy (O'Donnell and Schmitter 1986, 57). …