The Development of Party Identification in Post-Soviet Societies

Abstract

of how parties are arrayed along axes of political conflict and where they fit in political spectrum. T he development of mass partisanship and party has long been a focus of social science inquiry. Yet, virtually all of studies offering explanations and theories of partisan formation and change among mass public are based on evidence derived from societies with fully developed party systems (Campbell et al. 1960; Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Converse 1969; Sartori 1976). The newly emerging democracies of post-Soviet societies, however, offer a unique opportunity for testing theories describing development of mass political parties and rise of party identification. The earliest scholarly expectations regarding how post-Soviet citizens would react to appearance of multiple political parties reflected socialization theories prevalent in literature. The pioneering work on party development emphasized a slow process of family and peer socialization leading to a party that presumably strengthens over life cycle (Greenstein 1965; Jennings and Niemi 1974). Moreover, traditional literature suggests that party differences and enduring party alignment arise gradually out of important underlying group cleavages that characterize all societies (Lipset and Rokkan 1967). Thus far a prevalent view among scholars who study most significant post-Soviet country, namely Russia, is that political parties have failed to attract popular loyalty. Indeed, many authors assert that current post-Soviet political parties are ephemeral, impotent, and undifferentiated (see, for example, Reddaway 1994; Rutland 1994; Ordeshook 1995). In their groundbreaking work, How Russia Votes, White, Rose, and McAllister contend that more than three quarters of electorate lack any part identification and that the majority are to a significant degree anti-party (1997, 135, 137). Rose (1994) has also concluded that rise of political parties and party in Russia will take a good deal of time because post-Communist societies lack a civic culture and because Russians are