Unexpected Outcomes: Electoral Systems, Political Parties, and Representation in Russia by Robert s> Moser (review)

Abstract

376 SEER, 8i, 2, 2003 this book is warmly welcomed by both Central Asian specialists and transitologistsalike. Department ofPolitics J.GLENN Universityof Southampton Moser, Robert. Unexpected Outcomes. ElectoralSystems,Political Parties,and Representation inRussia.Pitt Seriesin Russian and East European Studies. University of PittsburghPress,Pittsburgh,PA, 200I. X+ 183 pp. Tables. Notes. Index. $I9.95 (paperback). ONE of the more welcome byproductsof the end of Communist rule has been the erosion or even disappearance of long-established boundaries between 'area'and 'discipline'.In most cases, specialistsin voting, legislativebehaviour or whatever else have simply added one or more of the post-Communist countries to their list of examples. But in other cases there has been a team approach, combining the skillsof the mainstreamsocial scientistwith those of an area expert. In just a few cases, of which Robert Moser's book is an excellent example, the study of the area has led in the reverse direction, to conclusions that will require some reconsideration in the parent discipline. Moser'sconcern isthe politicaleffectsof electoralsystems,a subjectpioneered by Maurice Duverger. Yet, he finds, Duverger's Law fails to work in postCommunistRussia ;andgiven thattheRussianexperiencemaybe increasingly typicalof countriesthat are currentlydemocratizing,it is comparativepolitics itselfthat needs to make the adjustment. This is a book for specialists, and some of what the author conveys will already be known to them through parts of his chapters that have appeared elsewhere.Itscentralfocus isthe effectsof electoralsystemson politicalparties and representation, not just in Russia but on a broader comparative basis. Since I993, Russia has had a mixed electoral system consisting equally of deputies elected through a party-list contest across the country as a whole, and of deputies elected by simple majority in single-member constituencies. The outcome, in Russia, has confounded political science orthodoxy; the reason, Moser suggests,is the weak institutionalizationof political parties. In other words, 'institutionsmatter',but so does the social context;or, as he puts it himself, the 'institutionaleffects of electoral systems are dependent on the social contexts in which they operate' (p. 55) There are challengesto the comparativeliteraturein otherchaptersaswell. Women, for instance, should have been expected to secure a greater share of representation in the party-list contest, in which seats are shared out in proportion to the nationalvote; but in fact, in three elections, they have done better in single-memberconstituencies.There is a chapteron the effectsof the electoral system on the representation of ethnic minorities in fact, fairly minimal;and a chapteron the I996 presidentialcontest, where the numberof candidatesdoes appearto have been constrainedby the electoralsystemitself. Presidentialismas such is less satisfactorilyconceived in thisbook:notjust the effectsof the electoralsystemon an individualcontest,but the implicationsfor REVIEWS 377 party competition of a system in which a directly elected president is the dominant political actor. There are severalplaces in which furtherresearchis required. One of these is at the level of vote choice in single member constituencies. Earlierresearch has suggested that party affiliationis a very minor consideration for electors, but this may be changing (in a national survey conducted in spring 200 I, a colleague and I found that candidates with a known party affiliationwould gain about twice as much as they would lose, but largernumberssaid it would make no differenceor that they would find it hard to say).Not the least of the virtues of this challenging book is that it encourages the formulation of such questions in a rigorous way, and in the light of the comparative evidence. Could one reasonablyaskfor more? lUniversity ofGlasgow STEPHEN WHITE Jeffries, Ian. TheNewRussia.A Handbook ofEconomic andPoliticalDevelopments. RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2002. xii + 643 pp. Tables. Bibliography. Index. [95.00. SINCE the collapse of the Soviet Union, the scholarlycommunity has found it extremely difficult to keep pace with the constant changes in the Russian Federation. Although a large amount of literature has been published discussing the various nuances of post-Soviet Russia, a paucity of literature has attempted to lay out the full range of events that constitute the postsocialistexperience of the Russian Federation.The dynamic nature of events in the region in the last ten years makes cataloguing such developments extremely difficult. Nevertheless, with TheJNfew Russia,Ian Jeifries makes a serious effort to offer a detailed and timely review of economic and political developments in post...