Federal Political Parties Research Articles

Ups and downs of hypertension control in Canada: critical factors and lessons learned.

ABSTRACTAs the leading risk for death, population control of increased blood pressure represents a major challenge for all countries of the Americas. In the early 1990’s, Canada had a hypertension control rate of 13%. The control rate increased to 68% in 2010, accompanied by a sharp decline in cardiovascular disease. The unprecedented improvement in hypertension control started around the year 2000 when a comprehensive program to implement annually updated hypertension treatment recommendations started. The program included a comprehensive monitoring system for hypertension control. After 2011, there was a marked decrease in emphasis on implementation and evaluation and the hypertension control rate declined, driven by a reduction in control in women from 69% to 49%. A coalition of health and scientific organizations formed in 2011 with a priority to develop advocacy positions for dietary policies to prevent and control hypertension. By 2015, the positions were adopted by most federal political parties, but implementation has been slow.This manuscript reviews key success factors and learnings. Some key success factors included having broad representation on the program steering committee, multidisciplinary engagement with substantive primary care involvement, unbiased up to date credible recommendations, development and active adaptation of education resources based on field experience, extensive implementation of primary care resources, annual review of the program and hypertension indicators and developing and emphasizing the few interventions important for hypertension control. Learnings included the need for having strong national and provincial government engagement and support, and retaining primary care organizations and clinicians in the implementation and evaluation.

Modern federal political parties of Canada in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2021 parliamentary elections

The article analyzes the balance of power between the leading national political parties in Canada after the early general elections of 2021 in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the main issues of the election campaign, the key tasks and challenges facing the parliamentary parties of Canada in the coming years, and also touches upon the problem of reforming the Canadian majoritarian electoral system, leading to a serious disparity between the number of votes received by parties at the national level and the number of seats in the House of Commons obtained as a result of the elections.

Революция меньшинств в США – заключительный этап. Социальные лифты для меньшинств в коридоры власти

This article is the third and final in a series dealing with the birth of a new political elite in the United States, the minority elite. In previous articles, the mechanism of its appearance was analyzed, as well as its ideology, goals, program and values. The black movement, as the most co-organized of all protest movements, is entering the final phase of its development, being engaged in the placement of its representatives in state and federal governments, political parties and other social institutions. The women’s movement has recently been taken over by ethnic movements, primarily blacks, and has become their vanguard. This article describes new social elevators for the promotion of minority representatives into the corridors of power. The logic of promoting people of their own race, gender and nationality to the highest branches of power began to prevail over other criteria for recruiting personnel. During the 2020 election campaign, a new mechanism for promoting minorities in all branches of government was formed. It is based on numerous violations of local and federal electoral legislation. The mechanism of pressure on the US electoral system is analyzed using the example of the state of Georgia and the activities of politician Stacey Abrams. The article describes Abrams’ strategy to create a network of NGOs that are focused on one mission - to arrange for the political shift of the state in the elections. These organizations circumvented existing laws, making the state of Georgia the record holder for electoral irregularities and lawsuits. The article shows that Abrams’ struggle with the electoral laws of her state is based on the political myth of the voter suppression of minorities. The author identifies a number of common characteristics of the new elite. The minority elite does not show any interest in social reconciliation and overcoming racial conflict, but rather makes efforts to incite the latter, to attract the government to its side and increase its role in establishing “social justice” through racial quotas and infringement of the rights of those social strata that it has appointed bearers of systematic racism in society. As the colored elite increases and the government’s role in resolving racial conflicts grows, the minority movement is gradually condemned, it ceases to be a true grassroots movement and turns into astroturfing.

Новый высший класс: революционная смена элит в США

The article analyzes the emergence of a new political class or elite in the United States, which is called the minority elite. This article is the first in a series dedicated to this topic. The author formulates three interrelated prerequisites that have caused the emergence of the new elite: the spread of the Affirmative Action (AA) to all spheres of public life and, above all, to the education system; the phenomenon of “woke” capitalism; a long history of minority protest movements. Experts take the current protests for a revolution; the author proves the opposite statement: protests are a direct consequence and one of the stages of a step-by-step revolution. Its roots lie in the long-term training of personnel for the revolution and social technologies for it, in the creation of financial, informational and organizational infrastructures of protest movements, and in moral defeat and the surrender of the intellectual class. Over the decades, hundreds of protest movements of various sizes have been co-organized in the United States and dozens of professional protest organizations have been formed. One of them, Black Lives Matter, has its own program, strategy, tactics and a solid budget. The goal of the organization is to create its own ruling elite. The Protestant (WASP) elite ruled the country for more than two centuries, in the second half of the 20th century it was replaced by the so-called intellectual elite. Harvard University, by its decision to raise the level of acceptance tests in the 1960s, spawned new, intellectual elite, California universities, by abolishing tests in the 2010-2020s, bring to power a new social group – the beneficiaries of the AA. The black movement is confidently entering the final phase of its development – the placement of its representatives in state and federal authorities, political parties and other social institutions. Ideologues of identity politics, primarily racial, have arrogated to themselves the position of mentors and experts on social justice and the protectors of civil rights in society. Other protest organizations have joined the BLM, with socialist-oriented organizations in the lead. These organizations have effectively “hijacked” a wave of protests and are already working on a socialist agenda for the Biden-Harris administration, if elected.

Hashtag Politics: A Twitter Sentiment Analysis of the 2015 Canadian Federal Election

We developed a split plot design model for analysis of sentiment toward federal political parties on the social media platform Twitter in the weeks prior to the 2015 Canadian Federal Election. Data was collected from Twitter’s Application Programming Interface (API) via statistical program R. We scored the sentiment of each Twitter message referring to the parties and tested using ANOVA. Our results suggested that the Liberal Party and New Democratic Party had more positive sentiment than the Conservative Party. Actual seat wins coincide with our results for the Liberal Party (which won 148 new seats) and the Conservative Party (which lost 60 seats), but positive sentiment for the New Democratic Party did not correspond to seat wins.

Non Committed Voters and Economic Growth: Evidence from India

Using actual voting records of simultaneous elections held for Indian federal and regional assemblies-where same political parties contest against each other in both type of elections we identify non-committed voters. These are split ticket voters who vote for different parties in two different but simultaneous election. We find that the representatives supported by such voters outperform significantly with respect to both constituency level outcomes as well as measures based on individual effort. Having controlled for the impact of observable factors, we follow Imbens (2003); Harada (2012) and conduct generalized sensitivity analysis in order to account for the influence of unobservables.

Political branding: A consumer perspective on Australian political parties

Why are voters in advanced democracies turning away from established mass parties to take their electoral chances elsewhere? This article draws on concepts from marketing scholarship, specifically branding and brand equity, to apply a ‘consumer’ lens that assesses the major parties in Australia as failing ‘brands’ being left behind by disillusioned voters. An initial sample of 200 voters were asked what words or phrases came to mind when they thought of each of four Australian federal political parties. The strength of associations for each party, elicited from this sample, was then validated on a broader sample of 1015 voters, in addition to whether the association was considered positive, neutral or negative. Data revealed distinct brand associations for each party and the extent of penetration and brand equity across subgroups of voters. We find that Australian mass parties are caught in a downward spiral of negative brand associations and low brand penetration, leading to voter dissatisfaction.

Regional Opposition in Russia: Aliens in a Hybrid Regime

This paper views the regional political opposition in Post-Soviet Russia as a specific phenomenon that contradicts the practices of the existing political regime and differs from the opposition at the national level. The Russian regional opposition is considered in the context of the heterogeneity of the political process at the federal and sub-national levels: it is a phenomenon that is more relevant to a democratic regime than a hybrid authoritarian polity. The article analyzes the methods used by the authorities to limit the abilities of the regional opposition. Due to institutional factors, the opportunities of the provincial opposition are restricted at all levels. Federal political parties are used as a means of suppressing the regional opposition. Nevertheless, the Russian regional opposition remains intact and it has the potential to disrupt the power vertical and the orderly system of the hybrid regime.

Election 2015: Communicating pharmacy's priorities.

Canadians will be heading to the polls in a federal election widely expected to occur October 19, 2015. Although the pundits would argue that political parties have been campaigning for months already, most election-related activities, such as public debates and door-to-door campaigning by candidates, will begin to ramp up in late summer and fall. As the 2015 federal election campaign moves into high gear, the Canadian Pharmacists Association (CPhA) has identified key recommendations and messages for federal political candidates on 3 key national issues of importance to the profession. These 3 issues include the following: Pan-Canadian Pharmacare Program: CPhA is seeking commitment from all federal political parties to work with the provinces/territories, health care professionals and other stakeholders towards the development of a pan-Canadian pharmacare program. Such a program must address coverage gaps between public and private systems, protect Canadians from undue financial hardship and guarantee access to a stable supply of clinically and cost-effective medications. Furthermore, the inclusion of access to pharmacy services under a pharmacare model is key to achieving better health outcomes and cost savings. National Plan for e-Prescribing: CPhA is calling on all parties to work with the provinces/territories, health care professionals and other stakeholders to implement a seamless e-prescribing system in Canada. CPhA is looking for the federal government to support the development and implementation of a common national standard for e-prescribing that ensures that Canadians’ prescription information can be more easily shared and accessed between relevant health providers, while respecting patient privacy and confidentiality. Strengthened National Immunization Strategy for Canada: Given Canada’s relatively low rates of immunization compared with other industrialized countries, CPhA is calling for a revamped National Immunization Strategy. The goal of a revamped strategy would be to increase immunization rates through a comprehensive approach that would include further expanding pharmacists’ scope of practice to administer vaccines. The National Strategy would also target increased research, comparable access and enhanced education/outreach, including building a partnership with the provinces/territories and health professionals to increase public awareness of the importance of vaccinations. In the lead-up to October 19, CPhA is encouraging pharmacists and other Canadians to promote and discuss these key recommendations with political candidates from all parties. To assist you, CPhA has assembled an election website at www.pharmacists.ca/election. On this website, you will find a print-ready brochure that summarizes the key recommendations, a more detailed platform document that provides background and rationale for these recommendations and an online tool that allows you to quickly and easily contact the candidates in your riding and send them messages of support for the above-mentioned priorities. Elections provide voters with an excellent opportunity to learn about and pin down the views of candidates and political parties on specific issues. This election is no different. Go to www.pharmacists.ca/election to share your thoughts with your candidates, and help CPhA advance these core issues. ■

Examining Citizen’s Confidence in Institutions of Pakistan: An Analysis of Citizen’s Trust

Citizens always look to Governments and their institutions to lead the way and solve their issues. Citizen’s trust in government and its institutions is considered to be an effective way to measure progress and prosperity of any society and effectiveness of its governance mechanism. This current study is conducted to investigate (I) citizen’s trust in various institutions in Pakistan like Federal Government, Provincial Government, political parties, Army, Judiciary, Police, and Media. (II) And to check the most crucial issue faced these institutions. Data is collected from Lahore from the sample size of 166 through convenience sampling. Results show that the Army is the only institution on which citizens has trust but overall respondents show distrust from the performance of all major institutions of Pakistan. Fighting terrorism, lack of coordination between Federal & Provincial Government, awareness among people, unstable political environment in country, Political pressure, race for best ratings among channels and Lack of public confidence are the most crucial issues faced by these institutions.

The Health Action Lobby releases its pre-election health platform.

The Canadian Pharmacists Association (CPhA) is a leading organization within the Health Action Lobby (HEAL), a coalition of 40 national health care organizations with a mandate to represent the collective interests of the health community with the federal government. In December, HEAL released its health care platform for federal political parties in advance of the next federal election. With a federal election expected in October 2015, HEAL has been working for the past 2 years to develop a set of recommendations aimed at strengthening the Canadian health care system. CPhA has been at the forefront in the development of the recommendations. The platform identifies steps that could be taken by the federal government to accelerate the pace of innovation, meet the changing health needs of Canadians, strengthen strategic partnerships with the provinces and territories and improve the health of Canadians and the care they receive. To meet these objectives, the HEAL platform identifies 6 key themes: Although HEAL recognizes that health care is delivered by provinces and territories, given the federal government’s own responsibilities in health, including the fact that it is the fifth largest health delivery body and a significant funder, the federal government needs to work more collaboratively with provinces and territories. Federal participation at the Council of the Federation’s Health Care Innovation Working Group would be a good first step. Greater clarity is needed with regard to the role of the federal government. HEAL has developed a vision statement that should guide future federal policy making in health care. A series of principles to transform the health system have been included in the platform, based on the work of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the Triple Aim approach. HEAL believes that federal funding for health care should reflect the Romanow Commission’s goal of 25% of total cost, up from its current level of approximately 20%. To more equitably distribute federal funds, HEAL is also recommending a Demographic Top-Up Fund that would reflect provinces/territories with older populations requiring greater health care assistance. HEAL believes the federal government can play a more direct role in 3 key areas: Canada’s aging population—HEAL would like a national dialogue on how to help Canadians finance the costs associated with aging. HEAL is also proposing a National Community-Based Health Infrastructure Fund to ensure an adequate supply of nursing home and long-term care beds. Access to prescription drugs—HEAL has adopted CPhA’s 2008 position on catastrophic drug coverage, which calls on the federal government to introduce a catastrophic drug insurance program that would prevent undue financial hardships in the event of exorbitant costs for medicines. Accelerating the spread of innovation—HEAL is proposing the creation of a National Health Innovation Fund that could accelerate the adoption of innovative practices in primary care, mental health and addictions, and health human resources. The federal government needs to develop a set of pan-Canadian health system performance indicators that would be used by all jurisdictions. These indicators would provide Canadians and policy makers with a clearer picture of how health systems are performing in comparison to objectives. This platform is intended to provide political parties with the unified views and perspectives of the health community on ways the federal government can strengthen the health care system in Canada. In the lead-up to and during the next federal election, we encourage pharmacists, as integral members of the health care community, to attend all candidates’ debates, meet with your candidates in person or send them a note indicating your support for these ideas and asking where they stand on issues related to health care.

Freedom of choice requires availability of choice options

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to describe divergent recent developments in provision of reproductive health services to North Americans.Design/methodology/approach– Narrative review.Findings– Two North American countries with very different histories present similar governance challenges today. The challenge is to provide all women with the full range of reproductive health options to which they are legally entitled now. In Canada, those contraception and abortion options are covered under the medical service plan insurance but not always available in convenient locations. In USA, those options are not uniformly covered under health insurance plans due to statutory limitations. In Canada, where federal law limiting abortion was struck down as unconstitutional, the leader of one of its three major federal political parties sees the way forward being to limit his party to pro-choice candidates. In USA, where new laws limiting abortion have been introduced at an unprecedented rate, the judiciary is being asked to define the way forward.Originality/value– Clinical governance needs to balance the moral beliefs of individual providers against the rights of patients to have their lawful choices available within reasonable convenience. Progress has been made but needs are still not adequately met, in these North American examples.

On Dealing with Euroscepticism

AbstractThe article examines if and, if so, why and how political parties opposing the European Union have thrived. It looks at the role of national parliaments and national media in failing to engage convincingly with the European dimension of politics, and asks why the forces of European federalism have been so relatively ineffective. By analyzing the tensions between national and European political parties especially in the conduct of elections to the European Parliament, the article traces the rise of the nationalist forces within the EP and assesses their impact on the legislative and other work of the institution. It concludes by proposing measures to tackle the nationalist challenge to European unification, including more differentiated forms of integration, more direct democracy, the development of federal political parties and the constitutional settlement of a federal union.

Deadly Inertia: A History of Constitutional Challenges to Canada's Criminal Code Sections on Prostitution

This paper examines rhetoric surrounding prostitution law reform in Canada from 1970 to the present. During the 1950s and 1960s, there was very little media or political attention paid to prostitution. It was not until the mid 1970s that perceived problems with prostitution law began to surface, driven by concerns that the criminal code statute prohibiting street prostitution was not enforceable. In 1983 the Liberal government appointed the Special Committee on Pornography and Prostitution to consider options for law and policy reform. However, the Conservative government that received the report in 1985 rejected the sweeping law changes the Special Committee recommended, opting instead to rewrite the street prostitution offence. Since then the murder of somewhere between 200 and 300 street prostitutes has prompted renewed calls for law reform. The debate on law reform culminated in 2006 with a parliamentary review that saw all four federal political parties agreeing that Canada’s prostitution laws are “unacceptable,” but unable to agree about how to change them. The majority report held that consenting adult prostitution should be legal, while the minority report held that it should be prohibited. In 2007 the Standing Committee on the Status of Women recommended that Canada adopt the Nordic model of demand-side prohibition. As the deadlock continues, women in the street sex trade continue to be murdered. Faced with this deadly inertia, two groups of sex workers have challenged several Criminal Code sections relating to prostitution, arguing that they violate several of their Constitutional rights, including their right to “life, liberty and security of the person”. The paper concludes with an update on the progress of the Charter challenges now before the courts.

Climate Change and Regional Identity in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria

The recent Australian federal election results suggested that climate change remained on the agenda of the Australian electorate even if it had slipped off the agenda of the major federal political parties. It is generally accepted that the Federal Labor Government, under the previous Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, after becoming a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol and proposing a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, failed to implement policy or develop a new policy platform to address issues of climate change. The election results are believed to reflect this with the Green vote showing an increase of 3.97 per cent with Labour losing 5.41 per cent of the votes they held in the 2007 Election. The first Green member has been elected to the House of Representatives and the Green Party will hold the balance of power in the Senate from July 2011. The most significant election platform of the Green Party is in relation to climate change.

That Elusive Object of Desire: Canadian Perceptions of the European Union

The paper first gives an historical review of the evolution of the relationship between Canada and the EU. It then looks at Canadian governmental perceptions of the EU through an analysis of parliamentary debates, reports of House of Commons and Senate committees, official papers released by the ministries of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the election platforms of five federal political parties. Finally, it examines the perceptions of the non-governmental sector, which includes an analysis of the content of three newspapers, commercial and academic public opinion polls as well as documents and press releases from Canada’s principal business and labour organizations, and the research archives of non-partisan think tanks. The picture that emerges from this review is that, in Canadian eyes, the EU is primarily an important international economic actor with large and attractive markets of which Canadian companies have yet to take full advantage. In the absence of a transatlantic free trade deal, however, it is likely that Canada, while continuing to solidify its relationship with the USA, will begin looking with more interest to Asia.

Designing Interactive Sound Maps Using Scalable Vector Graphics

Geographical research and cartography have, for the most part, neglected sound, even though it is an important part of the environment within which human society exists. This article examines the use of sound in other disciplines, arguing that cartography is unusual in its relatively limited use of sound and examining research indicating that sound has the potential to provide useful options to cartographers in their map designs. The article then presents research carried out using interactive sound as an added dimension of maps designed to be accessible over the World Wide Web. The sounds are conceived as an integral part of the map, augmenting rather than replicating the visual information to provide new insights into the subject matter of the map. The article presents a detailed discussion of the design of a map of results from the Canadian federal election of 28 June 2004, showing a selection of electoral districts in the vicinity of Ottawa, ON. The map, implemented using Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), JavaScript, and recorded audio files, uses recorded speeches by the leaders of the federal political parties to provide an auditory dimension.

Paradise Postponed: A Re-examination of the Green Book Proposals of 1945

During World War Two, all federal political parties sought to accommodate the growing demand for "welfare state" programs. Mackenzie King's Liberals successfully checked the growth of the CCF by promising a comprehensive program of cradle-to-grave security. After the 1945 election the Liberal government prepared such a program and brought it to a dominion-provincial conference whose purpose was to determine the taxation and administrative arrangements necessary for its implementation. The "conference", which became a series of mini-conferences stretched over nine months, ended without agreement. The federal government blamed recalcitrant premiers in Ontario and Quebec for the conference's failure and abandoned much of the reform program. This article argues that the federal government, in fact, wanted the conference to fail because it did not want to undertake the expenses implied in the reform proposals. After proving inflexible in dealing with provincial criticisms, it cynically and successfully manipulated events to make it appear that the provinces had killed hopes for reform. Post-war prosperity and a declining interest in reform, particularly on the part of the corporate and medical elites, contributed to the federal government's unwillingness to pursue reform vigorously.

Recent Russian Federal Elections in Dagestan: Implications for Proposed Electoral Reform

THE RUSSIAN STATE DUMA ELECTION, on 7 December 2003, and the presidential election, on 14 March 2004, both showed particularly high levels of voter turnout and support in North Caucasian republics for the party of power. How should these results be interpreted? Dagestan's election results provide an interesting study, and suggest possible consequences of President Putin's proposed electoral changes. The Russian State Duma consists of 450 representatives. Half of these are currently elected in single-mandate territorial districts. The other half of the Duma representatives are chosen from electoral lists of federal political parties registered by the Justice Ministry of the Russian Federation and certified by the Central Electoral Commission for participation in the election. On 13 September 2004 President Putin proposed that all Duma representatives should be subsequently selected from party lists. According to the Central Electoral Commission, there are presently more than 108 million voters in Russia, or approximately 482,300 voters per territorial district.1 Each territorial electoral district should approximate this number, while not breaching the boundaries that separate the 89 administrative subjects of the Russian Federation. From the first Duma election, in December 1993, Dagestan was divided into two single-mandate territorial districts with approximately 550,000 voters in each. These were the Buinaksky electoral district, No. 10, and the Makhachkalinsky electoral district, No. 11, together giving Dagestan two seats in the lower chamber of the legislative organ. Prior to the 2003 Duma election, however, Dagestani leaders persuaded the Central Electoral Commission to add one district in Dagestan. The addition was justified in terms of a significant increase in Dagestan's population in the interval since the 1989 census. Designated as the Derbentsky district, No. 12, Dagestan's third electoral territory was established at the expense of other regions of Russia with declining populations.2 The addition of this third district offered improved prospects for the attainment of balanced ethnic representation, which is the perennial aim of Dagestani leaders. With this in view, Dagestan's internal raiony were redistributed among the three districts in order to create three electoral units with approximately the same number of voters. The new Derbentsky electoral district established in the southern regions of the Republic includes somewhat greater numbers of ethnic Lezgin than ethnic Dargin

Putin's Russia: Is It a Doable Project?

IntroductionThe new Russian president repeatedly has claimed that the economic revival of Russia is the principal goal of his administration. After an initial period of uncertainty, the policies that Putin and his aides have chosen to improve the economic performance of the country have become clearer. They are (1) a strong state, able to enforce the rule of law, and (2) a liberal economic policy.Following a drastic output contraction during the first decade of post-communist transformation, Russia has experienced considerable economic growth (ca. 20 percent of GDP in 1999-2001 ; see MERT 2002). The projections for 2002 are in the range between 3.5 and 4.5 percent of GDP increase. The unemployment rate dropped from its peak of 14 percent in early 1999 to 8.5 percent in 2001 (OECD 2002). Inflation also has been reduced.However, skeptical observers claim that the impressive results of 1999-2001 are due to the ruble devaluation in August-September 1998 and relatively high world prices on crude oil and other natural resources. The ruble devaluation stimulated import substitution by Russian manufacturers and, consequently, employment of idle production facilities.1 At the same time, high oil prices created over-profits for Russian exporters and amplified the revenue of the federal budget.To what extent should the recent improvements in the Russian economic performance be attributed to policy measures?2 This question relates to a more policy-relevant one: Can the combination of the strong hand government with liberal policy serve as the means of economic recovery in the near future?The main idea of this paper is to test the viability of project, combining strong hand government with liberal economic policies as a means of economic revival, against the latest empirical data from Russia. Recent empirical research highlights the diversity of policies and institutional frameworks in Russian regions through the 1990s and at the beginning of this decade. The outcomes in terms of gross regional product (GRP) change, investment, and consumption vary significantly as well. Can the interregional variance in economic performance be attributed to the policy factors upon which administration strives to capitalize?The next section presents an overview of Putin's project (that is, two dimensions of the policy of the new administration): government by a strong hand and economic liberalization. Then, to address the question of whether these two trends can contribute to the aspired economic revival, this research draws on the pertinent literature and international experience. The following empirical sections address the above questions as the hypothesis that the combination of the strong hand government with liberal economic policy has been instrumental for socioeconomic development in the post-1998 Russian setting. This hypothesis is tested against the empirical data from seventy-eight regions of Russia.Two Dimensions of Putin's ProjectStrong HandSince Putin became prime minister in 1999, the Russian government has implemented several measures to discipline regional and local authorities. First, seven federal districts were created in May 2000 to supervise the implementation of federal legislation in the regions. Second, the legislators vested the president with the authority to suspend governors from their office if they refused to comply with federal legislation.3 Third, as a result of several amendments to the Law on the Formation of the Federal Council, governors and chairpersons of regional legislatures had to leave the Upper Chamber of the Russian parliament by January 1, 2002, and were replaced by appointed or indirectly elected regional representatives. Simultaneously, the share of the regional governments in the Russian consolidated budget shrank in 1999-2002, after considerable expansion in the previous years.4 Then, the new political party law and pending amendments to the electoral legislation aimed to secure the key role of federal political parties in electoral campaigns, including those at the regional level. …