Liberal-Democratic Party Of Russia Research Articles

A comparative study of the electoral rhetoric of extreme right-wing parties in Germany and Russia

This article compares the electoral rhetoric of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) parties through the prism of the level of antagonization and the parties’ point of view on topical social issues. Discourse analysis is conducted using discourse frames and blocks, allowing formalizing the comparison between texts in different languages. The sample is based on party videos published online in April — May 2021 in the run-up to the upcoming federal elections in both countries. The LDPR uses more antagonistic rhetoric, especially against Western countries and Ukraine. The AfD uses we to unite its electorate, seeing the German and European establishment as its opponents, as well as organizations with an international agenda, including the Greens and the Antifa movement. Both parties raise important social issues such as immigration, digitalization, political freedoms, and national identity, but differences in emphasis emerge. The AfD is more likely to raise issues of economic freedom for business and the defense of German burgher culture against the leftist agenda, while the LDPR is focused on supporting Russian foreign policy and Russian culture against Western globalism. The authors also emphasize that modern far-right parties support democratic principles. Nationalism remains central to far-right ideology, but it is drifting towards democracy under the influence of sociocultural processes. The study aims to improve understanding of the dynamics of far-right political discourse in Germany and Russia. The theoretical developments allow us to expand the application of discourse analysis of political rhetoric.

ТРАНСФОРМАЦИЯ ВЛИЯНИЯ ЭТНИЧЕСКОГО ФАКТОРА НА ИТОГИ ФЕДЕРАЛЬНЫХ ВЫБОРОВ (2003–2021) В ВОСТОЧНОЙ СИБИРИ4

Eastern Siberia, which is considered by the author as comprising the republics of Buryatia, Sakha (Yakutia), Tyvaand Khakassia, the Transbaikal and Krasnoyarsk territories, the Irkutsk region, is characterized by a mosaic ethnic composition. Thereare distinguished large nations, living mainly in the republics, and small nations, residing in small areas in different territories of themacro region. The former, due to their large numbers, are able to influence election results, which is expressed in high turnout andpolitical preferences oriented toward support for the ‘party in power’ and its leader – the current president. However, in the last presidential election (2018) and State Duma election (2021), we noted a decrease in the close relationship between the share of indigenouspeoples and turnout as well as voting for the United Russia and Vladimir Putin. This article aims to analyze the dynamics of turnout in general elections to the State Duma from 2003 to 2016 in comparisonwith the last election campaign of 2021 and presidential elections in 2012–2018 as well as the dynamics of the number of votes for theparties and the presidential candidates (Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zhirinovsky). The research materials included the 2020 AllRussian Population Census, actually conducted in 2021, and the GAS-Elections database of the Central Election Commission of theRussian Federation. The study applied cartographic and statistical methods; a special method of correlation analysis was used to establish the closeness of the relationship between the indicators.An analysis of turnout dynamics showed a decrease in turnout at the 2021 elections to the State Duma compared to the 2003–2016 average, as well as at the 2018 presidential elections compared to the 2004–2012 level. The latest election campaign to the StateDuma demonstrated an increase in support for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and a decrease in the ratings of theUnited Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia in Eastern Siberia. In the presidential elections, there is noted a positivetrend in votes for Vladimir Putin in constituent entities of the Russian Federation with predominantly Russian population and its declinein some constituent entities created according to the national-ethnic principle (the Republic of Sakha) as well as territories formedbased on this principle (Aginsky Buryatsky District of the Transbaikal Territory), etc.

Communist Legacy, Anti-Elite Sentiments, and Modernization Theory

Communist rule left a strong imprint on the development of Eastern European countries, but the precise mechanisms and directions of this legacy effect are subject to debate. This article looks at the legacies of giant infrastructural projects, which played an important role in the ideology and policy practice of communist regimes. Using the natural experiment of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), we investigate the influence of this project on post-communist voting behavior. We show that the BAM legacy reduces the share of votes for United Russia, the party of power of Putin’s regime, and leads to a larger share of votes for the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR). While the BAM legacy could be associated with a multitude of channels, we provide empirical evidence for at least one of them—the persistence of human capital, showing that BAM settlements are characterized by better educational outcomes than the control group.

Возможности сетевого подхода в исследовании региональных отделений политических партий

The article attempts to analyze the number and content of interactions of the Voronezh political parties in 2022 with other political and public actors. Empirical data were collected using the content analysis method, and the network approach was chosen as the conceptual framework of the study. The main source was the official websites of the regional branches. According to the results of the study, the regional branch of the “United Russia” party became the most active in 2022. A relatively high frequency of contacts between the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and the executive authorities of the Voronezh region has been recorded.

The European Union in the Russian State Duma Debates, 1994–2004

Although the European Union (EU) was occasionally presented in a positive light in the lower house of the Russian parliament (the State Duma) in 1994–2004, there were also numerous criticisms of the EU and the “European community” in a broader sense. The discussions were accompanied by vocally articulated anxieties by those factions that were oppositional to the President and the Government but had a strong foothold in the parliament, such as the conservative Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), the rightwing populist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), and the rightwing Rodina (“Motherland”) Party and its predecessors. These anxieties pertained to Chechnya, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, and the Baltic states as the spaces of contestation between Russia and the EU. The projects of (re)building the Russian (Soviet) imperial formation on the basis of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) or the Union State (of Russia and Belarus) were presented as alternatives to Western European integration based on the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The anti-EU rhetoric in the Duma, which came hand in hand with the denunciation of NATO, provided a discursive foundation for the eventual shift of the President’s and the Government’spolicy. The members of United Russia, the Government’s party without a clear ideology that won a constitutional majority in 2003, adopted elements of conservative and rightwing rhetoric of the formal opposition in 2004. This happened in the context of the EU enlargement when the issues of the accessibility of the Kaliningrad Region and the rights of the Russian speakers in Latvia and Estonia were discussed in the parliament. Later the same year, the start of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine became a further impetus for the Duma’s anti-EU discourse, a discourse that would soon become mainstream in Russian politics.

Тематика советского прошлого в избирательных кампаниях постсоветской России

The article is devoted to the analysis of the place of the Soviet past in the inter-party discussion and the influence of this theme on the choice of the Russian electorate in the electoral campaigns of 1993—2021. According to the author’s conclusion, despite the moderate number of issues related to this topic, and their rather modest share in the general agenda of the campaigns, they formed confrontations that strongly correlated with the divisions within the major political dimensions and issue domain divisions and resonated in the mass political consciousness. The 1993—2011 campaigns were about one confrontation — “communists vs. anti-communists (liberals)”. In 2016—2021 this confrontation was supplemented by a cleavage along the “conservatives — liberals” line, which manifested in the special position of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, that adjoined the liberals on some aspects of the Soviet past theme, and communists — on other aspects. In 1993 and 1995 the confrontation between communists and anti-communists (liberals) on the issues of the Soviet past successfully competed with political dimensions and issue domain divisions for the role of the “political face” of the first, or the main, electoral cleavage. In 1999, this confrontation moved from the first electoral cleavage to the second, within which it continued to successfully contend with the cleavage between Soviet traditionalists and modernists in the systemic issue domain. In 2003, it also withstood competition with the divisions between adherents of market and supporters of planned economy in the socio-economic issue domain and Soviet traditionalists and modernists in the systemic one, but in 2007— 2016 it lost such ability, although it retained a background presence in the political space. In 2021, the theme of the Soviet past experienced some sort of renaissance, with not only communists and liberals, but also other political forces, including the “party of power”, starting to actively appeal to this topic. The influence of the confrontations around the theme of the Soviet past on electoral divisions also increased, however, only when regions with a voter turnout of more than 60% were excluded from the analysis. In this case, the confrontation between communists and liberals on the subject of the Soviet past determined “the face” of the second electoral cleavage, and the special position of the Liberal Democratic Party — of the third one.

Место старейшей партии современной России в политической системе

The article examines the place of the oldest party in modern Russia the LDPR in the political system. A brief overview of the most relevant literature on this topic is presented. The author chose the comparative-analytical method and the principle of historicism as the methodological basis of the study. Vladimir Wolfovich Zhirinovsky for thirty-two years was the charismatic leader of The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia until April 2022. With his death, a new stage in the life of the party began. The key factors for the further development of the LDPR are leadership in the party, the preservation of its patriotic, state-oriented, and center-right orientation. To improve its image, the party is committed to intensifying its work with voters across the country, increasing the number of LDPR members, improving the lives of Russians through legislative activities in the State Duma.

Social status of legal opposition in modern Russia (based on the material of publications of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia

The goal of this work is to determine the social status of legal opposition in Russia based on the classical analysis. The object of this research is publications of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR). The theory developed by Karl Mannheim serves as methodological framework for this work. It is determines that the representatives of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia belong to one of the groups of political elite that filled a relatively unpretentious niche. At the same time, the key (and perhaps the only) resource of the party is political one. Electoral support is the aspect the party can really rely on. Nationalism and anti-Semitism also are of populist nature, since they do not receive any due theoretical substantiation in the analyzed party documents. The party does not represents interest of large capital. Moreover, on the permanent basis LDPR leadership does not represent interests of any social group, besides the one they belong to. Reduction of the socioeconomic issues to the question of moral and business qualities of the ruling elite and possibility for its rotation suggest that the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia is satisfied with the current political regime and socioeconomic formation. The struggle is only for expansion of the filled niche. The aforementioned factors, along with the absence of sustainable and resourceful social backbone, leads to the thought that the existence of liberal democrats in Russia is directly or indirectly supported by the ruling elite.

Источниковая база по истории региональных партийных структур 1990-х годов (на материалах Нижегородской организации ЛДПР)

This article considers peculiarities of the source base on the history of Nizhny Novgorod regional organization of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) in the 1990s. The main groups of the sources are identified. The degree of their availability for the professional historical community representatives is determined. The state of regional archival materials on this issue is analysed. The essential role of the party archive in preservation of the party documentation is emphasized. The conclusion is made about the necessity to refer to oral sources on regional political history.

Electoral Support of Parties in Eastern Siberia: The Macroregional and Regional Aspects

Relationships of the results of the 2016 State Duma election (the share of voters who supported each of the three main political parties) for the federal subjects of Russia with three indicators have been analyzed. The first indicator are the socio-economic phenomena at the regional level. The second indicator refers to the results of the same election at the level of macroregions to which the respective regions belong. The third indicator includes the socio-economic phenomena at the level of macroregions to which the respective regions belong. Four types of regions were identified for each indicator, based on analyzing these correlations. The three indicators and types are all considered as complementary in predicting the electoral behavior of the region’s population. It is concluded that if in a federal subject of Russia the level of support of a political party is higher than the national average and if the set of attributes favoring voting for a given party is relatively well covered, it is a region of stable support of this party. In the event where in a constituent entity of the Russian Federation, a political party received fewer votes than the national average, and in the region the set of attributes of the support of a given party is not sufficiently expressed, it is a region of stably decreased support of this party. If a political party in a federal subject of Russia received more votes than the national average, but has a weak set of support factors, this is a region of potential decrease in support for this party. If a political party in a region has received fewer votes than the national average, but the set of factors supporting this party is relatively strong, it is a region of potential increase in support of this party. It has been established that protest-type electoral attitudes are dominant in Eastern Siberia, which implies a widespread occurrence of the stably decreased support of the party of power (United Russia, UR) and the stably increased support of the main opposition parties (Communist Party of the Russian Federation, CPRF, and Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, LDPR). It is found that all regions of Eastern Siberia show coincidences of the types of electoral predisposition for CPRF — LDPR and UR — LDPR.

Политические стратегии демократической оппозиции в борьбе за власть в современной России

The research deals with the strategy of democratic opposition parties as an actor of the political pro-cess in modern Russia based on the concepts of hybrid regimes, electoral authoritarianism, and de-fective democracy. The system-based, institutional approaches and the analysis of relevant literature are employed. In the author’s opinion, Russian demo-cratic opposition parties and movements can be classified as parliamentary parties (Fair Russia, Lib-eral Democratic Party of Russia, Communist Party of the Russian Federation), non-parliamentary regis-tered (Yabloko (Russian United Democratic Party), Civic Platform) and non-parliamentary unregistered parties (Russia of the Future). The research looks at their priorities for the development of society and the state being of particular relevance to modern political science and practice. The author concludes that, firstly, the strategies of democratic opposition parties depend, as a rule, on whether they are em-bedded in the system of power or not, whether they are parliamentary or not. Secondly, today, the main Russian political strategy of the democratic opposi-tion in a power struggle is to support Western politi-cal values and strategies, criticize the current gov-ernment, focus on decommunization, and strive to build a parliamentary state.

ДИСКУРСИВНО ОБУСЛОВЛЕННЫЙ ОБРАЗ ПРОШЛОГО В ТЕКСТЕ ПРОГРАММЫ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ ПАРТИИ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ ПРОГРАММ ПАРТИЙ КПРФ И ЛДПР)

ДИСКУРСИВНО ОБУСЛОВЛЕННЫЙ ОБРАЗ ПРОШЛОГО В ТЕКСТЕ ПРОГРАММЫ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ ПАРТИИ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ ПРОГРАММ ПАРТИЙ КПРФ И ЛДПР)

Региональные особенности итогов выборов депутатов Государственной думы Российской Федерации седьмого созыва (на материалах социологического опроса жителей Бурятии)

The author reports that the difference between the declared and real voter turnout in Buryatia is bigger than the national average. This is due to the regional depression and the increased social apathy of a large part of citizens caused by a sharp decline in their low monetary income. The research focuses on the relationship between the party choice and the characteristics of the electorate (gender, age, na-tionality, education, employment, family and finan-cial status). Having analyzed the correlation between the party choice and the characteristics of the elec-torate by the Pearson coefficient, the author identi-fies that the choice of Fair Russia is not seriously affected by any factor while the choice of the Com-munist Party of the Russian Federation is strongly influenced by the age of a person. Mostly, elderly citizens voted for it. Gender and education had a less impact on the choice of the United Russia. Women having secondary vocational, incomplete higher and higher education were most likely to vote for this party. When electing the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, such factors as gender, age and nationality played a key role.

Структура партийной элиты парламентских партий в регионах Западной Сибири в контексте их имиджевой репрезентации

The article discusses the results of comparative analysis of sociodemographic (gender, age, education) and professional characteristics of council members of regional offices of “Yedinaya Rossiya” (United Russia), the CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation), the LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) and “Spravedlivaya Rossiya” (A Just Russia) in Altai Krai, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Omsk and Tomsk Oblasts. Basing on the analysis the author draws a conclusion about high degree of correlation in the majority of regions between the composition of regional elites, electoral bases of parties and their representatives' images in mass consciousness. The regions are grouped according to the degree of similarities of party elites; a typical portrait of a representative of each parliamentary party elite of every region is profiled.

ПРОБЛЕМАТИКА НАЦИОНАЛИЗМА В ИНФОРМАЦИОННОМ ПРОСТРАНСТВЕ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ ЛДПР

ПРОБЛЕМАТИКА НАЦИОНАЛИЗМА В ИНФОРМАЦИОННОМ ПРОСТРАНСТВЕ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ ЛДПР

Electoral preferences of residents of municipalities

Three municipalities of Novosibirsk oblast have been used to work out a methodology for studying political identity as a complex characteristic of electoral preferences. The significant differences in the political and economic strategies of parties have enabled the development of specific methods of conducting sociological investigations and mass polls. The results of these polls have been used to visualize the factor space of electoral preferences. Two major factors have been singled out—left-right oriented and centrist. They are equally represented in every municipality. In accordance with this, three political vectors have been differentiated: right, left, and centrist. The right vector has been formed from the political positions of the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko parties; the left one, from the political positions of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), A Just Russia, and Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) parties. The centrist vector has been determined by the political position of the United Russia party. In every municipality, we have identified the structure of electorate, potential electorate, and the electoral core of every party, as well as the significant social electoral characteristics of political parties (age, education, earnings, and income self-evaluation).

The Fascism of Vladimir Zhirinovskii: Political Religion and the Rise of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia in the Early 1990s

This paper applies the concept of generic fascism to post-Soviet Russia’s leading extremely right-wing, so-called Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia founded in 1989, and, since then, under the leadership of Vladimir Zhirinovskii. It, first, introduces a notion of fascism as a political religion that can be defined as ‘palingenetic ultra-nationalism’. It, second, briefly outlines Zhirinovskii’s agenda of the necessity of Russia’s ‘Last Dash to the South’. Third, it analyzes whether and in which way the fascist criteria of ultra-nationalism and palingenesis relate to Zhirinovskii’s plan of the creation of a new Russian empire that would include, apart from the former Soviet republics, also Turkey, Afghanistan and Iran. Finally, the paper briefly discusses implications of a classification of Zhirinovskii’s programme as fascist for the international comparative study of the extreme right.

Russia’s political risk for the foreign investors: A special emphasis on Kaliningrad

Government-related risks: Russia is still not fully mature democracy and its party system has not found its final form. A concentration of power and a lack of genuine political debate prevail in Russia. Political parties play a secondary role, whereas the political limelights are occupied by the key political figures, who do not always represent the interests of their electorate but rather the interest of the state. This elite repression does not exist in a large scale, but the prolonged hegemony of the ruling party may create situation where real political alternatives are no longer available. Gel’man (2007, 12) summarises the transformation of Russia’s party system: “Russia’s party system has swung like a pendulum from the one party control of the Soviet era, to the hyper fragmentation and volatility of the 1990s, to an attempt to restore centralized control in the 2000s. The danger of the new system is that it will cause the death of political opposition. Now Russia may be developing a ‘Dresden’ style political system, in which one main party controls several satellite parties that have little political power. Such a system could be in place for a long time, though it is unlikely to be permanent”. Should the political system remain unchanged for long, pressures to change ultimately become so high that they will explode in a noncontrollable way. In other words, a non-evolving political system may become an extremely high political risk for foreign firms, if it is maintained for too long. The United Russia party won clearly the latest parliamentary elections in 2007 and the opinion polls show that the approval ratings of both the president and prime minister are high, and therefore, one should not argue that elite illegitimacy exist in Russia as such. However, the main source of the illegitimacy originates from the fact that the State Duma lacks true opposition with an alternative political direction, since both Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia are generally believed to be the Kremlin’s satellite parties, and the Communist Party leans too much on the Soviet era instead of giving a real option for the younger generation. The absence of liberal opposition in Russia’s political landscape does not allow one to be Kari Liuhto

Zhirinovskii as a Fascist: Palingenetic Ultra-Nationalism and the Emergence of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia in 1992-93

In May 1994, Russian newspaper Izvestiia published an article called A Stance on Villains: From National-Patriots Comes Biggest Threat for written by former acting Russian Prime-Minister and democratic leader Egor Gaidar (1956-2009). The article dealt with Vladimir Zhirinovskii, chairman of so-called Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) which had won first post-Soviet Russian multi-party parliamentary elections in December 1993 (22.92%). Gaidar (1994) accused Zhirinovskii of being, among others, a populist and a the most popular fascist leader of Russia. In summer 1994, Zhirinovskii took Gaidar, with reference to these two classifications, to court for libel. The Tver InterMunicipal Court agreed with Zhirinovskii that Gaidar's labelling of LDPR-leader is slanderous, imposed a fine of US$250 on both Gaidar and

Limited Choices: Russian Opposition Parties and the 2007 Duma Election

The December 2007 Russian Duma election, which Russian President Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party (YeR) won in an overwhelming fashion, did not use the same electoral rules that had structured parlimentary elections from 1993 until 2003.1 Before 2005, when the change was implemented, the 450-member Duma was selected through a combined electoral system in which half the seats were filled via a party list and half were drawn from single-member districts (SMDs) in Russia's eighty-nine regions. This system produced party ballots with frequently fluctuating numbers of parties, and SMD ballots with large numbers of independents. In an effort to expedite the party consolidation process, the 2005 law abolished SMD seats and extended the party lists to encompass all 450 seats. In addition, the vote threshold required for representation was increased from 5 percent to 7 percent.one of the highest thresholds in the world (rivaled by the 7 percent required for the Polish Sejm and exceeded by the 10 percent required for the Turkish Grand National Assembly). To ensure the maintenance of partyness, the law also stipulated that parliament members could not change their party affiliation after getting elected and that the candidates themselves must undergo a two-stage evaluation process by the Central Election Commission. Finally, the law prohibited the formation of party blocs, requiring each party to possess official registration, dovetailing with the 2001 law, On Political Parties, that raised the number of members and regional branches required for registration.2 All of these changes obviously pose a strategic problem for Russia's political parties: they must learn to adapt to the new rules to remain relevant as representational organizations. Most of all, the new electoral formula was a challenge to the opposition parties that saw their support decline in the 2003 Duma election.namely, the democratic parties Yabloko and Union of Rightist Forces (SPS), and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF).3 In this article, I explore how these parties have responded to the electoral changes and what factors have influenced these strategies. The first part of this article examines Yabloko and the SPS, both of which failed to individually pass the 5 percent threshold in the 2003 election and were unable to combine into a single party for the 2007 election as a means of overcoming the daunting 7 percent threshold. I also look into the decline of the KPRF, which suffered a major reversal of support in the 2003 election that continued into the 2007 election. Finally, because the setbacks for these parties have not occurred in a vacuum, the last part of this article deals with the nature of the system itself and how it has limited opposition parties' choices. This includes a discussion of the hegemonic influence of the Putin regime (and, by extension, YeR), its use of administrative resource, and the role of client parties (the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia [LDPR] and Just Russia) in shaping party system outcomes. Even in the absence of the opposition parties' strategic failures (of which there are many), the election rules militate against opposition party success.Theoretical BackgroundBefore moving on to the main discussion of the opposition parties and their electoral challenges, it would be prudent to first outline some basic theoretical considerations of Russian party system analysis. Much of the existing literature on party systems explicitly deals with Western Europe and North America, and adapting the models used therein to the Russian context is fraught with certain difficulties, such as the nature of the post-Communist transition itself and the resultant conflict between representation and effectiveness in the party system. As Jack Bielasiak notes, the immediate aftermath of the 1991 fall of Communism was an explosion in the number of parties designed as vehicles for representation that moved into the newly opened political space. …