REVIEWS 789 active hand' (p. 233) in forminga winning coalition unlikehis predecessor. In that he was helped by the fact that voters remain almost totallyignorantof theirrepresentatives'behaviourin parliament.Putin used the Communiststo deny Primakov the chairmanship, but then brokered an anti-Communist allianceon policy issues. For Stephen Hanson the elections were a 'severe setback'to the notion of 'genuinelyrepresentativeparties'(p. I63) and the post-electiondisarrayin the parliament as deputies changed partywas 'almostfarcical'(p. I64). But he is ambiguous about whether the alternativeto farce might not be tragedy. The 'absence of powerfulpartyideologies ... .] could prove increasinglyproblematic for democratic consolidation', but 'has arguablyplayed a positive role in preserving Russia's formal constitutional order' (p. I85). The problem with politicalideologies is that they are not necessarilyliberalor democratic. PoliticsDepartment WILLIAM L. MILLER University ofGlasgow Hutcheson, Derek. PoliticalPartiesin theRussianRegions. BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies, 2. RoutledgeCurzon, London and New York, 2003. xii + I96 pp. Maps. Tables. Notes. Bibliography.Index. 65s.oo. How can scholars handle the wealth of data about parties, elections and voters that has accumulatedfrom severalRussian elections since the collapse of the Soviet Union? In Political Parties intheRussian Regions, Derek Hutcheson demonstrates a useful and meaningful approach to this research. The book, which presents a wealth of empirical data on political party organizations, also addressesthe larger questions posed by the post-Soviet political experience . How have politicalpartiesfaredin a post-Soviet environmentand what has this meant for attemptsto graftdemocracy onto the post-Soviet political culture? Hutcheson explores this through a careful and detailed analysis of political parties, particularlyat the regional level in Russia (with case studies of Tatarstan, Ulyanovsk and Samara). In doing so, he presents detailed informationto testparticulartheoriesof partydevelopment. While the overview of national political party development in the book is useful and well informed, Hutcheson's particular contribution to the field comes in his detailsabout Russianpartymembership,elitesand organizations in the regions. Studies of Russian regional politics are relatively rare, particularlyas much of the work on political party development has focused on nationaltrends.Yet,theregionsprovidecriticalinformationin understanding how party networks develop or fail to thrive from the grassroots. When Hutcheson chartsthe comparativeorganizationaland power structure of keypoliticalpartiesin I999 (includingthe Communist Partyof the Russian Federation and the government-backed Unity party), the different ways in whichpartyorganizationshave developedbecome much clearer.Forexample, Hutcheson's researchmakesa clear case for the way in which the xenophobic LiberalDemocrats areessentiallya 'propagandamachine, organizedfromthe centre outwards, rather than a political party in the normal sense' (p. 75). 790 SEER, 83, 4, 2005 While political scientistshave assertedthisabout the LiberalDemocrats based on party leader Vladimir Zhirinovskii'spersonal style, Hutcheson provides evidence of thisthroughresearchand analysisof the partiesas organizations. This researchpattern is repeated through the book, as Hutcheson presents material from fieldwork at the national and regional level about party organization, membership, campaign techniques and other activities. Some of this is as elucidating as it is amusing. For example, Hutcheson cites instructionsfor pickets for support of the Liberal Democrats, quoting party material that asks participants to be 'sober, well-dressed and cheerful' and pointing out thatleafletscan be given to anyone (except 'drunksand tramps') and that the larger booklets should be reserved for 'intelligent-looking members of the crowd' (p. 120). More worryingly, the Liberal Democrat material also encourages groups of party members to carry out rumour campaigns through casual conversations in places such as railway stations, shops and public baths (p. 120). The book has much of this fascinatingdetail, synthesizingit in an analysisthatboth comparesthe Russianpartieswith each other and placing them within the larger comparative context through discussionsof the work of Michels, Duverger, Panebianco and others. While the emphasis is more on an in-depth study of Russian parties, the discussion of politicalpartydevelopment theoryand the Russiancase is quite useful. Hutcheson's evidence and approach are particularlyvaluable in that this type of studyrepresentsa new trend in analysingthe formerSoviet Union. In the firstyears of the post-Soviet period, political scientiststended to measure Russia and other countries againsta scale of democratizationimported from the West. It was assumed that parties and elections would lead to more democratizationand a widening of politicalpower (aslong asthe Communists were not re-elected into power). However, Russia and most other post-Soviet countries have not followed a path toward democratization;rather,evidence in Russia toward...