Issue № 51. August 2015

Russian Political Parties at the Beginning of the New Century

Ph.D., associate professor, Faculty of History, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation.
E-mail: plytony@yandex.ru
SPIN-код РИНЦ: 1885-0532

The article is devoted to the transformation of the Russian party system during the first decade of the 21th century. The author uses a complex historical and political science approach. The article based on the study of factual material — electoral statistics, program regulations and laws that regulate the activities of political parties. This period coincided with the “third wave” of Russian multipartisan activity. This wave, like the other ones, was a result of a crisis period of the Russian history. However, as the political situation was improving, the main opposition parties, which were created during the “permanent crisis” of 1990s, began to lose their political influence. Besides that, the new “vertical power structure” provided for the mandatory integration of all the legal federal parties into this system. This led to the dependence of political parties on the state power, not on the electorate. In this way, the electoral competition was gradually replaced by the new practice of distribution of different “political bonuses” among the main parties. In this situation, political organizations were looking for new forms of consolidation.

Keywords

Political party, elections, The State Duma, opposition.