March, Luke. "Managing Opposition in a Hybrid Regime: Just Russia and the Parastatal Opposition". Slavic Review, vol.68, no.3 (2009): 504-527.

March, Luke. "Managing Opposition in a Hybrid Regime: Just Russia and the Parastatal Opposition". Slavic Review, vol.68, no.3 (2009): 504-527.

• Source mine for contemporary debates on whether Russia is a democracy, autocracy, or hybrid regime (504).
• Dr. March presents the fate of Just Russia [Справедливая Россия] as a case study for the role of opposition parties in contemporary Russian politics, and the issues specific to their position. It is a moderately successful opposition party, so by examining its scenario we can learn about Russian opposition in general (505).
• "The answer to these questions will show that both optimists and pessimists are partly right. Certainly, Just Russia can be understood as a regime created "parastatal party" aimed at providing limited competition for the main "party of power" (United Russia). Contrary to the most sceptical analyses, however, while Just Russia is a heavily manipulated "virtual" opposition, it is not simply a fake designed to dupe the electorate but represents long-term Kremlin strategic interests in channeling opposition and thus stabilizing the political regime. Moreover, it has an identifiable, ideological position (left-wing social democratic) and electorate, which it, albeit imperfectly and partially, represents" (505). 
• The fundamental difficult of the situation of opposition within a hybrid regime is that a vibrant and partially independent opposition is needed to legitimize the 'democratic' process, but if without interference or control, that opposition could quickly destabilize the political status quo.
• Big ass source mine of research and contemporary debates on the proliferation of hybrid regimes and competitive authoritarianism. Definitely look into this (506; 510-511).
• For the terms of this paper, Russia can be best understood as an electoral authoritarian system, where elites want the rewards of democratic legitimacy w/o the uncertainty entailed in actually free elections (507).
• Allowing limited democratic competition not only bolsters the international and domestic legitimacy of the regime, but also allows for the incorporation of societal grievances and oppositional opinions into the decision-making process, which tends to advance long-term regime stability (507).
• Uzbekistan does a lot of these strategies, and it seems that similar systems also exist in Russia and Mexico. They exclude disloyal opposition, co-opt loyal opposition, and present themselves as the sole providers of unity (508).
•  Similar systems of party hegemony existed under the Soviet Union, and may in some states be a holdover from this time period (509). 
• Just Russia serves three purposes connected to its position as an opposition party: as a social-democratic party appealing to paternalist voters; as an alternative 'party of power' designed to keep United Russia elites on their toes and responsive to public demands; as a project opposition party created to marginalize actual opposition figures -- specifically the Communist Party (511).
• The formation of a controlled opposition party to balance out United Russia has long been an explicit goal of Kremlin policy, going back as far as 1994. All of the attempts to create such a party before the existence of Just Russia were total electoral failures (512).
• Eventually Putin from 1996 onwards coerced or corrupted members of the opposition Communist Party into joining a new loyalist bloc that eventually became Just Russia. They were initially able to bully them out of office, but this left a large gap of dissatisfied leftist voters, demanding a new opposition party (513).
• Until around the mid-2000s the constructed opposition failed to organize and didn't fulfill requirements to be an alternative party of power. This left the electoral system paralyzed by one-party dominance and drove the approval ratings for United Russia far below President Putin's own (514).
• Just Russia is a strongly populist party w/ leaning closer to radical leftism than social democracy. To maintain a magnet for all varieties of the disaffected left, Just Russia has a purposefully unclear ideology, but it is third-way economics with a focus on redistribution (518).
• There has been a constant struggle throughout the history of Just Russia to balance electoral success and viability w/o actually presenting too much of a threat to United Russia. The list of pros and cons can be found on page 523.
• Putin criticized the party when it became too powerful or presented a chance to actually split the elites into two camps. This demonstrates the generally risk adverse nature of the Kremlin under present administration (523).
• Despite the fact that the party is constructed and the politics in participates in virtual and theatrical to hide authoritarianism elsewhere, the politics it engages in still matter. It further demonstrates the existence and limits of pluralism within the Russian political system (527).