Oversloot, Hans & Ruben Verheul. "Managing democracy: Political parties and the state in Russia". Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, vol.22, no.3 (2006): 383-405.

Oversloot, Hans & Ruben Verheul. "Managing democracy: Political parties and the state in Russia". Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, vol.22, no.3 (2006): 383-405.

• Originally in Russia, the political party had a very strong negative association with the Communist Party and previous system of the one-party state. In fact until 1993, when new elections partially re-legitimized the concept, Russia was essentially partyless, with power being directed to either people's deputies or concentrated in the presidential dictatorship (383-384).
• This paper examines the nature of relationships between state and political party in contemporary Russia, with a particular focus on divergence from the standard of increased party control over state mechanisms to the Russian model of state colonization of the party structure through the establishment of state-loyal parties of power (384).
• The reach of political parties in Russia remains minimal, with the highest position party-members can expect to hold being in the State Duma. Although both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin have built loyal majorities within parliament, they have managed to remain non-partisan and separate parties from the presidential apparat, instead being the "President of all Russians" (384).
• High profile positions are generally selected by the President, with only the Prime Minister requiring approval from the Duma. Even there, dismissing three presidential nominations automatically results in the Duma being dissolved, making costs of refusing presidential power very high. Thus far these selections have been mainly from other non-partisan institutions like technocrats and state-owned businesses, with the security services being notably over-represented (385).
• The Russian electoral system using mixed-member proportional voting, with half of members being locally elected in districts and the other half being selected from fixed party lists. These party lists are the main expression of party power and feature all the major political figures associated with the party. However, most big-shot politicians run as independents in the first round, meaning party structures remain secondary and are often only within the Duma (386).
• Generally politicians see party structures as political tools, which can be useful and are utilized to win elections, but quickly changed or discarded when they cease being functional. There is really no independent party establishment as exists in other countries (386).
• This system changed in 2003, after the Beslan massacre in Ossetia-Alania, when Putin said more centralization was needed and abolished gubernatorial elections, switched the country entirely onto a party-list voting system, and created a third 'Public Chamber' of parliament. The first and third reforms clearly weaken the position of political parties by creating new arenas they are excluded from, while the third increases party authority in elections, but simultaneously places them under stricter central observation (387).
• Until 2001, parties were largely without legal definition, leading to their constant rise, fall, renaming, and unification. Under the contemporary law and its 2004 amendments party status is dependent on membership and national distribution. A party must have chapters of at least 500 members in half of all subjects, have total membership exceeding 50,000 persons, and field candidates in local, regional, and national elections at least once every 5 years, to retain its status (388).
• The Ministry of Justice is charged will assuring that all political parties meet these criteria, which very often they do not. It has been used as a political tool to limit dissent, but it also deregisters pro-government parties. Almost half of all parties in 2006 were deregistered after inquiries (388).
• Party registration only consists of a minor bureaucratic hurdle. Unlike Uzbekistan, parties in Russia cannot be disqualified because of ideology. Parties can only be denied registration on procedural grounds and this is not common (389).
• While public officials in law enforcement, education, military, ect. are not prohibited from party membership, it cannot use their position to advance party interests. They must still be functionally independent of political parties, and may terminate membership at any time (389).
• Party funding is supplied publicly, by membership dues, and from private donation. Each party is publicly re-embursed for expenses incurring during campaigning if it receives more than 3% of the popular vote. Additionally, parties may have membership fees. Private donations are also accepted, however these cannot exceed 10 million rubles [~$100,000] and must come from domestic sources (389-390).
• The formal payments remain low across the board, despite reports that Russian political campaigns can cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars (390). This is because almost all major parties are backed by oligarchs and businessmen whose contributions are likely unrecorded. Often this funding is essentially in return for being 'sold' a seat in the Duma by being placed on a safe ticket (391).
• The authors divide the political parties of Russia into a number of categories to be discussed individually:
• The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is in its own category, as the successor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and retain a number of its policies, interests, and structure. It is the only contemporary mass party, with a membership still exceeding 500,000 persons (391).
• There are a few other 'genuine parties' which depend on social support for their membership and are organized like traditional parties. The largest example of this is Yabloko, which demands on mass support in major Russian cities, and has large popular bases (392).
• The so-called 'Party of Power', which serves as the party base for the current government and President and is universally favoured by the political structure. Currently this is represented by United Russia (392).
• Parties of Power specific to regions and oblasts also exist, with notable examples being Fatherland in greater Moskva and All Russia of Ingushetia, Tatarstan, and Bashkortostan (393).
• Alternative parties of power, which garner very few votes and are ideologically similar to the current party of power. They, however, have different leadership and serve to keep the ruling party of power in check by constantly threatening to replace it. They are not opposition, because they remain pro-government (392).
• Favored opposition parties, which are constructed by the government to capture and channel public anger and dissatisfaction to false opposition parties which will rhetorically challenge the government while still remaining loyal. They are differentiated by being largely funded by government figures (392).
• Harassment parties (Muxiy Partiyy), which are solely created to distract and hinter opposition parties by selected similar names or opposing their policies specifically. They do not have a politic intent beyond this function (393).
• Vanity parties, which support a single powerful patron whose political ambitions do not related to the office he or she is seeking. This is primarily the parties of oligarchs who have paid people to organize as a way of increasing their public profile in the country (393).
• The authors argue that the most interesting aspect of the Russian party system is the existence of parties of power. Namely because they represent the invention of the state-party power structure. None of the dominant political parties, like the current United Russia, have been 'ruling parties' because they never governed, they only shored up the presidential power elsewhere in the governmental system. Similarly, that power base is actually wider and balanced between United Russia and its parastatal supporting and opposition parties (394).
• These organizations are not in power because they have been the best campaigners, but because they have the support of the government and visa-versa. For this reason they are often ad hoc structures, being created out of loyal individuals after elections have taken place (394).
• A history of all the major parties of power since Russian independence is provided from page 394 to page 398.
• Putin has made clear that he wants to increase the role of political parties, but his record does not suggest that actual power will be transferred to United Russia (398). Instead the pattern of the 'Yeltsin Family' is likely to continue, with politicians making use of temporary cliques to rise to power, but not giving up any power to formalized institutions (399).
• The political structure of Russia is still dominated by cronyism and patronage networks. Any rise in the command chain is dependent on connections and trading of illegal or paralegal benefits. For this reason, politics in Russia remains a very closed system hostile to outsiders (399).
• In regional or local elections, political parties are very often just business groups that openly seek political power through promises of patronage. This means that political parties with ideologies at the national level may still be nothing more than cliques at the local or regional level (400).
• In general political parties within 'real' multiparty democracies are actual institutions. The instability of Russian political parties is a major factor demonstrating the weakness of Russian democracy, as most Russian political parties have a shorter lifespan than their founders (400).
• "The existing party and political system has served the party of power so far. It is not a multi-party system, but there is definitely a system discernible, with rather specific characteristics that will become lasting traits if they are not tampered with too much" (401).
• The new regulations on political parties in Russia may limit the number of new political parties entering the system, but they do not restrict the ability of the state to create new parties of power from the existing political representatives. Really the new barriers really prevent additional weakly organized parties from entering the system without having the backing of the current government (401).
• "If there is logic to our reasoning, the prospects for the development of a true multi-party system, with less politics of patronage, seem altogether bleak" (402).