UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

Norwegian University Centre in St Petersburg (Russia)

STV4336: ELECTORAL POLITICS IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA: POLITICAL PARTIES, VOTERS, AND INSTITUTIONS

Semester:         Autumn 2006
Lecturer:           Prof. Grigorii V. Golosov (European University at St Petersburg)
Period:             17 September – 15 December 2006
Dates/Time:      tba
Exam:               Monday 11 December at 10-13

Course Description:

The goal of this course is twofold. First, it presents essential factual information about the development of electoral politics in contemporary Russia. Second, it places this development into a comparative perspective by using a number of theories widely employed in the ongoing debate on party formation, elections, and the functioning of democratic institutions in general.

The course starts with an introductory lecture that illuminates the principal characteristics of the rational choice approach to party formation and highlights possible alternatives. The two subsequent lectures are focused on political parties. First, they are considered as electoral expressions of socio-economic interests and ideological preferences. This allows for explicating the structure of Russia’s party system, and for revealing collective incentives for party activism and voter commitments. In the second of these lectures, parties emerge primarily as vehicles of individual promotion and success for aspiring politicians. Thus selective incentives for party activism are brought into the picture. At the same time, the relevant essentials of Russia’s institutional design are being introduced.

The six lectures that follow apply the resulting analytical framework to different electoral arenas of contemporary Russia: presidential, national legislative, and regional executive and legislative elections. The analysis of each of the arenas includes its institutional characteristics, the sets of principal actors, and overall political outcomes. Major attention is paid to electoral systems as principal means of converting expressed voter preferences into elected office distributions.

Then follow three lectures that, building upon previously provided factual evidence, analytically explicate the structural properties of Russia’s party system in terms of political fragmentation, voter/party volatility, territorial (un)evenness of electoral support, and disproportionality. In addition, in the final lecture, the prospects for electoral reform will be discussed.

Course requirements:

The course consists of 12 lectures and 12 seminars. The topics of the seminars correspond to the topics of the lectures given below. There are no seminars on lecture topics 1 and 14.

Students are expected to attend the lectures and participate actively in the seminars. In addition, the students are expected to write a paper related to one of the topics discussed in the course. The topic should be agreed with Professor Golosov. The paper should be 15–20 pages long (including references/literature) and be submitted by 4 December. The written exam will take place on 11 December.

The course will give 15 ECTS.

Lecture topics

Theories of electoral politics and party formation: lessons for post-communist polities
Societal dimensions of party formation of Russia: interests and ideologies
Institutional dimensions of party formation of Russia
Presidential elections
National legislative elections: the institutional context
National legislative elections: the political process
Regional executive elections
Regional legislative elections before electoral reform: 1993-2003
Regional legislative elections after electoral reform: 2003-2005
The structural properties of Russia’s national party system
Territorial dimensions of electoral politics
The political consequences of vote to seat conversion and the prospects for electoral reform.

Readings:

Background literature:

Richard Sakwa. 2002. "Russian Politics and Society". Third ed. London: Routledge: 1-200.

Golosov, Grigorii. 2004. "Political Parties in the Regions of Russia: Democracy Unclaimed". Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner: Chapters 2 and 3 (pp. 19-90)

Lecture 1: -

Lecture 2:

Brader, Ted, and Joshua A. Tucker. 2001. "The Emergence of Mass Partisanship in Russia, 1993-1996," American Journal of Political Science 45, 1: 69-83.

Golosov, Grigorii V. 1998. "Who Survives? Party Origins, Organisational Development, and Electoral Performance in Post-Communist Russia," Political Studies 46, 3: 511-543.

Miller, Arthur H., and Thomas F. Klobucar. 2000. "The Development of Party Identification in Post-Soviet Societies," American Journal of Political Science 44, 4: 667-685.

Oates, Sarah. 1998. "Party Platforms: Towards a Definition of the Russian Political Spectrum," Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 14, 1 / 2: 77-97.

Simonsen, Sven G. 2001. "Nationalism and the Russian Political Spectrum: Locating and Evaluating the Extremes," Journal of Political Ideologies 6, 3: 263-288.

Lecture 3:

Brovkin, Vladimir N. 1990. "The Making of Elections to the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) in March 1989," Russian Review 49, 4: 417-442.

Brudny, Yitzhak M. 1993. "The Dynamics of 'Democratic Russia', 1990-1993," Post-Soviet Affairs 9, 2: 141-170.

Ishiyama, John, and Ryan Kennedy. 2001. "Superpresidentialism and Political Party Development in Russia, Ukraine, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan," Europe-Asia Studies 53, 8: 1177-1191.

Moser, Robert G. 1998. "The Electoral Effects of Presidentialism in Post-Soviet Russia," Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 14, 1 / 2: 54-75.

Lecture 4:

Brudny, Yitzhak M. 1997. "In Pursuit of the Russian Presidency: Why and How Yeltsin Won the 1996 Presidential Election," Communist and Post-Communist Studies 30, 3: 255-275.

Smith, Regina. 2002. "Building State Capacity from the Inside Out: Parties of Power and the Success of the President’s Reform Agenda in Russia", Politics and Society 30: 555-578.

Lecture 5:

Golosov, Grigorii V. 2002. "Party Support or Personal Resources? Factors of Success in the Plurality Portion of the 1999 National Legislative Elections in Russia," Communist and Post-Communist Studies 35, 1: 23-38.

Massicotte, Louis, and André Blais. 1999. "Mixed Electoral Systems: A Conceptual and Empirical Survey," Electoral Studies 18, 3: 341-366.

McFaul, Michael. 2001. "Explaining Party Formation and Nonformation in Russia: Actors, Institutions, and Chance," Comparative Political Studies 34, 10: 1159-1187.

Moser, Robert G., and Frank C. Thames, Jr. 2001. "Compromise Amidst Political Conflict: The Origins of Russia's Mixed-Member System." In M. S. Shugart and M. P. Wattenberg (eds.), Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? Pp. 255-275. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lecture 6:

Colton, Timothy J., and Michael McFaul. 2000. "Reinventing Russia's Party of Power: 'Unity' and the 1999 Duma Election," Post-Soviet Affairs 16, 3: 201-224.

Flikke, Geir. 1999. "Patriotic Left-Centrism: The Zigzags of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation," Europe-Asia Studies 51, 2: 275-298.

Ingram, Alan. 1999. "A Nation Split into Fragments: The Congress of Russian Communities and Russian Nationalist Ideology," Europe-Asia Studies 51, 4: 687-704.

Lecture 7:

Belin, Laura. 1997. "Russia's 1996 Gubernatorial Elections and the Implications for Yeltsin," Demokratizatsiya 5, 2: 165-184.

Golosov, Grigorii. 2004. "Political Parties in the Regions of Russia: Democracy Unclaimed". Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner: Chapters 5 and 6 (pp. 127-206).

Solnick, Steven L. 1998. "The 1996-97 Gubernatorial Elections in Russia: Outcomes and Implications," Post-Soviet Affairs 14, 1: 48-80.

Konitzer-Smirnov, A. 2003. “Incumbent Electoral Fortunes and Regional Economic Performance during Russia’s 2000-2001 Regional Executive Election Cycle”, Post- Soviet Affairs 19, 1: 46-79.

Lecture 8:

Gel'man, Vladimir, and Grigorii V. Golosov. 1998. "Regional Party System Formation in Russia: The Deviant Case of Sverdlovsk Oblast," Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 14, 1/2: 31-53.

Golosov, Grigorii V. 1999. "From Adygeya to Yaroslavl: Factors of Party Development in the Regions of Russia, 1995-1998," Europe-Asia Studies 51, 8: 1133-1165.

Golosov, Grigorii V. 2003. "Electoral Systems and Party Formation in Russia: A Cross-Regional Analysis", Comparative Political Studies 36, 8: 912-935.

Golosov, Grigorii. 2004. "Political Parties in the Regions of Russia: Democracy Unclaimed". Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner: chapter 8 (pp. 245-284).

Hughes, James. 1997. "Sub-National Elites and Post-Communist Transformation in Russia: A Reply to Kryshtanovskaya and White," Europe-Asia Studies 49, 6: 1017-1036.

Stoner-Weiss, Kathryn. 2001. "The Limited Reach of Russia's Party System: Underinstitutionalization in Dual Transitions," Politics and Society 29, 3: 385-414.

Lecture 9:

Golosov, Grigorii V. 2006. "Disproportionality by Proportional Design: Seats and Votes in Russia’s Regional Legislative Elections", Europe-Asia Studies 58, 1: 25-55.

Lecture 10:

Amorim-Neto, Octavio, and Gary W. Cox. 1997. "Electoral Institutions, Cleavage Structures, and the Number of Parties," American Journal of Political Science 41, 1: 149-174.

Moser R. Electoral Systems and the Number of Parties in Postcommunist States. In: World Politics. Vol. 51 (April 1999), p. 359-384.

Lecture 11:

Pedersen, Mogens N. 1979. "The Dynamics of European Party Systems: Changing Patterns of Electoral Volatility," European Journal of Political Research 7, 1: 1-26.

Rose, Richard, Neil Munro, and Stephen White. 2001. "Voating in a Floating Party System: The 1999 Duma Election," Europe-Asia Studies 53, 3:419-443.

Topic 12:

McFaul, Michael, and Nikolai Petrov. 1997. ‘Russian Electoral Politics After Transition: Regional and National Assessments’, Post-Soviet Geography and Economics, 38, 9: 507-549.

Ishiyama, John. 2002. "Regionalism and the Nationalization of the Legislative Vote in Post-Communist Russian Politics" Communist and Post Communist Studies 35:155-168.

Lecture 13:

Moser, Robert G. 1997. "The Impact of Parliamentary Electoral Systems in Russia," Post-Soviet Affairs 13,3: 284-302.

Lecture 14: -

Literature