KPRF ideology and its implications for democratization in Russia

Abstract

This article looks at the role of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) in Russia's troubled democratization process. The author contends that post-Soviet Russian politics is plagued by a fundamental lack of consensus over regime choice issues. In this polarized setting of zero-sum politics, the KPRF has consolidated its position among anti-regime forces and can negatively impact Russia's transition to markets and democracy.

Businessperson Deputies and Party Cohesion: Evidence from the Russian State Duma

“…Finally, in the fifth model, controlling for deputy chairmen, committee chairmen, and party parliamentary leaders, the executive coefficient remains both positive and statistically significant. The significant lack of cohesion among Communist Party deputies can be explained by previous literature, which describes the intra-party struggle for ideological domination and the heterogenous “catch-all” nature of the organization 2 for regime opposition (Hashim, 1999). Empirical analysis of cohesion in the State Duma conducted during the Yeltsin presidency found that the faction had the highest cohesion at the time (Haspel et al, 1998), though there has been a significant consolidation in regime-opposite parties since then.…”

Russian state visions of world order and the limits to universal liberalism

“…12 See Bassin & Aksenov (2006) for a review of Zyuganov's The Geography of Victory: Foundations of Russian Geopolitics, which borrows extensively from Mackinder. 13 Hashim (1999) offers a democratic transitions analysis focusing on the anti-system quality of the CPRF and the corresponding argument that the party constituted a threat to the democratic consolidation of Russia in the late 90s. In an investigation of Gennady Zyuganov's attempts to unite nationalist and communist forces from 1990 to the mid 1990s, Vujacic (1996) argues that in combining leftist ideas of social justice and the rightist idea of a strong state, the CPRF leader is best understood as being in the intellectual tradition of national socialists and other 20 th century European thinkers of the extreme right, such as Charles Maurras and Enrico Corradini.…”