United Russia and the dominant-party framework: understanding the Russian party of power in comparative perspective

Roberts, Sean

doi:10.1080/21599165.2012.684754

Cited by 25 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…It is consistent with a theory according to which despite the regime's massive effort to implement party-based authoritarianism in 2007 -11, the actual role of United Russia in the operation of the political system was largely confined to the progressive co-optation of authoritarian elements from the previous political order (Golosov 2011b(Golosov , 2014, as a result of which a full-fledged party-based model was never achieved (Bader 2011;Roberts 2012). This theory explains the regime's rapid move to liberalise party legislation after the election-induced protests of December 2011 (Golosov 2012), and contributes to our understanding why, instead of relying solely on United Russia, it chose to use a non-party entity, the United People's Front, as an alternative and increasingly important tool of political mobilisation.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 74%

Growing Old Without Grace: Electoral Authoritarianism and the Age Composition of Russia's Regional Legislative Assemblies

Golosov¹

2014

Representation

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 74%

Growing Old Without Grace: Electoral Authoritarianism and the Age Composition of Russia's Regional Legislative Assemblies

Golosov¹

2014

Representation

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“…Both United Russia and A Just Russia were well funded organisations coming into this election, as indicated by the previous discussion of party accounts. But both parties also had close connections with government, the Presidential Administration and the regime in general, and had claim to the 'party of power' label (Roberts 2012b), even if this was more ambiguous for A Just Russia, especially after party leader Sergei Mironov was ousted from his influential Federation Council speaker post in April 2011.…”

Section: Table 4: Party and Web Presence (N = 910)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Online Campaigning in Russia: Evidence from the 2011 StateDumaElection

Roberts

2015

Europe-Asia Studies

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Despite the continuing growth of Internet use in Russia, there remains little systematic analysis of online election campaigning. This article presents an in-depth, multi-method analysis of party and candidate online activity during the 2011 State Duma election campaign-arguably Russia's first 'Internet election'to ascertain the extent to which new social media is changing politics in Russia. The main findings indicate that the Internet did indeed help to level the competitive playing field during the election campaign period, but despite the growing number of Internet users, the overall level of on-line engagement remained weak. Acknowledgements: I would like to thank the Aleksanteri Institute, Finland, for a two-month research stay in 2011/12. during the official 'intensive campaign' period (November 6-December 3 2011). Although primarily concerned with supply-side issuesthe way parties utilised the Internet for their campaignsthis article also considers demand-side issues, including engagement with party and candidate social media by Internet users. The first part of this article provides essential background, including a discussion of the factors limiting or encouraging online campaigning for this election. Part two then examines the scope of internet use during the campaign, presenting analysis of 910 candidates competing on party lists in 20 regions across the Russian Federation. Part three provides detailed analysis of candidate use of LiveJournal and Twitter social networks. The conclusion and substantive argument forwarded in this article is that even though United Russia and its candidates enjoyed a clear superiority in web-presence over its competitors, there was none the less evidence of equalisation, as the online message of the remaining party candidates converged on an anti-United Russia theme. However, while providing a rare platform for opposition to launch, at times, vitriolic attacks against United Russia and the authorities, there was little evidence that candidates were using social networking sites to directly interact with and mobilise the electorate. At the same time, the overall weak engagement by candidates with social media during the campaign period was matched by an equally weak engagement with partisan sites by Internet users. Taken together, this questions the overall impact of the online campaign and raises questions as to the real potential of the Internet to affect political change in Russia. What to expect online? Mixed messages leading into the campaign Although there is documented use of the internet by Russian parties as far back as the 1999 State Duma election (Semetko & Krasnoboka 2003), the fact that user numbers have lagged behind European and North American levels means that research on political parties and the Internet remains largely confined to the latter, although with increasing exceptions from other parts of the world, in particular from Asia (see Kluver et al. 2007; Tkach-Kawasaki; Wang 2010, etc.). In the Russian case, the 2011 State Duma election stakes a claim...

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“…Upon the State Duma elections of 2003, the Duma has been absorbed by the president (Tsebelis 2002), as well as had been the Federation Council. United Russia has become a political instrument for promotion of Putin's political interests in the parliament (Roberts 2012;Gel'man 2015: 88-89).…”

Section: Electoral Reforms In 2000s and 2010smentioning

confidence: 99%

Executive Branch and Major Electoral Reforms in Russia

Turchenko

Shevchuk

2015

SSRN Journal

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One more attempt to change the Russian electoral system initiated by the president in 1994-1995 failed. This article considers the cases of major electoral reforms in Russia through the veto player theory. It demonstrates that the reforms were successfully implemented in cases when the executive branch, striving for maximum control over the legislative process, was interested in such implementation and there were no other veto players, who were able to block passage of the law.

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United Russia and the dominant-party framework: understanding the Russian party of power in comparative perspective

Cited by 25 publications

References 20 publications

Growing Old Without Grace: Electoral Authoritarianism and the Age Composition of Russia's Regional Legislative Assemblies

Growing Old Without Grace: Electoral Authoritarianism and the Age Composition of Russia's Regional Legislative Assemblies

Online Campaigning in Russia: Evidence from the 2011 StateDumaElection

Executive Branch and Major Electoral Reforms in Russia

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