Russia's Democratic Transition

Paper Summary:

The paper offers an overview of the current electoral system in Russia in the context of democratic transition. The paper then hypothesizes what the situation in Russia would have been like had there been the system of proportional representation (PR) in the electoral system for the years 1993, 1995 and 1999. The paper shows how an electoral system based on PR would likely have eliminated many of the political and economic problems which Russia now faces, particularly in the rule of its outgoing president, Putin.

From the Paper:

"Half of the Duma are elected via Single Member District Plurality, half are elected through Proportional representation. The complexity of the voting system means that many parties do not achieve the 5% from the FPTP voting needed to then take a PR allocated seat: seats in the Duma are therefore unevenly allocated "Women of Russia, one of the 18 parties which failed to gain Party list seats, was a slim 2.3% lower in votes than the Yobloco [sic] party, which obtained...31 party list seats" (Rule and Shvedova). This 5% requirement, designed to limit the numbers of parties, has also held back the ability of the Duma to proportionally represent voters choices. It is clear from just this small example that the nature of FPTP and then PR allocation of seats, as it is being currently used, inhibits the democratic transition."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Gaidar, Yegor (2000) "Up for Debate: Privatization: Who Wins? Russia's Reform Compromise" Interview conducted 10/05/00, retrieved 02/21/2008 from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/ufd_privatizerussia_full.html
• McFaul, Michael (2001) "Russian Electoral Trends" Russian Politics: Challenges of Democratization Barany, Zoltan and Moser, Robert (eds) Cambridge University Press.
• Rule, Wilma and Shvedova, Nadezhda "Russia: An Evolving Parallel System" http://www.idea.int/esd/upload/russia.pdf
• Solnick, Steven L. (1999) "Russia's 'Transition': Is Democracy Delayed Democracy Denied? Social Research 9/22/1999

More papers on Russia's Democratic Transition:

• Research Paper # 38867 : "Economic and Political Progress in Russia"
• Term Paper # 92477 : "Supporting Russian Democracy"
• Essay # 63626 : "Russian Democracy"

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