The Russian Democratic Party Yabloko: Opposition in a Managed Democracy by David White

Author:David White [White, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Political Ideologies, Democracy, International Relations, General
ISBN: 9780754646754
Google: L_tJDI11ZIcC
Goodreads: 12371533
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing
Published: 2006-01-15T13:37:45+00:00

Conclusion

This chapter has examined three key areas – the party’s policies, its social base and its electoral strategy, with the objective of identifying the way in which these factors have contributed to the electoral decline of Yabloko. Analysts have tended to identify the lack of a substantial constituency in Russia in favour of liberal policies (in both the economic and social sense) and the inherently limited and diminishing nature of Yabloko’s social base as key determinants of the party’s failure to arrest its declining share of the vote. It is argued here, however, that although both support for liberal policies in Russia and the size of Yabloko’s social base are undoubtedly limited, an argument that explains the party’s electoral decline in these terms is flawed. Evidence suggests that support for broadly democratic and social-liberal ideals among Russians is greater than Yabloko’s ratings suggest and that the party’s potential social base is larger than its share of the vote would suggest. An examination of the party’s policies, social base and electoral strategy points to a range of factors that, together, help to explain the party’s electoral decline. These have been identified as:

• the failure to convince the electorate of the difference between the party’s policies and those of the economic liberals,

• the failure to sufficiently emphasise the social component of party policy,

• an inability or unwillingness to broaden the party’s electorate,

• the complacent attitude towards, and failure to mobilise, the party’s core electorate,

• a lack of professionalism evidenced by badly thought-out media campaigns and organisational failings,

• the impact of specific events, both in terms of determining the campaign agenda (e.g. military intervention in Chechnya in 1999 and the Yukos affair in 2003) and directly hindering the party’s ability to campaign (e.g. the termination of Yukos funding in 2003).

With the exception of the final point, each of these factors can be seen as strategic failings on the part of Yabloko itself rather than social or political cultural variables over which the party had no control. Evidence suggests that, by 2003, the party had learnt from earlier mistakes and was better equipped, in an organisational sense, to fight elections. As will be evidenced in the following chapter, however, Yabloko had paid scant attention to organisational affairs and party building until 2001. By the time Yabloko had become a more effective campaigning organisation, the political landscape in Russia had changed. No amount of party-building and improved organisational capacity could counter the massive resources at the disposal of the pro-presidential parties.

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