Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

162 Petr Panov1 ‘Autocracy’ (a virtually homogeneous elite, the dominant actor is thegovernor or a business group exercising full control over regional politics);2 ‘Soft autocracy’ (there is a weak opposition group or groups);3 ‘Elites settlement’ (the regional elite is heterogeneous, but the leader,governor, is powerful enough to reconcile conflicts and secure consolidationof elite groups);4 ‘Fragmented elite’ (the regional elite is split, hence political instability andacute struggle between elite groups);5 ‘Polarized elite’ (elite groups are integrated into two opposing camps).Consequently, the regional legislatures were not amorphous packs of ‘independent’deputies. On the contrary, they were structured into informalgroups 28 reflecting the makeup of regional elites, which provided the deputieswith a means of coordination. Formally ‘independent’ deputies wouldrepresent the interests of one or another elite group. On occasion the governoror some influential clique would publicly declare an informal ‘list ofcandidates’ they supported at regional legislature elections. Therefore, theprocess of institutionalization of the political structure in most regionalassemblies was largely precipitated by financial and economic interests ratherthan by political or ideological orientation. In ‘autocratic assemblies’, forexample, deputies’ ‘independence’ made no difference, as almost all of themwere in fact members of informal groups – clienteles of the dominant regionalactor. In regions with a ‘fragmented elite’ there were several such clienteles. 29The picture painted above was typical of the Russian regional politics inthe 1990s. At the same time, there were a few deviant cases when politicalparties did play a significant role. It should be pointed out that in itself adeputy’s membership in a party was not equivalent to the party mechanismof representation. In the majority of cases party deputies secured electionvictories without much recourse to party resources, so they were not burdenedby any obligations. 30 Therefore, speaking about deviant cases I do notrefer to the membership of deputies in parties but rather to the small numberof regions where political parties were actually structuring the composition andactivity of regional parliaments. There were several reasons for the formation ofthese deviant cases: 31First, the Communist Party, re-established in 1993, was rather strong insome regions (the so-called ‘Red Belt’). For instance, Volgograd, Bryansk,Kamchatka oblasts and the Koryak Autonomous Okrug can be regarded asregions where Communist Party representation was fairly active, as theregional Communist Party branches steered the political process and controlledtheir own deputies. In these regions a significant percentage of theelectorate were more interested in the party affiliation of a candidate than inthe candidate’s personal qualities.A second factor is related to the peculiarities of the regional electoralsystems. Prior to 2003 subjects of the Federation had a right to set up theirown electoral institutions, and some of them adopted a proportional