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in society; less legitimacy accorded to parties and elections; and weaker party organizations,
often dominated by personalistic leaders” (p. 71).
By various means of operationalizing this concept of inchoate party systems, Mainwaring
determines that Russia’s party system indeed falls into this category. Russian political parties
show high levels of volatility across elections, weak social roots, and a high degree of
personalization by political leaders. Given that the Russian political parties in general are under-
institutionalized, political parties have played a remarkably weak role in the plurality half of the
Duma races.
Elections within Russia’s Single Member Districts
In an investigative look at the 1993 and 1995 Duma elections, Golosov and Shevchenko
(1999) examine the electoral successes and failures of both partisan and independent candidates
in the single-member district tier. They note that political parties were not completely
unsuccessful in the SMD races. In fact, the Communist (CPRF) and Agrarian (APR) parties
performed rather well in both of these elections. The ‘party of power’ performed rather well in
the 1993 SMD elections, but not nearly so well in 1995. The success of the Communist and
Agrarian parties is usually directly correlated back to the impact of resources and information.
The CPRF inherited the far-reaching organizational structure from the Soviet period. Likewise,
the Agrarians used the agriculture sector of the state and economy to organize and develop
electoral resources. Additionally, unlike many of the other wide-ranging political parties, the
CPRF and the APR presented a straightforward ideological program, which appealed to many
voters, because it provided voters with a degree of certainty about the policies which these
candidates would pursue.
Convention