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EUROPE -ASIA STUDIES, Vol. 53, No. 8, 2001, 1177
–
1191
S uperpresidentiali sm and Political Party
D evelopment i n Russi a, Ukraine, Armenia
a nd Kyrgyzstan
JOHN T. ISHIYAMA & RYAN KENNEDY
SINCE THE COLLAPSE OF THE USSR many s cholars have pointed to t he weakness of the
political parties in the states of the former Soviet Union.
1
Unlike some of the
countries of post-communist East ern Europe (such as the Visegrad states, Hungary,
Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as the Baltic States), where relatively stable
patterns of partisan competition have emerged, in most of the states of the former
Soviet Union, it has been argued, only ‘pseudo parties’ have arisen. These ‘pseudo
parties’ are seen as largely shift ing coalitions of indi viduals, unanchored in post-com-
munist society and incapable of performing even the most basic functions of political
parties.
2
Indeed, from this ‘pessimistic’ point of view, parties in the former Soviet
Union are scarcely more than transient organis ations with lit tle continuity from one
election to another , lacking coherent ideological programmes and reliable social
constituencies.
3
Many have argued t hat decades of totalitarian rule (more extreme and
of longer duration in the Sovie t Union than i n Eastern Europe or the Baltic States)
pulverised what little there was of civil society, a legacy that continue s to retard the
development of political part ies. As Bielasiak notes, the ‘numerous weaknesses of
political society impede the formation and consolidation of a structure d party system
capable of providing informed choices to the electorate’.
4
Others have pointed to the incentive s generated by political structures, particularly
the existence of ‘superpresidentialism’, which have also retarded the development of
political parties.
5
Unfortunately, most of the existing literature that relates superpres-
identialism to party devel opment in the countries of the former Soviet Union has
focused only on single case studies, without the bene t of comparative perspective.
6
Because of this tendency it is dif cult to assess truly whether or not ‘ superpresiden-
tialism’ has the often cited retarding effect on party development. On the other hand,
macro-comparative approaches that lump together all of the forme r c ommunist states
run the risk of con at ing the effects of the electoral system and presidentialism on
party development, especially si nce most parliamentary systems in post-communist
Europe e mploy some form of proportional representation.
7
The key then is to select
cases that vary in terms of the degree of superpresidentialism but where variations in
the electoral system are controlled . Finally, most studies that have pointed to the
weaknesses of political parties in the countries of the former Soviet Union have relied
ISSN 0966-8136 print; ISSN 1465-342 7 online/01/0801177-15
Ó
2001 University of Glasgow
DOI: 10.1080/0966813012009318 3
JOHN T. ISHIYAMA & RYAN KENNEDY1178
heavily on anecdotal or narrative evidence, rather than systematically evaluating how
much political parties have developed.
8
Thi s article examines the developmen t of political parties, comparing four cases:
Russia, Ukraine, Arme nia and Kyrgyzstan.
9
In particular, we address the question of
whether superpresidentialism explains variations in the levels of party development,
or whether other institutional factors (such as the structure of the electoral system)
account for differences observed across t he four states. The four cases were selected
in order to control for variations in el ectoral system. Each of the four states employed
similar mixed electoral systems to govern the latest parliamentary elections, where a
portion of the seats in the lower house was elected via single member districts and
the rest elected via a proporti onal re presentation list.
To measure party development, we examined the degree to which the ‘continuous’
political parties were important in the party systems, the extent to which parties
‘penetrated’ the regions (or what Fish calls the reach of the party system), and the
extent to which af liation with a party improved the chances of a candidate winning
election (or what Fish refers to as gravity of the party system).
1 0
The development of political parties in the countries of the former Soviet Union
In general, there have been two points of view regarding party development in the
states of the former Soviet Union. On the one hand, there is the ‘pessimistic’ view,
which hol ds that the development of ‘strong’ or even ‘real’ parties is highly unlikely
now or in the near future.
1 1
Several reasons are often offered as to why parties are
unlikely to develop along the same lines in the former Soviet Union as they have in
the West, or in Eastern Europe for that matter. One argument holds that a major
impediment to the development of parties is the legacy of the totalitarian past, a past
that resulted in the ‘well developed antipathy to the concept of party after 70 years
in which it stood for political monopoly and sometimes repression’.
12
Further, because
of Soviet totalitarianism, a civil society that could support political parties remains
only very weakl y developed, with ‘few of the autonomous business and labour
associations that support parties in other countries’.
13
Another argument contends that institutional arrangements militate against the
development of parties in post-Soviet politics. In particular, it has been argued that
superpresidentialism has acted as a major impediment to the development of political
parties.
14
According to Fish, superpresidential ism is characterised by the following
features:
An apparatus of executive power that dwarfs all other agencies in terms of size and the
r esources it consumes; a president who enjoys decree powers; a president who de jure or de
fac to controls most of the powers of the purse; a relatively toothless legislat ure that cannot
r epeal presidential decrees and that enjoys scant authority and/or resources to monitor the
c hief executive; provisions that render impeachment of the president virtually impossible;
a nd a court system that is controlled wholly or mainly by the chief executive and that cannot
in practice check pre sidential prerogatives or even abuse of power. Superpresidentialism is
a regime. It many be contrasted with autocracy, insofar as the chief executive does not enjoy
tot al power and is subject to bona de, periodic challenge in national elections.
15
SUPERPRESIDENTIALISM AND PARTY DEVELOPMENT 1179
There are several reasons cited as to why superpresidentialism militates against the
development of political parties. First, by concentrating authority in the hands of a
single individual, the politics of pe rsonality prevails, making it more dif cult for
parties to develop coherent programmes and identities.
16
Fish contends that this effect
is exhibited throughout the states of the former Soviet Union where ‘superpresiden-
tialism chills party development in part by holding down incentives for import ant
political and economic actors to invest in politics’.
17
In a superpresidential system
candidates ha ve relatively little incentive to associate with political parties, when the
legislature (the principal arena for party politi cs) has such little say in policy. Rather,
individuals tend to focus on forming personal attachments with presidential hopefuls,
bypassing association with political parties. Fish identi es four cases whic h approxi -
mate the superpresidential model to varying degrees: Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Russia
and Ukraine.
18
However, some have argued that superpresidentialism (or presidentialism for t hat
matter) has little to do with party deve lopment. Rather, it is argued, the electoral
system has a more important and direct effect on party development.
1 9
In particular,
scholars of post-Soviet politics have pointed to the effects of the electoral law,
particularly the use of single-member dist ricts in Russia, Ukraine, Armenia and
Kyrgyzstan, which acts as a major impedimen t to the development of coherent
parties.
2 0
As Moser notes,
To be successful in plurality parliamentary elections, parties need to have a certain element
of grass-roots organisation and a network of well-known local candidates to run under the
par ty banner in districts across the country. When such parties exist, plurality systems
re ward large parties and punish small ones , as can be seen in the United States, Great Britain
or India. But when no well-developed political parties exist, partisanship its elf is devalued
in plurality elections, and in its place there emerges the personal politics of candidate-centred
el ections in whic h parties have little to offer thes e candidates in terms of resources of party
ide nti cation…. In short, the consolidating effect of the plurality system in parliamentary
el ections requires a certain le vel of party development that does not yet exist …
21
On the other hand, some scholars have adopted a more optimistic assessment
concerning the development of political parties, both in parliament a nd in the
localities.
22
For instance, Remington & Smith argue that in Russia the parties ‘have
already shaped the procedures, structures and policy products of the Duma in basic
ways’.
23
They argue that, although these parliamentary parties are dominated ‘by the
leaders of the parties in parliament’, they are parti es nonetheless, albeit a particular
kind of party reminiscent of earlier ‘cadre’ parties which grew out of the parliaments
of Europe in the 19th century.
2 4
At the local level, Brown argues that the claim that
parties are non-existent, small, disorganised and powe rless is based on surprisingly
few data on the grassroots development of political parties in Russia. In fact, she
argues, local party organisation is much more built up than the pessimists contend,
and party politics had become a very important feature of local politics as early as the
initial stages of the transition from Soviet rule.
25
More generally, Parrott suggests that
the pronouncements regarding the permanent irrelevance of parties in post-Soviet
politics are in part based upon faulty comparisons with already established part y
systems.
2 6
Indeed, he argues that inappropriate comparisons with states with estab-
JOHN T. ISHIYAMA & RYAN KENNEDY1180
lished party systems lead to misleading conclusions abou t the permanence of
non-party politics in the stat es of the former Soviet Union.
27
Nonetheless, the pattern of development of political parties in post-communist
polities does differ from the pattern of West European party development. For
instance, the sudden expansion of the scope of participation i n post-communist
politics contrasted with the step-by-step expansion of the franchise in most countries
in the 19th century. In post-communist politics ‘the simultaneous admission of all
social strata and economic groups into post-communist electoral systems has created
an incentive to establish c atchall parties that a ppeal to many constituencies’.
28
Although this has led to relatively low levels of programmati c coherence in many
post-communist parties, as Parrott notes, this ‘ should not necessarily be equated with
institutional weakness’.
2 9
How can we assess the extent to which party development has taken place in
Russia, Ukrai ne, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan? One way is to examine the candidate
recruitment behaviour of the political parties for the second legislat ive elections, from
1995 to 2000, for Russi a, Ukraine, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
30
An important element
of what parties do is to act as channels for leadership recruitment; hence, whom they
recruit provides insight into how the parties as collective organisations are develop-
ing. Further, the analysis of candidate recruitment for the single-member district
elections (as opposed to the analysis of national list seat elections) provides insight
into the extent to which parties have penetrated the regions, and the degree t o which
they may act as the building bl ocks for future political integration. Indeed, the mark
of developed political parties for Rokkan and for Huntington was their ability to
penetrate the country outside urban areas.
3 1
In addition, the extent to which the parties offer positive advantages to candidates
is also an indicator of relatively more deve loped partie s. Indeed, the extent to which
candidates perceive political parties as important (and primary) vehicles for upward
political mobility is an indicator of the level of development of the party system. The
problem for the countries of the former Soviet Union, as Fish notes, is that candidates
standing for election have relati vely little incentive to invest in political parties,
choosing to retain their independence.
32
However, if parties can demonstrate to
potential candidates that association with the parties improves their chances of being
elected, then this is likely to increase the parties’ salience as the primary channels for
candidate/leadership recruitment.
Design and methodology
To assess the extent to which the major parties have become relevant in the politics
of the four countries, we focus on thre e indicators of party development.
33
First, there
is the extent to which parties are ‘continuous’ organisations, or whether they are able
to maintain a degree of organisational and political continuity over more than one
election. Since the maintenance of an organisation require s c onsiderable resources
across elections, the extent t o which parties are able to maintain both a continuous
existence and demonstrated voter appeal indicates more developed party organisa-
tions . The extent to which continuous parties predominate in a party system indicates
a more developed system of political parties.
SUPERPRESIDENTIALISM AND PARTY DEVELOPMENT 1181
To measure this we examined the percent age of the seats in the lower house of the
legislature received by the ‘continuous parties’ over the rst t wo consecutive
post-communist elections. Focusing on the lower house of the parliament rather than
other inst itutions is justi ed, as Schlesinger has noted, because the single most
important component affecting party developme nt historically throughout the demo-
cratic world has been the legislative component, particularly the lower and more
powerful house.
34
The major continuous parties were de ned as those parties which
had won seats in both elections and held enough seats to form a parliamentary faction
in the legislative sessions following both of the rst two post-Soviet elections. For the
Armenian case these partie s included the R epublican Party of Armenia (Hayastani
Hanrapetakan Kusaktsutyun
—
HHK), the Communist Party of Armenia (Hayastani
Komunistakan Kusaktsutyun
—
HKK), the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Hai
Heghapokhakan Dashnaktsutyu n
—
Dashnak), the National Democratic Union (Az-
gayin Zhoghovrdavarakan Miutyun
—
AZM) and the Armenian National Movement
(Hayots Hamazgain Sharzhu m
—
HHS). In Kyrgyzstan the continuous parties were the
Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan (Partiya Kommunistov Kyrgyzstana
—
PKK) and
the Socialist Party (Ata Meken). For Russia the major continuous parties were
Yabloko, the Agrarian Party of Russia (Agrarnaya Partiya Rossii
—
APR), the Liberal-
Democratic Party (Liberal’no-De mokraticheskaya Partiya Rossii
—
LDPR) and the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation (Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Rossiiskoi
Federatsii
—
KPRF). For the Ukraine the continuous parties were the Communist Party
of Ukraine (Kom unistychna Partiya Ukrainy
—
KPU), the Popular Front (Narodnyi
Rukh
—
NR), the Peasants’ Party of the Ukra ine (Selyanska Partiya Ukrainy
—
SePU),
the Socialist Party of the Ukraine (Sotsialistychna Partiya Ukrainy
—
SPU) and the
Social Democratic Party of the Ukraine.
The second measure of party development is the degree to which parties are
important t o candidates in securing election in the single-mandate districts. We
measure this by comparing the success rate of independent candidates with the
success rate of cont inuous party-af liated candidates running in the single-member
districts in the second post-communist legislative elect ions.
3 5
Only the results from
the second election are employed here, because in two cases (Ukraine and Kyrgyz -
stan) the electoral system governing the parliamentary elections changed from a
single-member district system in the rst election to a mixed system in the second
election. Thus, for the sak e of comparability, only the data from the second electi ons
are examined. The great er the success rate the more ‘gravity’ the parties are likely to
possess in attracting candidates, especially if it can be demonstrated that candidates
have a higher probability of election if they are af liated with a political party.
The third measure is the extent to which the continuous parties have penetrated the
countryside. The degree to which the parties have penetrated the countryside is
measured by the extent to which the continuous parties are able to attract votes in
competition in the single-member districts. Although an ideal measure of penetration
would be to examine the speci c district level acti vities of parties, given the virtual
impossibility of obtaining such data across all districts in each of the four countries
under investigation, we employ an admittedly second best surrogate measure. This
measure involves the proportion of the vote won by the candidates of the continuous
parties. The larger the proportion of the vote won by the ca ndidates of the cont inuous
JOHN T. ISHIYAMA & RYAN KENNEDY1182
parties in single-member districts, the mor e the parties are considered to have
penetrated the localities.
In order to assess the extent to which the parti es have penetrated rural areas, we
differentiated between urban and non-urban electoral distri cts. To determine the
degree to which the district was urbanised, the population in thousands of persons of
the largest city or town in the district was identi ed and employed as the measure of
the size of the district.
3 6
Non-urban districts were identi ed in two different ways. For
the less populated and considerably smaller countries of Armenia and Kyrgyzstan,
non-urban districts were those in which the largest city identi ed in the district had
a population of less than 50,000. For Russia and Ukraine, non -urban districts were
identi ed as those in which the largest cities had less than 100,000 population. The
reason we employ different standards for the four countries is because of the great
disparity in population size between Russia and Ukraine, on the one hand, an d
Armenia and Kyrgyzstan on the other. Indeed, in smaller countries (especially in
sparsely populated Kyrgyzstan) a t own of 50,000 i s quite large and often a major
district centre.
Our sample of cases for this part of the study includes the 1995 Russian State
Duma election, the 1998 Ukrainian Supreme Rada election, the 1999 National
Assembly election i n Armenia and the 2000 Jogorku Kenesh (National Asse mbly)
election in Kyrgyzstan. These four cases were selected because eac h was a former
Union Republic in the Soviet Union, and each used a mixed electoral system in which
one portion of the seats was elected via single-member districts using a plurality
formula and the other portion via proportional representation. However, the relative
proportions of district to list seats were different for each country. In Russia and the
Ukraine (where both the State Duma an d the Supreme Rada have 450 seats) half of
the seats were elected via districts and the other half vi a a national list. In Armenia
75 seats were e lected via districts and 56 via a national list. In Kyrgyzstan, of the 60
seats available, 45 were elected via distri cts and 15 via a national l ist. Thus, all four
cases are relatively similar in terms of average district magnitudes (de ned as the
number of seats in the lower house of t he legislature divided by the number of
districts) with Russia and Ukraine at 1.99, Armenia at 1.72 and Kyrgyzstan at 1.30.
Where the cases differ is not so much in the type of electoral system use d but rather
in th e timing of the adoption of these mixed electoral systems. In Russia and Armenia
mixed electora l systems were used in the rst two compet itive post-Soviet elections
(i n 1993 and 1995 respectively). In Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan single-member district
plurality systems were employed for the rst legislative elections (in 1994 and 1995
respectively). Further, although each country approximated the superpresidential
model, there were considerable differences among them in terms of how powerful the
presidencies were in each case, ranging from the extremely superpresidential regime
in Kyrgyzstan to the only ‘minimally’ superpresidential system in Ukraine.
Analysis
Data were col lected from the single-member districts for the second legis lative
elections fo r Armenia (1999), Russia (1995), Ukrain e (1998) and Kyrgyzstan (2000).
These included 75 districts in Armenia, 225 districts each in Russia and Ukraine, and
SUPERPRESIDENTIALISM AND PARTY DEVELOPMENT 1183
TABLE 1
DEGREE OF PARTY CONTINUITY: CONTINUOUS PARTY SEAT SHARES IN LOWER HOUSE OF
LEGISLATURE IN FIRST AND SECOND POST-SOVIET ELECTIONS
Continuous party seat shares in Continuous party seat shares in
lower house of legislature in lower house of legislature in
rst election second election
[seats won over total] [seats won over total]
(year of election) (year of election)
Armenia 29.9% 42.8%
[69/268] [56/131]
(1995) (1999)
Kyrgyzstan 3.8% 25.0%
[4/105] [15/60]
(1995) (2000)
Russia 45.6% 60.7%
[205/450] [273/450]
(1993) (1995)
Ukraine 31.33% 48.4%
[141/450] [218/450]
(1994) (1998)
45 districts in Kyrgyzstan. Data were collected on the number of candidates running
in each district as well as the candidates’ party af liations.
Subsequently, aggregate percentages were calculated for each indicator for conti-
nuity, gravity and penetration. As indicated in Table 1, which investigates the extent
to which the continuous parties won seats in the legislatures, the country in which the
continuous parties exhibited the greatest degree of continuity across the rst and
second post-Soviet legislative elections was Russia. Indeed, unlike in the other cases,
Russia experienced a substantial increase in the percentage of seats controlled by the
continuous parties (from 45.6% to 60.7% between 1993 and 1995) with the seat
shares of these parties in the second election far exceeding those for either the
Armenian (42.8%) or Ukrainia n (48.4%) cases. In these countries the proportion of
seats controlled by the continuous parties also inc reased from the rst to the second
elections, although the increase was generally greater in the Armenian than the
Ukrainian case. The Kyrgyz case also exhibited an increase in the proportion of seats
controlled by the continuous parties (from a mere 3.8% to 25.0% between 1995 and
2000), although this increase was largely due to electoral gains made by one party,
the Communist Party (PKK). Thus, the continuity of pa rties in Kyrgyzstan is
extremely low compared with the other three cases.
In terms of party ‘gravity’ the results in Table 2 illustrate the success rates of
independent and party nominated candidates. The highest rate of success for party
af liated candidates was in Russia, where 19.9% of the continuous party nominated
candidates running for election in the single-m ember districts won election, compared
with 4.8% of the independents. In Armenia, as well, continuous party af liated
candidates also had a relatively higher success rate than independents (17.3%
compared with 11.8%), as was the case in Ukra ine (10.1% versus 5.6%), although the
differences were much smaller than for th e Russian case. In the Kyrgyz case
candidates af liated with the continuous partie s had a much lower success rate than
JOHN T. ISHIYAMA & RYAN KENNEDY1184
TABLE 2
DEGREE OF PARTY GRAVITY: CONTINUOUS PARTY NOMINATED AND INDEPENDENT
CANDIDATES WINNING ELECTION IN DISTRICTS
Independen t candidates Party nominated candidates
winning district seats winning district seats
Armenia 11.8% 17.3%
(33/279) (33/158)
Kyrgyzstan 17.4% 0.0%
(45/258) (0/6)
Russia 4.8% 19.9%
(78/1640) (93/465)
Ukraine 5.6% 10.1%
(114/2024) (59/585)
independents (0.0% versus 17.4%). In th e Kyrgyz case no continuous party af liated
candidates won any of the 45 contested district seats in 2000 (party af liated
candidates onl y won seats via the national list).
In Table 3 we investigate the degree to which the continuous parties penetrated the
non-urban elect oral di stricts. The greatest degree of party penetration of non-urban
districts occurred in Russia, where the average percentage of votes received by the
continuous political parties in the non-urban districts stood at 30.8%. The Armenian
case was a distant second (15.7%). Indeed in both cases the percentage of the vote
received by the continuous parties was actually slightly higher in the rural than in the
urban districts. On the other hand, in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, the percentage of the
vote received by the major parties was considerably less than in Russia (at 13.5% and
0.04%). Further, in both cases the percentage of the vote received by the major parties
in the non-urban districts was considera bly less than in the urban districts (in contrast
to Armenia). These re sults suggest that in Armenia and Russia parties were relatively
TABLE 3
PARTY PENETRATION: MEAN V OTE RECEIVED B Y CONTINUOUS PARTY CANDIDATES IN URBAN AND
NON-URBAN DISTRICTS (%)
Vote receive d Vote received
by major party candidates in by major party candidates in
urban districts (for Armenia and rural districts (for Armenia and
Kyrgyzstan community in which Kyrgyzstan community in which
district located $ 50,000; for district located , 50,000; for
Russia and Ukraine $ 100,000) Russia and Ukraine , 100,000)
Armenia 15.5 15.7
(n 5 38) (n 5 37)
Kyrgyzstan 4.2 0.04
(n 5 17) (n 5 28)
Russia 29.2 30.8
(n 5 144) (n 5 80)
Ukraine 22.4 13.5
(n 5 103) (n 5 122)
SUPERPRESIDENTIALISM AND PARTY DEVELOPMENT 1185
TABLE 4
RANK ORDERED SCORES FOR CONTINUITY, G RAVITY AND PENETRATION (4 5 MOST DEVELOPED PARTIES.
1 5 LEAST DEVELOPED PARTIES)
Continuity Gravity Penetration Total Overall rank
Armenia 3 3 3 9 3
Kyrgyzstan 1 1 1 3 1
Russia 4 4 4 12 4
Ukraine 2 2 2 6 2
more developed (or at least developed enough to mobilise political support in the rural
areas of these countri es) than in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
Table 4 summarises the results fro m Tables 1, 2 and 3. Each of the three indicators
is rank ordered from 1 to 4, with 4 indicating the ‘most developed’ in terms of party
development, an d 1 indicating the least. The individual scores are summed and then
rank ordered. The resulti ng order indicated that the greatest amount of part y
development among the four cases has occurred in Russia and Armenia, a lesser
amount in Ukraine and the least in Kyrgyzstan.
To what extent are these result s related to the degree to which these systems are
‘superpresidencies’ ? To assess the strength of t he presidencies, we employ the
measure developed by Hellman and Frye, the Index of Formal Presidential Powers.
37
This value takes into account the constitutional powers invested in the hands of the
president and whethe r the president is directly or indirectly elected. Such a composite
measure provides a means to evaluate the relative strength of different presidencies
cross-nationally in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The measure
evaluates symbolic, procedural, appointive and political powers and weights the
presidencies by whether or not the president is directly elected. The resulting value
ranges from zero to 27, with a high score indicative of a powerful presidency and a
lower score a less powerful presidency. For our sample of cases, Kyrgyzstan stood at
14.5, with Russia and Armenia at 14 . These values tend to correspond to Fish’s
categorisation of these three cases as superpresidential. Ukraine had a power score of
eight and represented the least superpresidential case. Although it may be that formal
powers do not necessarily directly measure actual presidential power, as Frye notes,
formal power s are often enshrined in constitutions to legitimise powerful presiden-
cies.
3 8
Thus, possession of many formal powers generally correlates with actual
presidential power. Further, the measure appears to be correlated with Fish’s own
depiction of these four states.
3 9
In Table 5 we examine the purported relationship between the degree of superpres-
identialism and the level of party development. Although this thesis argues that the
level of party development should be lower in systems with more powerful presiden-
cies, the evidence does not support this contention. Although it is not possible to
claim conclusively that the power of a superpresidential system has little t o do with
party development in terms of continuity, gravity and penetration, given the very
limited sample size, the cases do not generally t the patterns anticipated by the
JOHN T. ISHIYAMA & RYAN KENNEDY1186
TABLE 5
SUPERPRESIDENCIES AND LEVEL OF PARTY DEVELOPMENT
Developed parties Less developed parties
Superpresidencies Armenia Kyrgyzstan
(power score $ 14) Russia
Less powerful presidencies Ukraine
(power score , 14)
superpresidential t hesis. Indeed, two of the three superpresidential cases (Armenia and
Russia) had the highest levels of part y development generally and scored highest on
each of the three individual indicators. On the other hand, Ukraine, the least
superpresidential system, scored quite low in terms of levels of party development.
The only case (out of the four) that corresponds to the superpresidential thesis is
Kyrgyzstan, with its very low level s of party development and extremely powerful
presidency. However, this is probably due to other factors (such as hi gh levels of
political corruption and a tradition of politics based almost completely on personal
attachments) rather than directly related to the existence of a powerful presidency.
Whatever the reason, the limited evidence presented here does not generally support
the superpresidential a rgument.
What of the contention that the single-member district plurality component of the
mixed electoral system is the real culprit retarding the development of pol itical parties
in post-Soviet politics? At rst glance, this thesis also does not appear to be
supported. Indeed, given the distribution of seats, we would expect that the systems
that have a higher proportion of seats allocated via the single-member districts (such
as in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan) would also have the lowest levels of party develop-
ment measured in terms of continuity, gravity a nd penetration. On the other hand, we
would expect higher levels of party development in Russia and Ukraine, where there
are proportionally fewer sea ts allocated via the single-member districts. However, as
noted above, Armenia has a relatively high and Ukraine a relatively low level of party
development, observations which do not support the contention that the single-mem-
ber district component of the mixed electoral systems is the real culprit for retarding
party development.
However, upon closer examination, if we take into account the fact that the rst
elections in Ukraine (1994) and Kyrgyz stan (1995) were conducted using only
single-member districts, and that the rst post-communist elections in Armenia and
Russia used mixed systems with a proportional representation component (as they do
currently), then low levels of party development in Ukraine an d Kyrgyzstan can be
explained by reference to the electoral system (see Table 6). Since proportional
representation generally serves to strengthen parties, it is not surprising that parties
are more developed in terms of conti nuity, gravity and penetration in the states that
have more experience with mixed electoral systems, as opposed to states that only
adopted a proportional representation component for the second post-Soviet legisla-
tive elections.
SUPERPRESIDENTIALISM AND PARTY DEVELOPMENT 1187
TABLE 6
INITIAL ELECTORAL SYSTEM AND LEVEL OF PARTY DEVELOPMENT
Developed parties Less develope d parties
Initial electoral system mixed Armenia
Russia
Initial electoral system single-member Ukraine
district plurality Kyrgyzstan
Conclusion
The ndings above are only suggestive, given the relatively small sample of cases.
However, the results do indicate t hat the commonly held notio n that superpresidenti al-
ism is the culprit for the lack of party development in terms of continuity, gravity and
penetration is not supported by the evidence from these fou r cases. This nding tends
to support other work that has suggested that presidentialism’s effects on democracy
and party development are greatly overstated.
40
Others have suggested that the electoral system that governs legislative elections in
post-communist states is the more important institutional factor in explaining party
development and behaviour.
4 1
The evidence presented in this article tends to support
the contention that the systems that had empl oyed only single-member district
plurality rules in the initial post-Soviet election were more likely to score consider-
ably lower on the three measures of party developmen t (continuity, gravity and
penetration) than systems that had employed proportional representation and a mixed
electoral system.
Many scholars contend that parties are absolutel y essential to the process of
democratic consolidation. As Pridham notes, ‘partie s and party systems must remain
a basic if not the cent ral theme for examining … progress towards and achievement
of democratic consolidation’.
4 2
Further, Linz ha s pointed out that there is ‘no
alternative to political parties in the establishment of democracy’,
43
and Mair adds
that ‘however fragmented, weak, or undisciplined, however poorly rooted in society,
however unstable and vociferous, parties are a very real and necessary part of the
politics of new democracies’.
4 4
Given this, then, the adoption of mixed electoral
systems in countries where parties are ext remely we ak should help in promoting the
development of political parties. There is some evi dence to suggest that this is already
happening in Armenia, Ukraine and to a limited extent in Kyrgyzstan. Althoug h still
in their infancy, pol itical parties are becoming part of political life in these countries.
However, in the Russian Federation there appears to be a trend towards less
continuity in party politics. Although the 1999 State Duma election (the third
post-Soviet election) was not part of this study, party continuity has become
increasingly problemati c. The only continuous parti es that remained in the 1999
election (i.e. parties which won seats in the 1993, 1995 and 1999 elections) were the
KPRF, the LDPR and Yabloko. However, these three parties accounted for only about
33.8% of the seats in the State Duma after 1999, and there was an overall increase
in the number of seats held by independents (from 77 to 105). Whether this is a
continuing trend in Russia depends on whether the new political forces on the
JOHN T. ISHIYAMA & RYAN KENNEDY1188
centre-right of the spectrum (Unity Bloc-Medved’ and the Union of Right Forces)
remain coherent fo r the next election.
4 5
Putin’s embrace of the Unity B loc as the
‘presidential party’ (unlike his predecessor’s unfortunate tendency to ‘stand above
parties’) may promote future continuity. More troubling to those scholars who value
strong parties as a hallmark of modern democracy is the proposal, made by some
scholars and politicians, that the PR component of the mixed electoral system be
abolished to better represent the regional diversity of the country, promote party
system stability, and ‘destroy the illusion that one can win elections and govern
entirely from Moscow’.
4 6
Such a move would undoubtedly destroy the incipient
Russian party system, and, ironically, remove any check at all on the autocratic power
of the presidency.
Truman State University
Ohio State University
An earlier version of this article was presented at the annua l meeting of the Internationa l Studies
Association
—
Midwest, St. Louis , Missouri, 27
–
30 October 2000.
1
Alexander Dallin (ed.), Political Parties in Russia (Berkeley, 1993); M. Steven Fish, Democracy
from Scratch: Oppositio n and Regime in the New Russian Revolution (Princeton, 1995); Ian McAllister
& Stephen White, ‘Democracy, Political Parties and Party Formations in Post-communist R ussia’, Party
Politics, 1, 1, 1995, pp. 49
–
72; Stephen White, Matthew W yman & Olga Kryshtanovskaya , ‘Parties and
Politics in Post-Communist Russia’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies , 25, 2, 1995, pp. 185
–
202.
2
McAllister & White, ‘Democracy, Political Parties and Party Formations …’; Richard Sakwa,
‘The Development of the Russian Party System: Did the Elections Change Anything?’, in Peter Lentini
(ed.), Elections and the Political Order in Russia (London, 1995), pp. 169
–
201; Richard Sakwa, ‘Parties
an d the Multiparty System in Russia’, RFE/RL Research Report, 2, 28, 1993, pp. 7
–
15; Michael McF aul
& Sergei Markov, The Troubled Birth of Russian Democracy: Parties, Personalitie s and Programs
(Stanford, 1993); Michael McFaul & Nikolai Petrov (eds), Previewing Russia’s 1995 Parliamentary
Election (Moscow, 1995); M. Steven Fish, ‘The Predicament of Russian Liberalism : Evidence from the
December 1995 Parliamentary Elections’, Europe-Asia Studies, 49, 2, 1997, pp. 191
–
220; Grigorii V.
Golosov, ‘New Russian Political Parties and the Transition to Democracy: the Case of Western Siberia’,
Government and Opposition, 30, 2, 1995, pp. 110
–
119; Grigorii V. Golosov, ‘Russian Political Parties
an d the “Bosses” ’, Party Politics, 3, 1, 1997, pp. 5
–
21; Grigorii V. Golosov, ‘Who Survives? Party
Origins, Organizationa l Development and Electoral Performance in Post-Communist Russia’, Political
Studies, 46, 3, 1998, pp. 511
–
543; Robert Moser, ‘The Impact of the Electoral System on Post-communist
Party Development : The Case of the 1993 Russian Parliamentary Elections’, Electoral Studies, 14, 3,
1995, pp. 377
–
398; Robert Moser, ‘The Electoral Effects of Presidentialism in Post-Soviet Russia’, in
John Lo¨wenhardt (ed.), Party Politics in Post-Communist Russia (London, 1998) pp. 54
–
75; Robert
Moser, ‘Independent s and Party Formation: Elite P artisanship as an Intervenin g Variable in Russian
Politics’, Comparative Politics, 31, 2, 1999, pp. 147
–
165; Vladimir Gel’man & Grigorii V. Golosov,
‘Regional Party System Formation in Russia: The Deviant Case of Sverdlovsk Oblast’, in Lowenhardt
(ed.), Party Politics …, pp. 31
–
53; Evgenii Pashentsev, O ppozitsionny e partii i dvizheniy a sovremenno i
Rossii (Moscow, 1999).
3
Moser, ‘Independent s and Party Formation ’; Golosov, ‘New Russian Political Parties and the
Transition to Democracy’.
4
Jack Bielasiak, ‘Substance and Process in the Developm ent of Party Systems in East Central
Europe’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 30, 1, 1997, p. 25.
5
M. Steven Fish, ‘The Executive Deception: Superpresidentialis m and the Degradation of Russian
Politics ’, in Valerie Sperling (ed.), Building the Russian State: Institutiona l Crisis and the Quest for
Democratic Governance (Boulder, CO, 2000), pp. 177
–
192; M. Steven Fish ‘The Impact of the
1999
–
2000 Parliamentary and Presidential Elections on Political Party Development’, paper presented
at the 2000 meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL; Timothy J. Colton,
‘Superpresidentialis m and Russia’s Backward State’, Post-Soviet Affairs, 11, 2, 1995, pp. 144
–
148;
Eugene Huskey, ‘Kyrgyzstan: The Fate of Political Liberalization ’, in Karen Dawisha & Bruce Parrott
(eds), Con ict, Cleavage and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus (Cambridge, 1997), pp.
242
–
276.
SUPERPRESIDENTIALISM AND PARTY DEVELOPMENT 1189
6
Fish, ‘The Executive Deception …’; Colton, ‘Superpresidentialis m and Russia’s Backward State’;
Huskey ‘Kyrgyzsta n …’.
7
See for instance Joel Hellman, ‘Constitutions and Economic Reform in the Postcommunist
Transitions ’, East European Constitutional Review, 5, 1, 1996, pp. 46
–
56; Timoth y Frye, ‘A Politics
of Institutiona l Choice: Post-Communist P residencies’, Comparative Politica l Studies, 30, 4, 1997, pp.
523
–
552; John Ishiyama & Matthew Velten, ‘Presidential P ower and Democratic Development in
Post-Communist Politics’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 31, 3, 1998, pp. 217
–
234.
8
An important exceptio n to this rule has been the work of M. Steven Fish; see Fish, ‘The Executive
Deception …’ and ‘The Impact of the 1999
–
2000 Parliamentary and Presidentia l Elections …’.
9
The conception of ‘party’ that I employ here is based upon the ‘electora l image’ of the party. Thus,
Leon Epstein de nes the political party as ‘any group of individuals , however loosely organised, whose
avowed purpose is w inning elections’. Leon Epstein, Political Parties in Western Democracies (New
York, 1967), p. 1. Similarly, Anthony Downs de nes the political party as ‘a team seeking to control
the governin g apparatu s by gaining of ce in a duly constitute d election ’. Anthony Downs, An Economic
Theory of Democracy (N ew York, 1957), p. 25. Kenneth Janda de nes the political party as ‘a set of
organisation s that pursue a goal of placing their avowed representative s in governmen t positions’.
Kenneth Janda, Political Parties: A Cross-National Survey (New York, 1980), p. 5. Thus any group,
no matter how organised, quali es as a political party if it seeks to run candidates for election. To be
sure, ther e are other de nitions of a party which are more restrictive (see for instance the de nition
provided by LaPalombara & Weiner) but de ning a party only in terms of organisation ignores the wide
variety of different organisationa l forms parties can take. In sum, there is no ‘normal’ model for a political
party
—
some can be highly organised and internall y discipline d (such as the Dutch Party of Labour) and
others not much more than a collection of different faction s (such as the Japanese Liberal Democratic
Party prior to 1992). Joseph LaPalombara & Myron Weiner (eds), Political Parties and Political
Development (Princeton, 1966).
10
Fish, ‘The Impact of the 1999
–
2000 Parliamentary and Presidentia l Elections …’.
11
Fish, Democracy from Scratch; Golosov, ‘New Russian Political Parties and the Transition to
Democracy …’.
12
White, Wyman & Kryshtanovskaya , ‘Partie s an d Politics in Post-Communist Russia’, p. 199.
13
Ibid., pp. 199
–
200; Sakwa, ‘Parties and the Multiparty System in Russia’, p. 221; see also Fish,
Democracy from Scratch.
14
Huskey, ‘Kyrgyzsta n …’; Colton, ‘Superpresidentialis m and Russia’s Backward State’; P hilip
G. Roeder, ‘Varieties of Post-Soviet Authoritarian Regimes’, Post-Soviet Affairs, 10, 1, 1994, pp.
61
–
101; Fish, ‘The Executive Deception …’.
15
Fish, ‘The Impact of the 1999
–
2000 Parliamentary and Presidential Elections …’, pp. 22
–
23.
16
White, Wyman & Kryshtanovskaya , ‘Parties and Politics in Post-Communist Russia’ ; Moser,
‘The Electoral Effects of Presidentialism ’.
17
Fish, ‘The Impact of the 1999
–
2000 Parliamentary and Presidentia l Elections …’, p. 23 .
18
Ibid. However, according to Fish, Ukraine is ‘an am biguous case’ that possesses some of the
major features of superpresidentialis m but in many ways is different from the other three cases.
19
Timothy Power & Mark J. Gasiorowski , ‘Institutional Design and Democratic Consolidation in
the Third World’, Comparative Political Studies, 30, 2, 1997 , pp. 123
–
155; Ishiyam a & Velten,
‘Presidential Power and Democratic Development …’.
20
Moser, ‘Independent s and Party Formation …’.
21
Moser, ‘The Electoral Effects of Presidentialism ’, pp. 62
–
63.
22
Herbert Kitschelt, ‘Formation of Party Cleavages in Post-communist Democracies: Theoretical
Propositions ’, Party Politics, 1, 3, 1995, pp. 447
–
472; Thomas F. Remington & Steven S. Smith, ‘The
Development of Parliamentary Parties in Russia’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 20, 3, 1995, pp.
457
–
489; Moshe Haspel, Thomas F. Remington & Steven S. Smith, ‘Electoral Institution s an d Party
Cohesion in the Russian Duma’, Journal of Politics , 60, 3, 1998, pp. 417
–
439; Frederic J. Fleron Jr,
Richard Ahl & Finbar r Lane, ‘Where now in the Study of Russian Political Parties’, in Lo¨wenhardt (ed.),
Party Politics …, pp. 224
–
252; John T. Ishiyama, ‘Red Phoenix? The Communist Party in Post-Soviet
Politics’, Party Politics, 2, 2, 1996, pp. 147
–
175; John T. Ishiyama, ‘Red versus Expert: Candidate
Recruitment and Communist Party Adaptation in Post-Soviet Politics’, Party Politics , 4, 3, 1998, pp.
297
–
318; John T. Ishiyama, ‘Political Parties and Candidate Recruitment in Post-Soviet Russian
Politics’, Journa l of Communist Studies and Transition Politic s, 15, 1, 1999, pp. 41
–
69.
23
Remington & Smith ‘The Development of Parliamentar y Parties … ’, p. 457.
24
Ibid., p. 483; see als o Thomas F . Remington & Steve n S. Smith, ‘Theories of Legislative
Institutions and the Organization of the Russian Duma’, American Journal of Political Science, 42, 4,
1998, pp. 545
–
572; Haspel, Remington & Smith, ‘Electoral Institutions and Party Cohesion …’.
Kitschelt also contends that parties are developin g in Russia albeit not programmatic parties, or parties
JOHN T. ISHIYAMA & RYAN KENNEDY1190
that are built to advertise ideals ‘about a desirable society as the collective good they promise to produce
an d to attract activists and leaders ready to propagate and to implement these ideas’. Rather, he argues
that charismatic parties and clientelistic parties are likely to develop in Russia. The charismatic party
is characterise d by ‘not much more than an unstructure d mass of people rallying around a leader’.
Kitschelt, ‘Formation of Party Cleavages …’, p. 449. Such parties are inherently unstable and likely to
disappear, given that in order to maintain allegiance s of followers leaders must sooner or later provide
selective incentives to their constituencie s and enter upon trajectorie s of organisationa l development that
are likely to result in clientelisti c parties in the Russian context. Clientelistic parties are characterise d
by an emphasis on personal patronage , and invest much in creating an organisatio n which effectively
disburses resource s to followers. These parties, however, avoid the costs of coordinatin g the activitie s
of followers since the role of the member is not to believe in a set of ideological goals but to be personally
loyal.
25
Ruth Brown, ‘Party Development in the Regions: When Did Parties Start to Play a Part in
Politics ’, in Lo¨wenhardt (ed.), Party Politics …, pp. 31
–
54.
26
Bruce Parrott, ‘Perspectives on Postcommunist Democratization ’, in Karen Dawisha & Bruce
Parrott (eds), Democratic Changes and Authoritaria n Reactions in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and
Moldova (Cambridge, 1997).
27
Ibid., p. 17.
28
Ibid.
29
Ibid.
30
For illustration s of similar analyses see Moser, ‘Independent s and Party Formation …’; Ishiyama,
‘Red Phoenix? …’; Ishiyama, ‘Re d versus Expert …’; Ishiyama, ‘Political Parties and Candidate
Recruitment …’, pp. 41
–
69.
31
Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, 1968), p. 440; see also
Stein Rokkan, Citizens, Elections, Parties (New York, 1970).
32
Fish, ‘The Executive Deception …’.
33
Fish, ‘The Impact of the 1999
–
2000 Parliamentary and Presidential Elections …’.
34
Joseph A. Schlesinger, ‘On the Theory of Party Organization’, Journal of Politics, 46, 3, 1984,
pp. 369
–
400.
35
Candidate data for election s in Russia for 1995 were derived from Vybory Deputatov
Gosudarstvenno i Dumy 1995 (Moscow, Central Electoral Commission of the Russian Federation
(1996)). For candidates in the 1998 Ukrainian Election see the Ukrainian Central Electoral Commission
web site http://www.cvk.ukrpack.net . For the candidate information for the 199 9 Armenian election see
the Central Electoral Commission web site http://www.elections.am /: For the 2000 Kyrgyz election,
candidate information reported at Kyrgyz Central Electoral Commission url http://cec.bishkek.su /.
36
For the 1995 Russian election cities and towns identi ed as largest cities were obtained fro m the
Russian Federation Electoral Commission Web site at www.fci.ru. Actual city and town population s were
taken from Demogra cheskii ezhegodni k SSSR 1990 (Moscow, Finansy i statistika , 1990), pp. 14
–
26.
For the 199 9 Armenian elections, largest towns in districts were derived fro m precinct locations , reported
at the Central Electoral Commission web site http://www.elections.am/: For the 2000 Kyrgyz election,
the largest towns in districts were identi ed via precinct locations, reported at K yrgyz Central Electoral
Commission url http:// ccc.bishkek.su /. Ukrainian largest cities in districts were reported in the Ukrainian
Central Electoral Commission web site http://www.cvk.ukrpack.net .
37
Hellman, ‘Constitutions and Economic Reform …’; F rye, ‘A Politics of Institutiona l Choice …’.
38
Frye ‘A Politics of Institutional Choice …’ .
39
Fish, ‘The Impact of the 1999
–
2000 Parliamentary and Presidential Elections …’.
40
Power & Gasiorowski , ‘Institutional Design and Democratic Consolidatio n …’; Ishiyama &
Velten, ‘Presidential Power and Democratic Development …’ .
41
Remington & Smith, ‘The Development of Parliamentary Parties …’; Ishiyama & Velten,
‘Presidential Power and Democratic Development …’; Haspel, Remington & Smith, ‘Electoral
Institutions and Party Cohesion …’.
42
Geoffrey Pridham, ‘Southern European Democracies on the Road to Consolidation : A
Comparative Assessment of the Role of Political Parties’, in Geoffrey Pridham (ed), Securing
Democracy: Political Parties and Democratic Consolidation in Souther n Europe (London, 1990), p. 2.
43
Juan J. Linz, paper presented at conferenc e on ‘Political Parties and Democracy’, Washington
DC, 1996; see www.ned.org/pubs/reports/parties.html, p. 1.
44
Peter Mair, paper presented at conferenc e on ‘Political Parties and Democracy’, Washingto n DC,
1996; see www.ned.org/pubs/reports/parties.html, p. 1.
45
There is of course considerabl e concern over whether these parties can remain as stable and
SUPERPRESIDENTIALISM AND PARTY DEVELOPMENT 1191
coherent formations . See Richard Rose, Neil Munro & Stephen White, ‘Voting in a Floating Party
System: The 1999 Duma Election’, Europe-Asia Studies, 53, 3, 2001, pp. 419
–
443.
46
Russell Bova, ‘Political Culture, Authority Patterns, and the Architecture of the New Russian
Democracy’, in H. Eckstein, Frederick Fleron, E. Hoffman & Willia m Reissinge r (eds), Can Democracy
Take Root in Post-Sovie t Russia? (New York, 1998), p. 195.
