Размещено на http: //www. allbest. ru/

FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL

INSTITUTION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Faculty of Social Sciences

Master Thesis

Political opposition in contemporary Russia: socio-political cleavages and party system in comparative perspective

Petrov Ivan Igorevich Field of Study 41.04.04 Political Science

Master's Program “Politics.Economics.Philosophy”

Reviewer Professor Valeriy Georgievich Ledyaev

Scientific Supervisor

Candidate of Sciences (Phd) Boris Igorevich Makarenko

Moscow 2019



Оглавление

• The introduction
• Chapter 1. Political opposition, its concept and measurement
• 1.1 The concept of the political opposition
• 1.2 Classification of the political opposition
• Chapter 2. Political opposition in hybrid regimes
• 2.1 The concept of hybrid regime: approaches and roots.
• 2.2 The study of the political opposition in hybrid regimes
• Chapter 3. Configuration of the political opposition in Russia due to the 2018 presidential elections' content analysis
• 3.1 A general design of the research
• Chapter 4. The structural factors of the incumbent-oppositional relations in Russia due to the comparative cross-country analysis
• Conclusion
• References
• The Appendix



The introduction

political opposition presidential russia

The opposition studies are an important part of modern political science, that combines both the systematic and the comparative aspects.

Considering the world studies, the rise of the new populist movements and the expansion of the alternative concepts of policy and representation, mostly connected with the less democratic, but still competitive models of power relations, pushes us towards the revision of the classic and modern ideas of what opposition is, of how does it function and how does it relate with the things, on which the legitimacy of the political regime is based on. In this field the special issues would be the varieties of opposition and the factors, that determine the patterns and structure of the political field- the institutional context of opposition's strength and weakness.

Considering the Russian Studies, the practical question, concerning the division and the role of the opposition parties, coincide the three other. Firstly, is it possible to use the explanations and categories, elaborated in the different political environment, to represent the Russian politics correctly, in other words, would their implementation let us understand some additional facts about the Russian politics, being simultaneously not contradictory enough to our trivial common knowledge? Secondly, how do the role and position of the Russian opposition correspond to the competitive authoritarian / hybrid regime frames, in other words, how can the differences and similarities with the countries of the certain group can be explained for the political opposition? Thirdly, is it possible to forecast the changes in the behavior of the political opposition in Russia after the possible changes of the institutional / socio-economic frames of Russian politics, basing on the certain comparison and classification?

To address the certain issues, we need to define the object and the subject of our work, and then- its goal and the list of the steps, needed for its accomplishing.

As it can be seen, the object of our research is the political opposition in modern-days Russia.

The subject of our research is a more complex one. As it could be formed basically, the subject is the position of Russian opposition parties within the Russian political environment, considered both the structure of inner political landscape and the impact of factors, that determine the difference from the position of the political opposition parties in the dissimilar countries of the similar competitive authoritarian / hybrid regime type.

So, the general goal of our research is to find:

· What types of opposition do exist in Russia?

· What was the dynamics, that had formed such a pattern?

· What combination of factors had formed such the pattern and the dynamics?

· How does this correspond to the formation of incumbent-opposition relations in other regimes of the competitive authoritarian / hybrid type?

To reach the particular goal we would walk through the several stages, determined by the number of aims.

In the first chapter of our work we would pursuit the certain aims:

· To formulate the scientific definition of the term "political opposition" as it is represented within the modern political science, considering the major distinctions between the concepts;

· To examine the major approaches to the opposition classification, especially the classical ones, to find out their methodological bases and cases of their practical implementation to the Russian studies.

· To use those theories and results of previously made studies to consider the evolution of the Russia political landscape during the post-soviet era from the angle of the incumbent-opposition relations, distinguishing main factors and stages of it.

In the second chapter our aims would be:

· To outline the main features of the competitive authoritarian / hybrid regime theory within the modern political science;

· To reveal the logic of the incumbent and opposition strategic behavior within the institutional sphere of the hybrid regimes;

· To describe the opportunities and the restrictions for the different kind of opposition in the competitive authoritarian / hybrid polities.

In the third chapter we'll try:

· To set the framework for the content-analysis research of the political programs and the political speeches of the candidates, which represented the opposition on the 2018 presidential elections in Russia;

· To represent the research algorithm by the conventional standards of the content-analysis;

· To interpret the results of the research with the outcome of the opposition classification by the group of theoretical schemes from Ch.1.

In the last chapter of our work our aims would be presented in the certain way:

· To set the framework for the comparative case-study research of the political opposition within three competitive authoritarian / hybrid regime polities- Russia, Mexico and Ukraine;

· To implement the comprehensive case-study for each country, following the single order of the description, designed to conduct the consistent testing of the selected variables;

· To interpret the results of the research via the comparative and institutional perspectives, added by the information from Ch.2, to form a descriptive scheme of the variables' interconnection, significant for explanation of the distinction between the positions of the political opposition in Russia and two other polities, including the matter of the dynamics.

The major methodological paradigms, which we would use in our research, are the behavior-based political science, the new institutionalism and the systematic approach.

The first approach would be the basic within the political opposition classification and the regime description, not only because the most of the classic approaches to the political opposition are based on it, but also because of its major intuition that the rules of the game are formed by the behavior of the actors to manage the behavior of the actors, and thus that the actors do mainly differ by the type of their strategic behavior and the general values, standing behind it, but not by the general goal of rational power and profit maximization.

The second approach would be basic during the comparative case-study, as we'll assume, that it is the constitution, both written and unwritten, that forms the conditions, in which the oppositional actors of that or another kind gain the stronger or weaker position with stronger or weaker incentive to pursue for it. Additionally, in our research we'll push from the assumption, that the variables, which fix the impact of the political and socio-economic factors, do influence the finite framework, that we can call the constitution-forming. So, as in the new institutionalism, we'll state, that modern politics should be described in the terms of institutions, taking into account the broader horizon of institutional configurations, evolution and practice.

The third approach would be basic for the connection of the mentioned two, and also for the examination of the particular countries as the political systems, and the oppositional parties- as the representatives of the particular structure of the society, the geographic redistribution of population. Additionally, we'll assume that the support of the political opposition is closely tied to the systematic functions, it must perform, and the viability of the authoritarian formulas- with the appropriate restrictions, used by the incumbent to complicate the implementation of those functions by the opposition in the particular society.

The additional methodic, which we would use during our research would be a content-analysis for the political program and speech analysis in Ch.3 and the case-study in Ch.4. We preferred the certain mixed methods because of the significant effect, their implementation can bring due to particular sample.

In the first case the sample consisted of the large volume of content, waiting for the broader explanative constructions, including the political programs, presented in the text format, and the video recordings, that fixed the behavior of the candidates during the most crucial rounds of the debates. The content-analysis in this case was used not only for the description of certain object by the objectively set criteria, but also for the development of the broader explanative constructions, aimed to reflect the deeply rooted characteristics of the object.

In the second case the sample consisted, firstly, of the countries, different by the series of the key parameters, the distance from the democratic standards and the time of measurement, and secondly, of the variables, represented both by the statistical data and the completed indexes, that required the deep analysis of the object, rather than a simple qualitative testing. The choice of the case-study methodic was made to reduce the sample to the three contrast polities and thus to achieve the opportunity of deeper consideration of the incumbent-opposition relations within the different institutional frameworks, set in the different societies under the influence of the different set, or the quality of the external factors, and thus to use the resources more rational, despite of making the broad, but superficial and topically uninformative classic comparative study.

The literature we'll use in our research could generally be divided on four constituent groups according to the sphere of implementation:

· Firstly, it would include a list of the core opposition studies within the classical and modern political science, including the works of such authors as R.Dahl, J.Linz , O.Kircheimer, A.Downs, S. Lipset and S.Rokkan, M.Shugart and J.Carey, M.Kubat, G.Almond and G.Powell, M.Duverger, R.Katz and P.Mair, R.Inglehart and C.Welzel. L.Hooghe and G.Marks.

· Secondly, there would be used works, devoted to the hybrid (competitive authoritarian) regime studies, including the works of such authors as B.Geddes, L.Diamond, S.Levitsky and L.Way, J.Gandhi and A.Przeworki, B. de Mesquita, J.Hellman, M.Ross, D.Acemoglu and J.Robinson, C.Boix and S.Stokes, M.Slovic, M.Ross, L.Blaydes, D.Treisman.

· Thirdly, it would concern works, devoted to the political opposition in Russian and Ukraine, including those by V.Y.Gelman, G.V.Golosov, B.I.Makarenko, E.U. Meleshkina, O.E.Tolpigina, N.V.Zubarevich, A.S.Achremenko, U.G.Korgunyuka, A.V. Kynev and A.E. Lyubarev.

· Fourthly, it would concern works, devoted to the political opposition in Ukraine and Mexico , including the works by T.Sedelius, S.Berglund, T.Kuzio, P.D'Anieri, A.U.Melvil, K.Greene, B.Magaloni, A. Diaz-Cayeros, B.Weingast.

· Finally, it would include works, that set the methodological framework for the analytical part of our paper, including the works of such authors as A.Lijphart, S.Fish and M.Kroenig, M.Laakso and R.Taagepera, J.Molinar.

Relying on the certain literature, the specific of goals and aims together with some common observations, we possess a set of hypotheses, which we would try to check during our research:

· The first hypothesis is that it's possible to clarify, to compare and classify the oppositional actors in Russia by the implementation of the theoretical schemes and methodology, elaborated within the classical and modern political science by the reference to the cases of other, mostly developed, countries.

· The second hypothesis is that the frameworks of the incumbent-opposition relations in Russia can be explained through the concept of hybrid / competitive authoritarian regime, and that the certain assumption could be empirically verified and confirmed by the conventional research.

· The third hypothesis is based on the assumptions, that there can be found a significant distinction between the particular oppositional actors, embodied on the systematic level, including both the shape of incentives for the oppositional activity and the framework of limits, set by the informal incumbent-oriented authoritarian constitution.

· The fourth hypothesis follows the idea that the current configuration of the political opposition is rather unfair and open for the systematic discrimination, however the base and the degree of such discrimination differs from the similar of the other competitive authoritarian / hybrid regime countries in term of the variables, which describe the prerequisites of the limitation of the political competition as well as those which helped the competition to maintain despite the significant authoritarian tendencies.



Chapter 1. Political opposition, its concept and measurement

1.1 The concept of the political opposition

A concept of opposition dates back to the Latin word oppositus-to oppose, to stand against. In modern era a generally accepted point of view suggests that opposition is the status which can be granted to a group of subjects, who uphold their interests despite the will of the dominant actor. Obviously, the exemplary pattern of the political opposition in Western society dates back to the European parliamentary practice, through which the separated elites lead competition for the promotion of the particular initiatives, offices and decisions. Meanwhile, through the XIX-th century it was possible to observe at least two widespread concepts of opposition, opposite to the parliamentary- the first, spread in the radical discourse, was based on the image of class and national struggle, inspired by the glorification of ancient civil wars, lower estate revolts and organized religious dissidence; the second, spread in the continental conservatism, was based on the image of the neglected voice of blood and soil, possessing the authentic wisdom of folk.

Emergence of cadre and mass parties in the mature industrial societies ended the divergence by the introduction of certain standards. Firstly, the body of the political opposition was equated to the electoral parties, which form the party system within certain regime or struggle against them appealing to legal frames. Secondly, the reason of being political opposition was equated to the political program, containing both the strategy, demands and image of better society. Thirdly, the consistency of the political opposition was closely tied with the capacity of parties to represent the will of the big social groups. Being declared essential for the epoch of modernity, such a frame had dominated in opposition studies, both the descriptive and normative, till the expansion of the political science and the new tendencies in the political life of 1960-s brought some new approaches to how does the political opposition function.

The first approach, based on the political system theory, had rejected assumption of mass party superiority by treating the party institutions as inferior to the organization of the particular functions- aggregation and articulation of interests, recruitment of elites, communication and getting the feedback,- on the particular stage of development. Thus, according to Almond and Powell, while analyzing the role of the political opposition, we need to pay attention not on the party programs and ideologies as things-in-themselves, but on the entire context, provided by the certain parameters, among which we can name:

· The configuration of the dominant goals and means in the political sphere, connected with the particular system of agreements and redistribution priorities.

· The model of the society, based on the certain level of formalization and autonomy of the state institutions and the level of transparency and plurality of the public sphere.

· The set of the efficient public strategies and actors, ready for the long-term political struggle.

· The constitution, based both on the formal norms and values, embodied in the patterns of mass behavior.

The concept of the catch-all party, which was put forward by O. Kirkheimer concerning the post-war European countries, could be seen as the example of such approach in the sphere of our interest. While comparing the dominant strategies and organization of leading opposition parties with the ideal types, described by M.Duverger, Kirkheimer came to the conclusion, that the post-war Europe was facing "the erosion of opposition", as the tough class antagonisms were fading, and interwoven logics of cold war and welfare state building were making parties to distance themselves from both the extreme left and right positions. 40 years later a concept of similar logic was put forward by P. Meir and R. Katz, who suggested that in the post-industrial societies not only hierarchical parties go back in time, but even parties with the extensive organization are out of day because of the state funding policy and rise of the new social movements, network media and local activism. According to Meir and Katz, in epoch of "cartel parties" the engine of opposition is shifting to mass net activity, while parties focus on accumulation of the professional cadres and the electoral campaign management, being informally integrated in current configuration of power.

The second approach, that claims to form a foundation for the description of the political opposition in different countries and aspects, emerged through the 1960-s studies of democratization. In general it is based on the concept of opposition, given by R. Dahl- an American scientist, who treated the actors as units, aimed to adopt their diverse demands to the relatively free environment, and the political actors- as the kind, which have to act in the less free environment, determined by the asymmetric statist relations, despite the fact, that their real demands lie beyond. The political opposition in such context is defined as a group of the actors, which is trying to achieve its demands in the non-political sphere by the political goals, based on the aspiration to change either the ruling class, or constitution, or the political regime despite the will of the dominant actor, that possess exclusive access to the decision-making process. The main issue of the examined approach is how do the actors unite and why does the dominant actor lose his monopoly on public representation.

According to Dahl's theory, the institutionalization of the political opposition as the one that can challenge the dominant actors without the threat to be suppressed and legally discriminated, directly contributes to the transformation of the political system towards democracy, as well as to its modernization, since the economic development erodes the traditional sources of power, provides more complex identities, induces emergence of public sphere and breaks the old social contract with deep cleavages.

Meanwhile, the capacity of dominant actors to concentrate economic resources and use the symbolic violence of state matters much for the shape of the new regime. Thus, if the costs of suppression exceed the costs of competition, the dominant actor has to humble, however the degree of liberalization can differ, as the limited competition can be set both by the exclusion of certain political forces from the relatively fair elections, or by making the elections themselves less fair at the cost of the broader access, thus there is often a space for manipulation in forming the equilibrium in the divided societies. In contrast, if the costs of suppression exceed the costs of the competition, the dominant actors rush towards authoritarian solution. However, if the party system already exists, the authoritarian rollback could be either limited in its influence by the independent actors or transformed towards the exclusive instrument of the elite cooptation and agenda control by the dominant one.

The third fundamental approach to the political opposition is based on the division between the stable and the transitional systems, as well as on the assumptions of path-dependence and the complex foundations of the regimes, connected especially with the structure of cleavages, rooted in modernization. The founders of such approach were S. Lipset and S. Rokkan, whose innovative study applied the framework, which tied the regime fluctuations of the past with the long-term trends for the public polarization, and both of them- with the configuration of the current party systems and points of the discord between the current political actors.

The classical Lipset-Rokkan scheme, built on a retrospective review of the European history, presupposes the following order of cleavages, that formed current political spectrum:

· The cleavage of faith and authority between the state and the church structures of the Reformation times.

· The cleavage of language and identity between the capital and the provinces of the revolutionary era.

· The cleavage of tariffs and enterprise between the liberal order and statism of the industrial century.

· The cleavage between left and right policies within the modern welfare state.

The theoretical predecessor of the theory of cleavages had been the economic theory of democracy, elaborated by A.Downs, which explained the pattern of the divisions in voting by the appeal to the citizen's rationality as a motivation to support not the single party while being a member of stable and absolutely transparent political market. In contrast to such concept of the unaltered rationality, the Lipset-Rokkan theory of cleavages suggests, that the fundamental features of the stable party systems remain inherited from the casual conflict management of the prior transitional systems- the one with the weakened exclusive mechanisms of state control and elite cooptation and the reinforced inclusivity in representation of the group strategies and individual preferences.

Modern updates of the theory of cleavages share different roots, including:

· The line of the recent political culture studies, speaking of the new wide cleavage between the supporters and the opponents of the post-industrial non-materialist values and the idea of the transnationalism;

· The contribution of the studies, dedicated to the constituent coalitions and the constituent elections, helping to see whether the country would be inclined to have polarized, consensus-type, fragmentized or authoritarian type of the incumbent-opposition relations;

· The joint of cleavage theory with the historical institutionalism, aimed to define which combinations of the cleavage challenges used to be traditional for the continuity of the incumbent's rule, and which appeared to be destructive both for him and his semi-opposition opponents.

The verification of the significance of the particular cleavage for the particular political system is conducted in a following way: firstly, through the analysis of the history of the political parties, of their ideological platforms and organization, through the characteristics of their attachment to the particular social groups, areas, program and ideological requirement; secondly, through the analysis of the political cycles, mass and parliamentary voting, protests, sharp public discussions, political positions of public leaders and influential intermediary institutions, of media and memory polarization.



1.2 Classification of the political opposition

The aim of any classification is a deeper understanding of things through the translation of theoretical concepts to the language of the particular cases and interconnections.

The most famous analytical classification of the political opposition was presented by R. Dahl in the series of his works of 1960s, proceeding from the fundamental assumption of his theory that the role of opposition would differ depending on the position of the particular actors according to the electoral limits, public consensus, recruiting and legitimization mechanisms, set by the incumbent. According to Dahl, the most universal theoretical distinction should based on the natural gap between the opposition to policy- the classical opposition, dominant within classical parliaments of democratic and semi-democratic regimes, the principle opposition, the one which challenge the foundations of the regime, its basic principles and values, and the personal opposition, which does not object the policy, but wants the leaders of other view and temper. Such a list could be updated by the semi-opposition, which agenda contains general criticism, but doesn't touch an incumbent in any of the mentioned forms, the imitative opposition, which posses formal features of the political alternative, but is completely loyal to the incumbent and thus is not a kind of opposition actor at all, and the fundamental opposition, which dates back to O. Kirkheimer's idea of the opposition actor whose main goal is not to challenge the dominant actors, but to annihilate any kind of pluralism beyond the particular ideological framework.

Another classification, proposed by J.Linz, is oriented on the term of violence, calling loyal opposition the one, that acts in legal, constitutional frames, the semi-loyal opposition- the one, that marks the rule of the incumbent as vicious and unconstitutional, but keeps itself beyond the violent acts, and the disloyal opposition - the one, that manifests itself through the political violence. According to the classical works by J.Linz, M.Shugart and J.Carey, the principle and semi-loyal types of opposition are more likely to be met within the presidential regimes, than within the parliamentary, where the classical opposition prevails. Meanwhile, the practice shows that this pattern does not work all over the place as much more factors matter.

One of this factors could be a type of elite and party polarization within the political system: would it be a polarized-type system with two main actors of different convictions and social-bases (and thus a harsh conflict or a fundamental value concord in a heart of it), a consensus-type system, based on a social contract, affirmed by the plenty of actors with intercrossed convictions and social-bases (and thus facing "fading" of radical opposition), fragmentized system with vague political spectrum and no equilibrium in number and type of opposition actors, or an authoritarian system polarized by the only issue- the actors' attitude towards the irremovable dominant actor and the perspective of other actors' victory over him. A variable, that doubles the elite and party polarization factor is a regime of relations, including pluralism, based on the independent parties' relations built from bellow, and neopluralism, where these parties are partly dependent and guided by the agenda of entire political system, or corporatism, where parties serve the needs of the state, and neocorporatism, where the state is controlled symmetrically by these parties. Finally, the most influential factor for correct description seems to be a kind of the political regime.

To response a challenge of the classification of opposition in non-democratic regimes or in non-familiar cases of civil discord within the democracies, we can use additional approaches, like those suggested by M.Novak and M.Kubat. Approach, used by Novak, focuses on kind of regimes, that use suppression by double monopoly of incumbent in rough power and communication, thus he can make some opponents the recognized opposition- the one, which is given an opportunity to criticize him publically, to produce the influence through the established play-field, and the other - the unrecognized opposition, whose critics would be ignored by the authorities and whose claims would be marked by media as the insecure and unrepresentative. However, according to Kubat, even in the old democratic regimes, despite the institutionalized opposition, which speaks language of the political goals and tends to form political parties to enter the parliament, there could be another type- the stylistic opposition, embodied in spontaneous mass movements, based on the more or less articulated rejection of the dominant norms and attitudes. From the political system perspective, the Novak's approach is focusing mostly on difference between political participation and pluralism and thus on the different configurations of different hybrid and semi-democratic regimes, concerning such dualism, and Kubat's one is focused mostly on the differences between the political parties and social movements.

Political opposition in Russia: a conceptual framework.

The search for the conceptual framework for the political opposition studies at the Post-Soviet space can be characterized by the three main obstacles: from the point of object of study- by the frames of the electoral authoritarianism, fixed in the most of the Post-Soviet countries, backed by the influential heritage of the totalitarianism; from the point of subject of study- by the lack of consensus about the definitions and methodology due to the immaturity of the national schools of political science; from the point of practical application- by the general discord and exclusion within the Russian political discourse. Because of such biases the most popular approach in the studies of Russian opposition is a historical description of shifts during electoral cycles, a perfect examples of which could be found in the works by G.V. Golosov, E.U.Meleshkina, V.Y.Gelman, U.G.Korgunyuk, A.V.Kynev and A.E.Lyubarev, who focus mostly on party system and the reasons for the democracy failure in 1990-s and 2000-s. According to mentioned authors, the chronology of the Russian party system evolution could be seen in a following way:

· Firstly, during 1989-1993 political circle a fluctuational (unstable) system, dominated by the parliament, emerged as the result of the semi-competitive elections and the Communist monopoly dissolution. Backed by the mass extra-parliamentary street movements of the radical and moderate democrats, the opposition forces came to power in 1991, but by the next year they split by the cleavage between the liberal-federal-reformist forces, that supported president Yeltsin, and the socialist-unionist-conservative forces, that captured the parliamentary majority. Finally, these circumstances had launched the constitution conflict, that lead to the violent crisis of 1993, that changed the parliamentary rule to the presidential.

· Then, during the three electoral cycles of 1993-2003 the party system evolved to the peripheral (weakened) kind as the reformist coalition lost to the populist forces during the 1993 elections, the communist opposition failed to come to the productive solution of budget and cabinet issues, despite its dominance in parliament during the 1995-1999 cycle, and the faction of the regional elites "Fatherland-All Russia" had lost its crusade against the Kremlin and thus surrendered to the winner in early 2000-s. Meanwhile, it was that period when the electoral patterns, as well as a stable partisan configuration, were born, including the incumbent's "party of power" of the redistributive and clientalist origin, CPRF as the main oppositional mass party actor of the socialist-conservative ideology, YABLOKO as a hard democratic alternative, SPS as a semi-opposition of the pro-market forces, LDPR as a semi-opposition of the nationalist forces and the Agrarians as the alliance of CPRF.

· Finally, during the two electoral cycles of 2003-2011, the periphery system evolved to the facade (imitative) as the elections lost competitiveness, and Kremlin became the only benefactor of Russian politics. Through this period SPS and YABLOKO had been limited in the resources and failed to resume the representation within the parliament, LDPR and newly created leftist "Fair Russia" had to obey the will of the incumbent, CPRF lost its bargain power, and opposition activity moved to the spheres of the local activism, narrow-base radical and broader-base civic movements.

The attempt to combine the descriptive approach with the analytic classification of opposition actors was made by V. Y. Gelman in the article "Political Opposition in Russia: an Endangered Species", in which he highlighted four main periods of its evolution according to the three variables- the elite structure, the political institutions and the dominant party type according to the concepts of J.Linz and R.Dahl.

According to Gelman, the main factor, which backed the rise of opposition in Russia, was the elite division, and the main factor, which launch the decline of the political opposition, was the consolidation of the super-presidentialism. Additionally, Gelman highlighted the crucial role of localization of the post-1993 cleavages in bitter fate of the Russian democracy: thus, according to Gelman, the communist principal opposition was been able to succeed only with the low level of the anti-Kremlin elite fragmentation, so it was not been able to succeed at all without changing the agenda; in contrast, the weaker democrats used to flourish just thank to the elite fragmentation, because of which the liberals, interested mostly in the resolute market reforms, found it reasonable to join Kremlin at the growth of his power, despite the strong intercrossing of their goals with the democrats' ones. Eventually, according to Gelman, Russian opposition had "died out" as it hadn't given birth to any classical, compromise & policy oriented, kind of itself.

Table 1

Evolution of the political opposition in Russia by V.Y.Gelman
The time period	Elite structure	Political institutions	Dominant opposition type
1989-1991	The disintegration of the ideocratic elite, the deepening of the political differentiation	The emergence of the parliamentary representation	Loyal principal opposition
1991-1993	Divided elite, low level of integration and differentiation	The president-parliament confrontation	Disloyal principal opposition
1993-2000	Fragmented elite, high differentiation	Super presidentialism	Loyal principal opposition and semi-opposition
2000-2008	Recreation of the ideocratic elite, differentiation reduces, integration increases	Super presidentialism	"Dying" principal opposition and semi-opposition



Another stream of the Russian studies in field of the political opposition addresses the Lipset-Rokkan cleavage theory. One of the particular research was conducted by E.U.Maleshkina and O.E.Tolpigina aimed to define the commitment of the political parties over the cleavage lines within the 2007-2011electoral cycle:

Table 2

Party	The most important issues	The issues of medium importance	The less important issues
United Russia	Politics		Rural areas
CPRF	Politics	Economy Regions	Rural areas Religion
LDPR	Politics	Regions	Religion
Fair Russia		Economy Regions	Postmaterialism
YABLOKO	Politics		Economy Postmaterialism Euro integration Religion
PravoeDelo		Politics	Euro integration

As it is shown in the table, at the end of 2000-s the most important issue, which highlighted the claims for pro-incumbent or oppositional orientation, was the political one, while the problems of economy and social sphere played rather important role only within left-wing parties' agenda. Among other results should be mentioned that postmaterialist cleavage found no representation by the most of the parties, as well as the problem of regions within the liberal-democratic parties' agenda, and for the party of incumbent no other issue was found important enough, but the political one.

The same research, conducted by B.I.Makarenko and co-authors in 2015 came with the particular results:



Table 3

Dimension	Issue importance (from 1=important to 0=unimportant)
Socio-economical	1
State-Religion	0
Center-Periphery	0,5
Urban-Rural	0
Support of the incumbent	1
International policy	0,5
Postmaterialism	0,5

The different approach was shown by U.G.Korgunyuk and A.S.Ahremenko, who used the cluster analysis to reveal the most significant issues for the candidates and the voters on the elections from 1993 to 2018. What they had found was a strong division of opposition on the liberal-right (YABLOKO, SPS) and the paternalist-left (CPRF, LDPR, Fatherland) groups.

The third root of the political opposition studies in Russia concerns sociology and the extension of modernization processes in matter of the regional and social origin of the opposition and incumbent supporters.

Thus, the cluster-analysis, made by B.I. Makarenko on the base of the poll data of 2011-2012, picked out the two groups- a rather wealthy, urban, mostly male supporters of the protest wave of Bolotnaya, ready to vote for the moderate democrats and such figures as M.Prohorov (19,4% of the respondents), and a rather left-minded, pro-authoritarian and mostly aged group of the loyal supporters of CPRF and LDPR, which are less ready to compromise and are more fond of the radical street movements (18,9% of respondents). Meanwhile, the group of the incumbent supporters also turned up not being homogeneous, possessing potential apostates from the group of the mid-income voters, concerned with progress in well-being (22,8% of respondents), and the group of the power-admirers, concerned with the need of the stronger hand in power (18,5% of respondents).

N.V. Zubarevich conducted the similar research, but related to the regional persective. According to her studies, there is a "first Russia" of the growing big cities, which is already open for the support of the democratic opposition cause of the postmaterialistand civil values' spread, a "second Russia" of the stagnating periphery regions, whose loyalty to the incumbent is based on the rough materialist demands and may proceed to spontaneous opposition movements, lead by the CPRF and LDPR leaders in a case of dissatisfaction, and a "third Russia" of rural and semi-rural origin, the most apolitical, aged and rigid-minded.

To conclude we can state that in contemporary Russia the modernization in general tends to create more broad support for the opposition of democratic origin. The second conclusion would be that while there can't be seen any sharp cleavages, able to fetter the incumbent's capacity to rebuilt its base of support in case of the majority of population, the reduction in economy and social transfers can create growth of dissatisfaction.



Chapter 2. Political opposition in hybrid regimes.

2.1 The concept of hybrid regime: approaches and roots

The method of the reduction of the political objects to classifications, based on the primary features, dates back to Plato and Aristotle, who primary postulated an idea of natural cycle of governance, which shift is rooted in the universal regularities of institutional and psychological nature. The centuries later the modern political science came up with an idea of the division between the form of the governance- the general distribution of the authority within the body of governance, the political system- the general frame of the political process, mainly associated with the state, and the regime- the organization of power achievement, implementation and retirement within the particular political system. Meanwhile, the accents were different in different times: although in the political science of 1960-s much of attention was given to the research of political systems and the two kind of regimes- the modern electoral democracy and the totalitarian rule of right and left origins, after the "third wave" of democratization the scientific interest was mainly captured by the divisions within the non-totalitarian and still non-democratic countries.

The example of such an interest can be a work of B.Geddes, the manager of the GWF project, that classified the authoritarian regimes by their evolution for a century. Following the approach by J.Linz, who defined democracy as a regime, that allows the free formation of mass preferences through the broad range of the legally ensured freedoms and the regular change of leaders, and the authoritarianism as its contrast, Geddes distinguished the three kind of authoritarian rule, that differ in their approaches towards the articulation of interests, social exclusion and redistributive policy: the military regimes, the one-party regimes and the personal regimes. The regimes of the first group, even if they posses parliamentary rule or prominent figures ahead, are ruled by the collective junta, which relies on the loyalty of armed men. Such the regimes are seen to be dangerous both for the instable democracies, not able to legitimize themselves, and for the personal authoritarianisms, which block all other sources of discontent articulation. However, most military regimes don't have the long lives: in most of the cases political contradiction soon broke the ruling coalition and made the military to retreat and transfer the power or to be deposed. The one-party regimes, in contrast, shows the most pronounced funds of stability, as they rely on the dominant parties, which implement the electoral policy of redistribution, corporatism, elite representation and cleavage management. However, it is a one-party regime that only can be deposed on the elections in circumstances of deep crisis and forced liberalization. The personal regimes are those, that are the least like to democratize, as their existence is based on the figure of leader, who stands at their head. However, it is the personal authoritarianism which possess the largest number of shades, as to survive it has to adopt the elements of the military and one-party rule, the military and one-party rule, electoral democracy and totalitarianism.

Although the classification by Geddes is one of the most well-known, the great varieties of authoritarianism, united just by the application of exclusion policy and the negligence of the democratic standards, can be examined from the different points of view. Thus, as well as the criteria for the exclusion can be different both for the political reasons and structural ones, we can define such types as the traditional or the modernized, the patrimonial or the bureaucratic, the fundamentalist or the pragmatic authoritarianisms. On other hand, the indirect approach, that characterize authoritarianism from point of its concrete trajectory is also much popular in studies, especially post-soviet. According to the work by J.Linz, a possible solution can be found through the selection of key features of authoritarianism and the examination of their implementation by different non-democratic systems. Among those key features, according to J.Linz, are the avoidance of strong ideology and long pro-regime mass mobilization, and secondly- the reflection of the current structure of the society, or more exactly, the current structure of inequality, available for the institutional fixation.

Basing on the last idea, we can shift to the concept of hybrid regime- the one which dates back to the J.Linz's pseudo-democracies- the regimes without the majority-based rotation of power, that use, however, the democratic mechanisms to solve the dilemma of the authoritarian limitations to improve the legitimacy and representation, but not the representation of entire people's will. The first case of the "hybrid regime" implementation in the empirical comparative studies was the illiberal democracy concept by G.O'Donnell and P.Schmitter- the term, which was used for the description of both flawed transitional regimes, democracies with limits in free and full suffrage and autocracies, friendly to rule of law and civil freedoms, while observing the controversial results of the "third way" democratization. The current state of the discussion, however, pushes off from the two articles by L.Diamond (1999) and S.Levitsky, L.Way (2002), which not only had formed the idea, what hybrid regime is and how does it emerge and function, but also had presented the two alternative approaches to the subject, that have been updated by their original and some new authors till the recent moment.

According to the line of Diamond, the hybrid regime is a broad term, that refer to the existed multiparty, electoral, but still undemocratic regimes, such as Mexico, Malaysia, Pakistan or Georgia, which were the product of the "third wave of democratization", or, more exactly, the processes, that stood behind it: the loss of the tolerance to autocracies within the international order, the decline of the communist and statist ideologies, the rise of the middle-class, the development of global trade, the emergence of the new social movements. The hybrid regimes, in Diamond's review, hold a fluent position between the traditional democracies and autocracies, manifesting themselves in a mix of the institutional practices and the flexible adaptation of both the democratic and the "pure autocratic" heritage.

Meanwhile, the range of the hybrid regime's orientations can vary a lot. Thus, if in formally democratic regime the incumbent posses a unique casting voice in parliament and can manage the results of the electoral campaigns, it is called the electoral autocracy. And if in formally democratic regime the standards are neglected or replaced, but the incumbent can still face a potential challenge in parliament, can tighten the electoral rules and collect extra resources, but can't manage the results of the electoral campaigns, it is called the semi-competitive one or just temperately hybrid.

According to the line of Levitsky and Way, the hybrid regime is a rather vague term, that refers to the intercross of democratic, flawed and authoritarian practices, but which reflects no particular logic of power relations and institutions, for which does the political science aspire. In contrast, according to Levitsky and Way, the object of our thoughtful study must be the competitive authoritarianism- the authoritarian rule, which belongs to the group of the authoritarianisms and follows their logic, but which comes across the unpredictability of outcomes and the independence of actors in several important areas. The main line of division between the competitive authoritarianism is seen by the authors as deducted mainly by the degree of Western linkage and leverage and balance between the incumbent's ability to suppress and the ability of his opponents to resist.

The Western linkage factor includes intensive financial and cultural ties, free information translation, direct support of the human rights movements and NGO's, consultation of civil opposition activists and reformist factions in government. The Western leverage factor includes the capacity of Western countries to isolate and loosen the key support groups of authoritarianism due to their military and economic dependence from the developed. According to the research, the high degree of both linkage and leverage are correlated with a path to the electoral democracy, as it can be seen in Eastern Europe. The law level of linkage and leverage, in contrast, is correlated with the non-competitive authoritarianisms, like in Central Asia. The medium level of linkage and leverage or their unequal ratio induces, according to Levitsky and Way, induces dependence of competition parameter from the ration between the richer financing of military, police and secret agencies, the higher cohesion of dominant party cadres and local elites on one hand, and the richer or more independent society, its influence on media and firmer traditions of civil and business activity, on the other.

In contrast, the approach of Diamond refers to the implementation of more plural explanative logic. Thus, one of the factors, which can be tied with the less degree of competitiveness in formally democratic state, according to his paradigm of hybrid regimes, is a high share of the oil rent in the state budget, which effect, according to M.Ross, can be extensively help to weaken the pressure from private business and civil society, to fix the patrimonial patterns and to support declining traditional groups of power. Among the other factors, which can induce the authoritarian throwbacks within democracies or vice versa there could be named the institutional traditions, the ethnic and cultural homogeneity, the equality level, the state openness.

Thus, according to C.Boix and S.Stokes, the higher transparency and mobility of the elites' capital, combined with the positive estimation of democratization trend and foreign leverage, often pushes the mid-income countries, even of initially close origin, towards the application of democratic (parliamentary, one person = one vote) approach to redistribution. According to J.Hellman, in contrast, the early winners of the radical shifts in the easily captured economies, like the oil-rich and the post-soviet ones, tend to cooperate against the formation of democratic institutions, being simultaneously the most consistent rivals of the pre-reform authoritarian retrieval. The D.Acemoglu, S.Johnson and J.Robinson model implements the same logic to the post-colonial countries, examining strategic choice of not the current elites or the early winners, but of the administration, local activists and the political entrepreneurs of the past, who had been unintentionally establishing the core institutions of future state, being either oriented on the short-term rent-seeking or ideological perspectives, or on the long term goals of settlement, economic development and alliance building.