ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the party’s involvement in the parliamentary election campaigns of 1993, 1995, 1999 and 2003. It provides an explicitly qualitative approach based on in-depth interviews. The book suggests that Yabloko’s electoral decline can be explained by the complex interplay between a range of endogenous and exogenous factors. It discusses the societal and institutional factors that may affect the development of political parties and examines how these factors have shaped the nature of the Russian party system. The book argues that the major cross-cutting social cleavages identified by Lipset and Rokkan22 as providing the basis for party competition, do not exist in Russia. It describes the origins of the Yabloko party by examining the democratic movement in Russia from the late Soviet period to the first State Duma elections in 1993.
