ABSTRACT
In 1999-2000 the Kremlin had been able to beat off the challenge posed by
various parties led by the likes of Luzhkov and Primakov, and in its place
had created its own organisation, Unity, which not only countered the threat
but also acted as the core of a pro-presidential bloc in the Third Duma
(2000-3). Many observers at that time noted that civil and political society
were weak, unable to constrain the actions of the political authorities or to ensure accountability. As a Russian study put it: ‘Civil society remains in an
embryonic condition and can only to a very limited degree define the domestic
or foreign policies of the state . . . there is a gulf between the views of the elite and the majority of the population on a number of questions’.2 The
gulf between the ruling elite and the broader political community became
sharper as Putin’s leadership progressed, although his bond with the people
remained strong. Russian political identity was fragmented and political
representation distorted, while Moscow’s authority rang as a distant bell in large parts of the country. At the heart of Putin’s state building project was
the attempt to homogenise political space and to stamp the Kremlin’s author-
ity on political processes everywhere. How he tried to do this and to what
extent he succeeded we shall examine below.
