ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the effects of party finance regulation on party fragmentation and party survival in Russia from 1993 till 2019. It presents the over-time changes in regulation of direct, indirect state and private funding, oversight and sanctions. The original data-set encompasses the financial data from the official reports of five political parties: the United Russia, the Just Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) and the Yabloko. We conclude that the regulation first supports the development of political parties as electoral and representative institutions with variable forms of registration, direct state subsidies for campaigning and first caps and bans on private donations. Since 2001 political parties receive direct state subsidies as they become the dominant and desirable form of political organisation. Our analysis shows that the state subsidies along cannot ensure the survival of small political parties in Russia and rather favour established political parties, primarily those in the parliament. Political parties in the parliament highly depend on the direct state support, need less to rely on private donations and membership fees. This finding makes Russia a typical case among the European countries with the parliamentary parties being primarily financed from the state subsidies.
