ABSTRACT
Russian democracy has had many defects, but one of the most important has been the lack of meaningful parties to structure choices for the electorate. Even when the 1993 election law forced the creation of parties by having half the Duma deputies elected by party list and giving the parties having strong incentives to run candidates in the districts, the fourteen parties that appeared on the ballot still did not give the electorate a meaningful choice. None was the equivalent of a U.S. Democratic, British Labour, or German Social-Democratic Party. The closest approximation to a conservative party in the Western sense—Russia’s Choice—opposed big business and the pro-tariff policy that conservative parties always adopt in the early and middle stages of capitalist development!
