ABSTRACT
In the decade-and-a-half since the first free multi-party elections in Russia, both the political system and the political consulting industry have developed substantially. In recent years the political system has come to be dominated by the so-called ‘parties of power’ – parties set up by the incumbent elite and strongly backed with administrative and other resources. But to what extent can their success be attributed to successful marketing alone? This chapter analyzes the development of the political consulting industry and the marketing techniques used by Russian political parties in the context of the framework elaborated elsewhere in this volume. Russia is often referred to as a ‘managed’ democracy, in which there is heavy influence by the political elite on the institutional framework of elections, but within which competition still exists. As will be seen below, the country differs from many of the other cases in this book on a number of aspects.
