| ID | 136926 |
| Title Proper | Political opposition in Russia |
| Other Title Information | a troubled transformation |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Gel'man, Vladimir |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | In the mid-2000s, the decline of opposition politics in Russia was so sharp and undisputed that the title of an article I wrote at the time, ‘Political Opposition in Russia: A Dying Species?’ (Gel'man 2005) met with little objection. At that time, the impact of the opposition was peripheral at best. The ‘party of power’, United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya—UR), dominated both nationwide (Remington 2008) and sub-national (Ross 2011) legislatures, and the few representatives of the opposition exerted almost no influence on decision making. The share of votes for the opposition parties (in far from ‘free and fair’ elections) was rather limited (Gel'man 2008; Golosov 2011). Even against the background of the rise of social movements in Russia, anti-regime political protests were only able to gather a minority of 100 or so participants, while environmental or cultural protection activists deliberately avoided any connections with the political opposition, justly considering being labelled ‘opposition’ as an obstacle to achieving positive results (Gladarev & Lonkila 2013; Clement 2013). In other words, political opposition in Russia was driven into very narrow ‘niches’ (Greene 2007), if not into ghettos, and spectators were rather gloomy about the chances of its rebirth. |
| `In' analytical Note | Europa-Asia Studies Vol.67, No.2; Mar.2015: p.177-191 |
| Journal Source | Europe-Asia Studies Vol: 67 No 2 |
| Standard Number | Russia |