Emerging Party Systems in Post-Soviet Societies: A Study of Party Activists

最近的政治学文献反映了关于后苏联社会政党和政党制度的形成越来越多的争议。 这场争论的最终结果对我们基本理解政党制度如何形成以及政党在发展中民主国家中发挥的作用具有影响。 实质性辩论的重点是，前苏联新独立国家中出现的政党是否表现出使我们能够得出结论认为它们构成竞争性多党制的政治特征。 在这一问题的任何一方都出现了两个截然不同的阵营。 一部分学者借鉴传统的政党形成理论，认为在后共产主义国家形成制度化的政党制度将是一个漫长而艰巨的过程，因为这些社会缺乏以前的多党社会化。 他们认为当前的后苏联政党是短暂的，在政策偏好上缺乏坚实的基础，因此只不过是该党领导人的粉丝俱乐部。 与此相反，最近的研究表明，后苏联公民中认同某个政党并投票给他们认同的政党的比例迅速上升。 迄今为止，双方在这场辩论中提出的经验证据都是有限且不确定的。 这项调查提供了关于俄罗斯、乌克兰和立陶宛的第一个比较数据，其中包括关于政党组织、选民政党和政府政党目前所达到的制度化水平的直接可比证据。 调查员先前的研究提供了关于选民和政府中政党的数据。 本研究对作为组织的政党进行了系统的研究。 关于政党结构和政党积极分子态度的信息是通过对俄罗斯和乌克兰各400名政党积极分子和领导人以及立陶宛200名政党积极分子的面对面调查访谈获得的。 由此产生的数据集提供了对这三个后苏联社会党组织的第一次全面考察。 这些数据为未来研究这些新民主国家的政党发展提供了基准。 该数据集将是非常有用的学者感兴趣的政党出现在前苏联的新民主国家。

Recent political science literature reflects a growing controversy regarding the formation of political parties and party systems in post-Soviet societies. The eventual outcome of the controversy holds implications for our basic understanding of how party systems form and the role parties play in developing democracies. The substantive debate is focused on the questions of whether or not the political parties that have emerged in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union exhibit the types of political characteristics that allow us to conclude that they constitute a competitive multi-party system. Two distinct camps have emerged on either side of this query. One set of scholars, drawing upon traditional theories of party formation, argue that the formation of institutionalized party systems in post-Communist states will be a long and arduous process because these societies lack previous multi-party socialization. They see the current post-Soviet parties as ephemeral, lacking a firm foundation in policy preferences, thus reflecting nothing more substantial than a fan club for the party's leader. On the opposite side of the argument, recent research reveals a rapid rise in the proportion of post-Soviet citizens who identify with a political party and who vote for the party with which they identify. To date the empirical evidence presented in this debate, on both sides, has been limited and inconclusive. This investigation provides the first comparative data on Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania that incorporates directly comparable evidence on the level of institutionalization currently attained by party organizations, parties in the electorate and the parties in government. Prior research of the investigator provides the data on parties in the electorate and in government. This study carries out a systematic study of parties as organizations. Information on party structures and the attitudes of party activists is obtained through face-to-face survey interviews with 400 party activists and leaders in each of Russia and Ukraine, and 200 party activists in Lithuania. The resulting dataset provides the first comprehensive examination of party organizations in these three post-Soviet societies. The data provide a benchmark for future studies of party development in these new democracies. The dataset will be of great use to scholars interested in political party emergence in new democracies of the former Soviet Union.