Emerging Party Systems in Post-Soviet Societies: How Developed Are They?

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形成的日益激烈的争论。这场争论的最终结果对基本理解政党制度如何形成以及政党在发展中的民主政体中所扮演的角色具有重要意义。实质性辩论的重点是前苏联新独立国家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了竞争性多党制的政治特征的问题。在这一质疑的两边都出现了两个截然不同的阵营。一组学者借鉴了传统的政党形成理论，认为后共产主义国家制度化政党制度的形成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昙花一现的，在政策分歧方面缺乏坚实的基础，因此反映出的只不过是党的领导人的粉丝俱乐部。与争论相反的是，90年代初至90年代中期的研究显示，认同某个政党并投票给他们认同的政党的后苏联公民比例迅速上升。其他工作还显示了新独立国家议会中政党派系的发展。总体而言，这项研究支持内生政党形成理论，该理论认为，政党、党派支持甚至可能是政党制度可以相对较快地形成，以应对当代政治事件和问题或意识形态两极分化。拟议的研究提供了关于俄罗斯和乌克兰的第一个比较数据，其中包括关于政党组织、选民中的政党和政府中的政党目前达到的制度化程度的直接可比证据。这项提案寻求的是为清理、记录、分析和发布最近收集的四个数据集提供资金，这些数据集将政党作为组织(基于对政党活动人士的调查)和作为选民中的政党(基于对普通公民的可比调查)进行处理。这些数据一旦被清理和记录下来，将提供对后苏联社会党组织的第一次全面检查。这些数据将为未来对这些新民主国家政党发展的任何研究提供基准。此外，结合对普通公民和议会成员的调查数据，这项研究有望为上文概述的政党组建辩论提供最明确的答案。此外，这项研究有望为政党是否在普通公民与其民选代表之间提供联系的方式发挥作用的问题提供新的线索。当这些数据被发布给普通学术界进行二次分析时，许多其他实质性问题也可以用这些数据来解决。

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 a basic understanding of how party systems form and the role parties play in developing democracies. The substantive debate is focused on the question 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, argues 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 differences, thus reflecting nothing more substantial than a fan club for the party's leader. On the opposite side of the argument, research from the early to mid-90s 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. Other work also shows the development of party factions within the parliaments of the newly independent states. Collectively this research supports theories of endogenous party formation which suggest that parties, partisan support and possibly even party systems can form relatively quickly in response to contemporary political events and issue or ideological polarization. The proposed study provides the first comparative data on Russia and Ukraine that incorporates directly comparable evidence on the level of institutionalization currently attained by party organizations, parties in the electorate and the parties in government. What this proposal seeks is funding for cleaning, documenting, analyzing and releasing four recently collected data sets that deal with political parties as organizations (based on surveys with party activists) and as parties in the electorate (based on comparable surveys with ordinary citizens). These data, once they are cleaned and documented, would provide the very first comprehensive examination of party organizations in post-Soviet societies. The data will provide a benchmark for any future studies of party development in these new democracies. In addition, when combined with the survey data on ordinary citizens and parliamentary members this study promises to provide the most defmitive answer to the party formation debate outlined above. Moreover, the study promises to shed new light on the question of whether or not political parties function in a manner that provides a link between ordinary citizens and their elected representatives. Many other substantive questions could also be addressed with these data when they are released to the general academic community for secondary analysis.