Tkachenko, N. S. Russian Political Opposition: An Attempt of Diagnostics and Prognosis

Abstract: The article is devoted to various classifications of political oppositions created by both Western and Russian researches. Due to the fact that Russian opposition did not have an actual institutional enforcement and was beyond the political system or were considerably dependent on he ruling group for a pretty long period of time, one of the main criteria for classification of Russian opposition parties became the degree of loyalty towards the ruling authority (Linz’ typology) and its involvement into the political party. Based on Linz’ characteristics, the author of the article analyzes the party system of modern Russia and relations between various political parties and dominating party before 2000 and after 2000. The article proves that in 2000, when the country got a new leader and policy, party strategies considerably changed, too, and became more loyal towards the ruling authority, losing the support of their traditional votes at the same time. The article also describes the beginning of election campaign for candidates to the State Duma in 2011 and predicts the results of the future elections.

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