The Electoral Policy of Russia in the Early Twenty-First Century as a Managed Power Legitimacy

Abstract

The article traces the main changes of electoral politics in modern Russia, describes the features developed electoral processes. It is noted that during the first electoral cycle elections in Russia took place the real manifestations of political struggle, competition, and, especially at the regional level, had quite unpredictable in nature. The situation began to change after the adoption of the Federal law «On political parties» from 2001 which recognized the triggering effect to the Russian nationalization of the party system. Further processes of development of Institute of elections was associated with increasing authoritarian trends in the implementation of the electoral process, the use of administrative resources at all stages of the electoral mechanism and the suppression of opposition sentiment. The result of the analysis of the processes was the author’s attempt to capture the most important trends in the electoral politics of the state, which introduced a new system of legitimation of power, with the aim of ensuring the unity and stability of society in the interests of the ruling elite. Such resistance society provides for its consolidation around the state in its current model. The work concludes that the electoral process over time becomes more manageable, and the object eventually becomes not only the election procedure, but the intended result of election procedures. In addition, the article presents the thesis of continuing the institutionalization of elections in the country and search for the model of electoral regulations that would best meet the needs of the ruling political elite. At the same time, electoral behavior and public opinion is largely susceptible to changes under the influence of ongoing political transformations.