Noble, BH; (2018) Parliamentary politics in Russia. In: Sakwa, R and Hale, HE and White, S, (eds.) Developments in Russian Politics 9. (pp. 42-59). Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, UK.

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Abstract

In the early 1990s, parliamentary politics was at the heart of Russian politics. It was the deadlocked battle for supremacy between the Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, and the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, Ruslan Khasbulatov, that ended with the shelling of the White House – the-then seat of Russia’s permanent parliament. This violent confrontation ultimately claimed the lives of many in Moscow, with upper estimates reaching 1,000 people (see the chapter on contentious politics). Now, the Federal Assembly is dismissed as a mere ‘rubber stamp’ – a body that unthinkingly nods through decisions made by the Presidential Administration and the government. What changed? How did we get from violence to passivity, from parliament being at the centre of political life, to it (apparently) playing a largely peripheral, symbolic role? This chapter will tell the story of federal-level parliamentary politics in post-Soviet Russia. Although it might be tempting to narrate a simple account, moving from violence and confrontation to conformity and control, the chapter will also underscore events that complicate this narrative. The chapter will also touch on a more fundamental question: Does it even make sense to approach studying the Russian Federal Assembly as a ‘real’ parliament – as a branch of government that plays a meaningful, independent role in the political life of the country? Just because we call a body a legislature, does it follow that we should assume it performs the ‘roles’ and ‘functions’ traditionally associated with such institutions in democracies? In engaging with this issue, the chapter will discuss the recent literature on political institutions in non-democratic regimes, which is part of wider scholarship on neo-institutionalism. Before getting there, however, the chapter will begin with some necessary historical context: the place of parliaments in the Soviet Union.

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