The European Think Tank with a Global Outlook Putin’s ‘Party of Power’ and the Declining Power of Parties in Russia Andrei Kunov, Mikhail Myagkov, Alexei Sitnikov and Dmitry Shakin April 2005 First published in 2005 by The Foreign Policy Centre 49 Chalton Street London NW1 1HY UNITED KINGDOM Email:
[email protected] © Foreign Policy Centre 2005 All rights reserved ISBN: 1 903558 64 6 ii About the Authors Andrei Kunov is a Senior Economist at the Institute for Open Economy in Moscow. He is also a PhD candidate in Political Science at Stanford University. Andrei has published several articles and a book on Russia’s transition to democracy and a market economy. He also holds an MA in International Economics from Newcastle University in the UK, an MA in Politics from Central European University in Budapest, and a BA from Kazakhstan State University. Mikhail Myagkov is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon. Mikhail received his Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the California Institute of Technology in 1997. He is the author of numerous articles on Russian elections and the political system. His fields of expertise include Comparative Politics (East Europe and Russia), Formal Political Theory, Game Theory and Statistical Methods. Alexei Sitnikov is a Senior Economist at the Institute for Open Economy in Moscow. In addition to an MA in Political Science from Stanford University, Alexei holds an MA in Political Science and Transition Economics from Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, where his research focused on constitutionalism in the Russian Federation.