The last resort of political regionalism: electoral blocs in Russia's regional legislative elections, 2003-2005

A key element of the agenda of re-centralisation launched by the Russian authorities in the early 2000s was the territorial penetration of national political parties. This analysis empirically demonstrates that despite all efforts at institutional engineering, political regionalism survived and flourished in the form of regional electoral coalitions (blocs) in 2003-2005, which created a crucial obstacle to the pro-government party's monopolistic control over regional legislatures. While this obstacle was removed during the process of authoritarian transformation, recent developments in Russian politics suggest that there is a potential for the return of political regionalism.