Russian Political Parties Online

Reykjavík.
Day two at ECPR 2011 starts with a paper by Sarah Oates, whose focus is on Russian political parties online. Generally, Russian political parties don’t function like democratic parties; they are coopted by state interests, and this is true especially for the parties supporting the current regime. Does a presence on the Internet reflect or transform them, however?

United Russia is the largest political party in Russia, with 64% of the vote in 2007; minor parties include the Communists (12%), Liberal Democrats (8%), and A Just Russia (8%). Sarah coded these parties’ Websites for their approaches to providing information, as well as the nature of their content and their interlinkage with other Websites.

The United Russia Website consolidates its image as the state party; there is limited interactivity, and relatively outdated information. The Communists have an even more old-fashioned ‘1.0’ Website, but also use their site to source information about state failures and mismanagement. The extremist Liberal Democrats are a personality party with a more polished Web (and Twitter) presence; A Just Russia gives off the impression of a very scared opposition party, but is also the only one to address the upcoming elections (in three months) so far.

The online population in Russia has exploded in recent years; there will be 98% of Internet penetration for people under 40 soon. At that point, will government propaganda still work? It will be interesting in particular to track the Putin youth group, and see how it weathers this changing environment…