Central to the first dimension of rule identified in Chapter 1, the structuring of public political activity, is the design of an electoral system that provides an element of competition while ensuring the regime remains relatively unchallenged. Under Yeltsin, steps were taken in this direction, but it was not until Putin came to power that the electoral system seemed, at least until 2011, to function smoothly for the regime. After briefly surveying the role and means of structuring the electoral system, this chapter explains how the Yeltsin and Putin administrations sought to constrain electoral challenge and how this was more successful under the latter than the former.

A central aspect of the regime's perceived need to constrain political activity was how to handle the political parties that had emerged during the latter stages of the perestroika period and those that developed after 1991. Given the rhetorical commitment shared by all of the elite to “democracy,” even if this was interpreted in different ways by different sections of that elite, there was general agreement that the post-Soviet system had to include elections within which those parties could participate. The problem that this posed for that section of the elite that was unwilling to countenance the challenge to their positions that a genuinely democratic structure would have involved was how to structure electoral competition in such a way as to be able to retain a claim to democracy while blunting the potential challenge that could emanate through this. The result was an electoral system commonly identified as electoral or competitive authoritarian. Where this sort of electoral system is working properly, regular elections are held, competition exists, but the ruling party is not really challenged. This use of democratic processes without democratic substance creates a whole dynamic of politics that differs from both classic authoritarian and democratic polities.