Class, markets and partisanship in post-Soviet Russia: 1993-96

Between 1993 and 1996 Russia underwent a rapid transition to the marker and , through a number of electoral iterations, saw considerable development in its party system, in particular the revival of support for the Communist P arty. Each or all of these precesses may have had important consequences fo r the character of social cleavages, especially those associated with class position. In this paper we consider the extent to which the relationship b etween social class and partisanship may have changed in Russia during this period, and how any such changes may be accounted for in terms of voters' experience of the consequences of marketisation, or as a result of broader developments. For this purpose we analyse data from three national random p robability samples of the Russian population conducted in 1993, 1995, and 1 996. Class effects on partisanship are found to have grown and there are ma rked and increasing differences in class-based experiences of marketisation . In and of themselves, these market experiences do not appear to fully exp lain the growth of class-based partisanship-for that purpose we need also t o take into account voters' growing tendency over rime to connect their mar ket experience with their support for marketisation itself. Our conclusions emphasise therefore the importance of political learning to the evolution of social cleavages. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.