Dr Paul Chaisty has been awarded a Nuffield Foundation Social Sciences Small Grant to support his project Particularism and Legislative Behaviour in the Russian Federation`.
This pilot project will examine the impact that particularistic economic interests have on legislative behaviour in Russia. First, it will gather and process data on the parochial and private interests of all parliamentary (State Duma) deputies elected since 1993; second, it will select those areas of legislation most closely associated with intense lobbying by economic interests during the first four State Dumas (1993-2007); third, it will use two indicators of legislative behaviour - roll call votes and parliamentary speeches - to estimate the effects of particularistic factors on the legislation selected for analysis. This research will establish a sound empirical basis on which to test rigorously many assumptions that are fundamental to our understanding of present-day Russian politics. It will also make an important contribution to the comparative literature on presidential regimes, legislative behaviour and policy making; and it will have implications for those international financial institutions that have attributed Russia`s partial market reforms to the problems of state capture by powerful economic interests.
Dr Paul Chaisty is University Lecturer in Russian Government, Department of Politics and International Relations, St Antony`s College.
