The growing influence of President Putin's United Russia (UR) party organization marks a critical junction in post-Soviet political development. Between 1999 and 2004, UR emerged suddenly and with no structure and established itself as a dominant party organization. Increasingly, the party, orchestrated by Kremlin-based puppeteers, relies on coercion and out-of-system behavior to ensure electoral success and legislative discipline, thereby increasing the power of the executive and diminishing or eliminating political opposition. The meteoric rise of UR was impossible without the more general instability and disarray within the party system that was rooted in the very weak ties between party elites and voters, and elites and the organization, as well as the large numbers of independent candidates and incumbents who participated in elections.

Consistent with the general argument, this chapter explains the weakness of Russian political parties and the rise of UR in terms of individual candidates' strategies. The Russian electoral system presents candidates for the national legislature with an interesting and substantively important choice: Run for office under a party banner, or campaign as an independent. Candidates who choose to affiliate are faced with the additional decision of which party to join.