“…In recent years there has been increasing debate over the development of 'parties' in post-communist Russian politics (Fish, 1995a(Fish, , 1995b(Fish, , 1997Gel'man and Golosov, 1998;Golosov, 1995Golosov, , 1997Golosov, , 1998Haspel et ai., 1998;Ishiyama, 1996Ishiyama, , 1998Ishiyama, , 1999aLowenhardt, 1998;McFaul and Markov, 1993;McFaul and Petrov, 1995;Moser, 1998Moser, , 1999Pashentsev, 1999;Smith, 1995, 1998). As some scholars have noted, however, specific discussion of Russian parties in light of existing theories on party development, organization and behavior has been generally absent from the debate (Webb and Lewis, 1998: 261).…”