№ 1 - 2004
A Round Table
The Third Electoral Cycle in Russia

Participants of this round table (Galkin A.A., Kholodkovsky K.G., Solovyov A.I., Lukin A.V., Busygina I.M., Klyamkin I.M., Gaman-Golutvina O.V., Shestopal Ye.B., Kovalyov V.A., Dakhin A.V., Zamyatin D.N., Sergeyev V.M., Kuvaldin V.B., Malyutin M.V., Lapkin V.V., Shevtzova L.F., Makarenko B.I., Malinovsky P.V.) concentrate their attention on the changes in the aggregation of political forces represented in the State Duma, and on the relationship of these changes with the whole course and prospects of the political process developing in our country. Within the quite appreciable range of opinions on this score, most varied issues are pin-pointed. What our authors, first and foremost, fret about is the question of what is, after all, happening to Russia. This question is, quite understandably, subdivided into a variety of more concrete ones. Thus, there is a question that implies appraisal of definite political forces’ and our whole polity’s losses and gains. Another question is to what extent the current political changes are manifestation of some latent tendencies in the country’s political evolution. The third consists in inquiries as to which possibilities for Russia’s development are opened and which “closed” following those motions in her political landscape that have occurred and those that are yet to occur. It goes without saying that these and other questions receive but purely preliminary answers within the framework of the round table. The bulk of the work of analyzing the political turn of the end of 2003 to the beginning of 2004 is yet to be done. Therefore we conceive of this round table as an invitation to a serious discussion which we suppose to continue at least in the next two issues of the journal.