Luke March
Biographic Data
| ID | 3595758 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Luke March |
| GIVEN NAMES | Luke |
| FAMILY NAME | March |
| SIGNATURE | MARCH L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Edinburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2974-2134 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 484 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 25 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Can we still talk about ‘movement parties’? The radical left and new forms of party organisation
Comparing radical left parties’ positions on Ukraine and Israel
Putin
Vladimir Putin's populism is much contested. There are three research questions. The first is empirical: is Putin a populist, and on what grounds? The second is methodological: can comparative measuring techniques help analyse the presence of populism? The third is theoretical: what (if anything) does the case of this 'populist icon' tell us about the populist phenomenon? Four domains of Putin's politics are analysed: Russia's support for interna…
My enemy’s enemy is my friend’? European radical left parties’ response to Russia’s war in Ukraine
The 2022 Russian (re)invasion of Ukraine highlights the need to understand better how European parties react towards aggressions by anti-liberal authoritarian states. In this article, we focus on the still relatively understudied yet crucial case of the radical left. Since our initial quantitative overview shows that there is no united front on positions of radical left parties towards Russia’s actions, we argue for the necessity of a deeper anal…
The Palgrave Handbook of Radical Left Parties in Europe
Populism in the Post-Soviet States
In the former Soviet Union (FSU), sustained instances of populism are rare. The demand side does not represent an equally propitious “breeding ground” for populist backlash as in East Central Europe. However, the supply side is still more problematic, given the consolidation of authoritarian tendencies across the region. Without a minimal level of pluralism, it is extremely difficult to develop genuine and stable populist forces, except in (usual…
Left and right populism compared
This article represents one of the few systematic comparisons of left-wing populism with other populisms. Focussing on the manifestos of six British parties in 1999–2015, the findings confirm that left-wing populists are more socio-economically focussed, more inclusionary but less populist than right-wing populists. The article makes four main substantive contributions. First, empirically, it shows that the much-touted populist Zeitgeist in the U…
Europe's Radical Left
Although the most pernicious consequences of the crisis have apparently abated, the long-term political repercussions remain unclear. Whereas most attention has focused on the right-wing populist parties, the rejuvenation of the left is an unwritten story of post-crisis politics. This volume addresses this story, with three principal aims: to examine the radical left intellectual response to the crisis, i.e. how actors conceptualise the causes of…
Out of left field? Explaining the variable electoral success of European radical left parties
European radical left parties (RLPs) are gradually receiving greater attention. Yet, to date, what has received insufficient focus is why such parties have maintained residues of electoral support after the collapse of the USSR and why this support varies so widely. This article is the first to subject RLPs to large-n quantitative analysis, focusing on 39 parties in 34 European countries from 1990 to 2008. It uses the ‘supply and demand’ conceptu…
State–society relations in contemporary Russia
Much existing analysis of Russian state–society relations focuses on public, active forms of contention such as the “opposition” and protest movements. There is need for a more holistic perspective which adds study of a range of overt, “co-opted”, and hidden forms of interaction to this focus on public contention. A theoretical and empirical basis for understanding state–society relations in today's Russia involves broadening the concept of “cont…
Radical Left Parties in Europe
What has happened to the European radical left after the collapse of the USSR? How has it reacted, reformed, even revived? This new volume is one of the first to provide an overview of the main developments in contemporary European radical left parties (those defining themselves as to the left of, and not merely on the left of social democracy), which are now an increasingly visible phenomenon in European party politics. Unlike many of the existi…
Problems and perspectives of contemporary European radical left parties
This paper provides an overview of the key European radical left parties, their ideological stances, their supporters and electoral performance, their links with social movements, policy impact, and reaction to the post-2008 economic crisis. The radical left is increasingly a stabilized, consolidated and permanent actor on the European political scene and has become a principal challenger to mainstream social democratic parties, although it has n…
Nationalism for Export? The Domestic and Foreign-Policy Implications of the New ‘Russian Idea’
Focusing on diverse state approaches to nationalism provides a more nuanced view than that of Russian domestic and foreign policies driven directly by revanchist nationalism. The Russian authorities' ‘official nationality’ is moderate in aspiration. However, the effect is less benign because the Kremlin both mobilises extreme nationalism for regime goals and suppresses it when it becomes destabilising. This approach prevents nationalism either of…
Communism in Russia
Richard Sakwa, Communism in Russia: An Interpretive Essay. Studies in European History. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, viii + 168pp., £15.99 p/b. Do we really need another book about communi
The Russian Duma ‘opposition
Why did the post-2008 economic crisis in Russia fail to become a political crisis before the 2011 parliamentary elections? One key reason is the failure of Russian political parties to become the aggregators of growing popular discontent, particularly the three national-level 'opposition' parties, the Liberal Democratic Party, Just Russia, and Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Analysing the rhetoric of these three parties towards the aut…
Russia and Islam
1. Introduction. Part 1: Discourses and Frameworks of Analysis 2. Russian Approaches to Extremism, Nationalism and Religion Alexander Verkhovsky 3. Discourses and Approaches to Islam and Islamism in Russia Roland Dannreuther Part 2: Russia and Islam in Comparative Perspective 4. Comparing Islamic Communities in the North Caucasus and Volga-Urals Region Galina Yemelianova 5. Comparative Approaches to Muslim Integration: Russia, France and the UK E…
Responses
Stephen Kotkin is surely right that Russia cannot be understood fully through the lens of its elections and that it is conceptually risky for political scientists to treat U.S. democracy as its analytical point of departure. He also makes a good point that governance, institutional quality, and actual state performance need to be studied along with civil society and political parties. Fortunately, today's field of political science offers a wide …
Managing Opposition in a Hybrid Regime
In this article Luke March explores the Russian authorities' efforts to "manage democracy" through the creation of "parties of power." It focuses on the quasi-leftist party Just Russia, one of four parties currentiy represented in the Russian Duma and the only one that represents a "parastatal" opposition (opposition owned and controlled by the state). The history of Just Russia tells us much about the dynamics of what Andrew Wilson has described…
Chechnya
The image of Chechnya in the West remains one of radicalisation and conflict, unresolved secessionist ambition and Russian brutality. But far more than is generally acknowledged outside Russia, Moscow's policies towards Chechnya have succeeded in their aims. The republic is now relatively peaceful; reconstruction is gaining momentum; and Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been both an effective and seemingly faithful servant of Russia in the …
From Vanguard of the Proletariat to Vox Populi
Left-populism is a phenomenon attracting much attention, particularly in Latin America, but also increasingly in Europe. It is not a wholly new phenomenon; indeed it is a longstanding tradition shadowing more orthodox socialist approaches. However, the decline of traditional Marxism allows contemporary left-populism to adopt a specific post-Cold War form with some parallels and key differences between Europe and Latin America. This new left-popul…
From Moldovanism to Europeanization? Moldova's Communists and Nation Building
The Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) has been a highly controversial actor since its election in February 2001. The party initially governed under a hail of domestic and international criticism for its East-leaning foreign policy and authoritarian domestic politics. Yet, although with a diminished vote share, it was re-elected on 6 March 2005 in broadly free and fair elections on a pro-European platform with relations with Ru…
The Contemporary Russian Left after Communism
The steep decline of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has considerable implications for the broader left in Russia. It is likely to be an irreversible decline. This provides opportunities for a revived non-communist left, which has shown recent signs of resurgence. Nevertheless, the Russian left as a whole remains deeply disorientated, and the obstacles to revival are evident. These include the weakness of leadership and organization…
Moldova Between Europe and Russia
In the elections of March 6, 2005, the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) won re-election in an OSCE-approved parliamentary vote lacking large-scale electoral fraud and widespread popular mobilization. Grounding their analysis in the political science literature on "colored" revolutions, interviews, and news reports, two political scientists examine this outcome, asking why a colored revolution did not occur in Moldova. Moldova…
Power and Opposition in the Former Soviet Union
Much of the literature on communist successor parties has concentrated far more on East-Central Europe than the former Soviet bloc and on the ‘social-democratic’ successors than those of a neo-communist hue. This article aims to extend the comparative impact of studies of such successor parties by analysing two of the principal ‘neo-communist’ successor parties in the former Soviet Union (FSU): the Russian CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Fed…
What's Left of the Radical Left? The European Radical Left After 1989
What's Left of the Radical Left? The European Radical Left After 1989
Left and right populism compared
This article represents one of the few systematic comparisons of left-wing populism with other populisms. Focussing on the manifestos of six British parties in 1999–2015, the findings confirm that left-wing populists are more socio-economically focussed, more inclusionary but less populist than right-wing populists. The article makes four main substantive contributions. First, empirically, it shows that the much-touted populist Zeitgeist in the U…
Out of left field? Explaining the variable electoral success of European radical left parties
European radical left parties (RLPs) are gradually receiving greater attention. Yet, to date, what has received insufficient focus is why such parties have maintained residues of electoral support after the collapse of the USSR and why this support varies so widely. This article is the first to subject RLPs to large-n quantitative analysis, focusing on 39 parties in 34 European countries from 1990 to 2008. It uses the ‘supply and demand’ conceptu…
Managing Opposition in a Hybrid Regime
In this article Luke March explores the Russian authorities' efforts to "manage democracy" through the creation of "parties of power." It focuses on the quasi-leftist party Just Russia, one of four parties currentiy represented in the Russian Duma and the only one that represents a "parastatal" opposition (opposition owned and controlled by the state). The history of Just Russia tells us much about the dynamics of what Andrew Wilson has described…
State–society relations in contemporary Russia
Much existing analysis of Russian state–society relations focuses on public, active forms of contention such as the “opposition” and protest movements. There is need for a more holistic perspective which adds study of a range of overt, “co-opted”, and hidden forms of interaction to this focus on public contention. A theoretical and empirical basis for understanding state–society relations in today's Russia involves broadening the concept of “cont…
Nationalism for Export? The Domestic and Foreign-Policy Implications of the New ‘Russian Idea’
Focusing on diverse state approaches to nationalism provides a more nuanced view than that of Russian domestic and foreign policies driven directly by revanchist nationalism. The Russian authorities' ‘official nationality’ is moderate in aspiration. However, the effect is less benign because the Kremlin both mobilises extreme nationalism for regime goals and suppresses it when it becomes destabilising. This approach prevents nationalism either of…
Russia and Islam
1. Introduction. Part 1: Discourses and Frameworks of Analysis 2. Russian Approaches to Extremism, Nationalism and Religion Alexander Verkhovsky 3. Discourses and Approaches to Islam and Islamism in Russia Roland Dannreuther Part 2: Russia and Islam in Comparative Perspective 4. Comparing Islamic Communities in the North Caucasus and Volga-Urals Region Galina Yemelianova 5. Comparative Approaches to Muslim Integration: Russia, France and the UK E…
From Moldovanism to Europeanization? Moldova's Communists and Nation Building
The Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) has been a highly controversial actor since its election in February 2001. The party initially governed under a hail of domestic and international criticism for its East-leaning foreign policy and authoritarian domestic politics. Yet, although with a diminished vote share, it was re-elected on 6 March 2005 in broadly free and fair elections on a pro-European platform with relations with Ru…
For Victory? The Crises and Dilemmas of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
IT HAS LONG BECOME COMMON for analysts to predict the demise of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) and its irrelevance as a political organisation. The CPRF in turn has repeatedly confounded such analyses. In 1993 Richard Sakwa came to the understandable conclusion that communist groups in Russia were 'part of an exhausted tradition nursed only by the old generation', just before the CPRF re-entered parliamentary politics in the…
Problems and perspectives of contemporary European radical left parties
This paper provides an overview of the key European radical left parties, their ideological stances, their supporters and electoral performance, their links with social movements, policy impact, and reaction to the post-2008 economic crisis. The radical left is increasingly a stabilized, consolidated and permanent actor on the European political scene and has become a principal challenger to mainstream social democratic parties, although it has n…
The Russian Duma ‘opposition
Why did the post-2008 economic crisis in Russia fail to become a political crisis before the 2011 parliamentary elections? One key reason is the failure of Russian political parties to become the aggregators of growing popular discontent, particularly the three national-level 'opposition' parties, the Liberal Democratic Party, Just Russia, and Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Analysing the rhetoric of these three parties towards the aut…
Power and Opposition in the Former Soviet Union
Much of the literature on communist successor parties has concentrated far more on East-Central Europe than the former Soviet bloc and on the ‘social-democratic’ successors than those of a neo-communist hue. This article aims to extend the comparative impact of studies of such successor parties by analysing two of the principal ‘neo-communist’ successor parties in the former Soviet Union (FSU): the Russian CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Fed…
My enemy’s enemy is my friend’? European radical left parties’ response to Russia’s war in Ukraine
The 2022 Russian (re)invasion of Ukraine highlights the need to understand better how European parties react towards aggressions by anti-liberal authoritarian states. In this article, we focus on the still relatively understudied yet crucial case of the radical left. Since our initial quantitative overview shows that there is no united front on positions of radical left parties towards Russia’s actions, we argue for the necessity of a deeper anal…
Moldova Between Europe and Russia
In the elections of March 6, 2005, the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) won re-election in an OSCE-approved parliamentary vote lacking large-scale electoral fraud and widespread popular mobilization. Grounding their analysis in the political science literature on "colored" revolutions, interviews, and news reports, two political scientists examine this outcome, asking why a colored revolution did not occur in Moldova. Moldova…
Comparing radical left parties’ positions on Ukraine and Israel
Putin
Vladimir Putin's populism is much contested. There are three research questions. The first is empirical: is Putin a populist, and on what grounds? The second is methodological: can comparative measuring techniques help analyse the presence of populism? The third is theoretical: what (if anything) does the case of this 'populist icon' tell us about the populist phenomenon? Four domains of Putin's politics are analysed: Russia's support for interna…
Russian parties and the political internet
The Contemporary Russian Left after Communism
The steep decline of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has considerable implications for the broader left in Russia. It is likely to be an irreversible decline. This provides opportunities for a revived non-communist left, which has shown recent signs of resurgence. Nevertheless, the Russian left as a whole remains deeply disorientated, and the obstacles to revival are evident. These include the weakness of leadership and organization…
Responses
Stephen Kotkin is surely right that Russia cannot be understood fully through the lens of its elections and that it is conceptually risky for political scientists to treat U.S. democracy as its analytical point of departure. He also makes a good point that governance, institutional quality, and actual state performance need to be studied along with civil society and political parties. Fortunately, today's field of political science offers a wide …
Chechnya
The image of Chechnya in the West remains one of radicalisation and conflict, unresolved secessionist ambition and Russian brutality. But far more than is generally acknowledged outside Russia, Moscow's policies towards Chechnya have succeeded in their aims. The republic is now relatively peaceful; reconstruction is gaining momentum; and Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been both an effective and seemingly faithful servant of Russia in the …
For Victory? The Crises and Dilemmas of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
For Victory? The Crises and Dilemmas of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
IT HAS LONG BECOME COMMON for analysts to predict the demise of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) and its irrelevance as a political organisation. The CPRF in turn has repeatedly confounded such analyses. In 1993 Richard Sakwa came to the understandable conclusion that communist groups in Russia were 'part of an exhausted tradition nursed only by the old generation', just before the CPRF re-entered parliamentary politics in the…
Russian parties and the political internet
What's Left of the Radical Left? The European Radical Left After 1989
The Contemporary Russian Left after Communism
The steep decline of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has considerable implications for the broader left in Russia. It is likely to be an irreversible decline. This provides opportunities for a revived non-communist left, which has shown recent signs of resurgence. Nevertheless, the Russian left as a whole remains deeply disorientated, and the obstacles to revival are evident. These include the weakness of leadership and organization…
Moldova Between Europe and Russia
In the elections of March 6, 2005, the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) won re-election in an OSCE-approved parliamentary vote lacking large-scale electoral fraud and widespread popular mobilization. Grounding their analysis in the political science literature on "colored" revolutions, interviews, and news reports, two political scientists examine this outcome, asking why a colored revolution did not occur in Moldova. Moldova…
Power and Opposition in the Former Soviet Union
Much of the literature on communist successor parties has concentrated far more on East-Central Europe than the former Soviet bloc and on the ‘social-democratic’ successors than those of a neo-communist hue. This article aims to extend the comparative impact of studies of such successor parties by analysing two of the principal ‘neo-communist’ successor parties in the former Soviet Union (FSU): the Russian CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Fed…
From Vanguard of the Proletariat to Vox Populi
Left-populism is a phenomenon attracting much attention, particularly in Latin America, but also increasingly in Europe. It is not a wholly new phenomenon; indeed it is a longstanding tradition shadowing more orthodox socialist approaches. However, the decline of traditional Marxism allows contemporary left-populism to adopt a specific post-Cold War form with some parallels and key differences between Europe and Latin America. This new left-popul…
From Moldovanism to Europeanization? Moldova's Communists and Nation Building
The Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) has been a highly controversial actor since its election in February 2001. The party initially governed under a hail of domestic and international criticism for its East-leaning foreign policy and authoritarian domestic politics. Yet, although with a diminished vote share, it was re-elected on 6 March 2005 in broadly free and fair elections on a pro-European platform with relations with Ru…
Chechnya
The image of Chechnya in the West remains one of radicalisation and conflict, unresolved secessionist ambition and Russian brutality. But far more than is generally acknowledged outside Russia, Moscow's policies towards Chechnya have succeeded in their aims. The republic is now relatively peaceful; reconstruction is gaining momentum; and Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been both an effective and seemingly faithful servant of Russia in the …
Responses
Stephen Kotkin is surely right that Russia cannot be understood fully through the lens of its elections and that it is conceptually risky for political scientists to treat U.S. democracy as its analytical point of departure. He also makes a good point that governance, institutional quality, and actual state performance need to be studied along with civil society and political parties. Fortunately, today's field of political science offers a wide …
Managing Opposition in a Hybrid Regime
In this article Luke March explores the Russian authorities' efforts to "manage democracy" through the creation of "parties of power." It focuses on the quasi-leftist party Just Russia, one of four parties currentiy represented in the Russian Duma and the only one that represents a "parastatal" opposition (opposition owned and controlled by the state). The history of Just Russia tells us much about the dynamics of what Andrew Wilson has described…
Russia and Islam
1. Introduction. Part 1: Discourses and Frameworks of Analysis 2. Russian Approaches to Extremism, Nationalism and Religion Alexander Verkhovsky 3. Discourses and Approaches to Islam and Islamism in Russia Roland Dannreuther Part 2: Russia and Islam in Comparative Perspective 4. Comparing Islamic Communities in the North Caucasus and Volga-Urals Region Galina Yemelianova 5. Comparative Approaches to Muslim Integration: Russia, France and the UK E…
Radical Left Parties in Europe
What has happened to the European radical left after the collapse of the USSR? How has it reacted, reformed, even revived? This new volume is one of the first to provide an overview of the main developments in contemporary European radical left parties (those defining themselves as to the left of, and not merely on the left of social democracy), which are now an increasingly visible phenomenon in European party politics. Unlike many of the existi…
Problems and perspectives of contemporary European radical left parties
This paper provides an overview of the key European radical left parties, their ideological stances, their supporters and electoral performance, their links with social movements, policy impact, and reaction to the post-2008 economic crisis. The radical left is increasingly a stabilized, consolidated and permanent actor on the European political scene and has become a principal challenger to mainstream social democratic parties, although it has n…
Nationalism for Export? The Domestic and Foreign-Policy Implications of the New ‘Russian Idea’
Focusing on diverse state approaches to nationalism provides a more nuanced view than that of Russian domestic and foreign policies driven directly by revanchist nationalism. The Russian authorities' ‘official nationality’ is moderate in aspiration. However, the effect is less benign because the Kremlin both mobilises extreme nationalism for regime goals and suppresses it when it becomes destabilising. This approach prevents nationalism either of…
Communism in Russia
Richard Sakwa, Communism in Russia: An Interpretive Essay. Studies in European History. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, viii + 168pp., £15.99 p/b. Do we really need another book about communi
The Russian Duma ‘opposition
Why did the post-2008 economic crisis in Russia fail to become a political crisis before the 2011 parliamentary elections? One key reason is the failure of Russian political parties to become the aggregators of growing popular discontent, particularly the three national-level 'opposition' parties, the Liberal Democratic Party, Just Russia, and Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Analysing the rhetoric of these three parties towards the aut…
Out of left field? Explaining the variable electoral success of European radical left parties
European radical left parties (RLPs) are gradually receiving greater attention. Yet, to date, what has received insufficient focus is why such parties have maintained residues of electoral support after the collapse of the USSR and why this support varies so widely. This article is the first to subject RLPs to large-n quantitative analysis, focusing on 39 parties in 34 European countries from 1990 to 2008. It uses the ‘supply and demand’ conceptu…
State–society relations in contemporary Russia
Much existing analysis of Russian state–society relations focuses on public, active forms of contention such as the “opposition” and protest movements. There is need for a more holistic perspective which adds study of a range of overt, “co-opted”, and hidden forms of interaction to this focus on public contention. A theoretical and empirical basis for understanding state–society relations in today's Russia involves broadening the concept of “cont…
Europe's Radical Left
Although the most pernicious consequences of the crisis have apparently abated, the long-term political repercussions remain unclear. Whereas most attention has focused on the right-wing populist parties, the rejuvenation of the left is an unwritten story of post-crisis politics. This volume addresses this story, with three principal aims: to examine the radical left intellectual response to the crisis, i.e. how actors conceptualise the causes of…
Populism in the Post-Soviet States
In the former Soviet Union (FSU), sustained instances of populism are rare. The demand side does not represent an equally propitious “breeding ground” for populist backlash as in East Central Europe. However, the supply side is still more problematic, given the consolidation of authoritarian tendencies across the region. Without a minimal level of pluralism, it is extremely difficult to develop genuine and stable populist forces, except in (usual…
Left and right populism compared
This article represents one of the few systematic comparisons of left-wing populism with other populisms. Focussing on the manifestos of six British parties in 1999–2015, the findings confirm that left-wing populists are more socio-economically focussed, more inclusionary but less populist than right-wing populists. The article makes four main substantive contributions. First, empirically, it shows that the much-touted populist Zeitgeist in the U…
The Palgrave Handbook of Radical Left Parties in Europe
My enemy’s enemy is my friend’? European radical left parties’ response to Russia’s war in Ukraine
The 2022 Russian (re)invasion of Ukraine highlights the need to understand better how European parties react towards aggressions by anti-liberal authoritarian states. In this article, we focus on the still relatively understudied yet crucial case of the radical left. Since our initial quantitative overview shows that there is no united front on positions of radical left parties towards Russia’s actions, we argue for the necessity of a deeper anal…
Political science (25 works) · Politics (24 works) · Law (23 works) · Political economy (21 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Law (19 works) · Populism, Right-Wing Movements (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Communism (9 works) · Democracy (8 works)